DESTINATION GOBI (1953)

Routine wartime thriller made vaguely interesting by its situation: Instead of soldiers in combat or families on the homefront, this focuses on a group of Navy weathermen stationed in Inner Mongolia on a secret mission to collect meteorological data to help the troops in the Pacific. Richard Widmark, the only real combat sailor in the group, is the reluctant leader of, or as he sees it, "wet nurse" to, the men after their commanding officer is killed in a Japanese air raid. Alone in the desert with no orders to follow and no relief in sight, the men bond with a group of traveling Mongols. Their trust in each other ebbs and flows until Widmark requisitions dozens of saddles for the Mongols to use on their horses in exchange for their help. However, the fragile trust is broken when, after a rift between two of the Mongol leaders, the Mongols leave, apparently reluctant to risk battling the Japanese. Widmark and his men, with supplies running low, make an agonizing trek across the desert, heading for the sea, and before it's all over, they discover the Mongols are mostly still faithful friends, even getting dubbed the First Mongolian Cavalry. Among the Navy men are Don Taylor, Darryl Hickman, Martin Milner, and Ross Bagdasarian, later better known as the voice of Alvin & the Chipmunks. The beginning of the film, with its unusual premise, shows great promise, but by the middle, it becomes a by-the-numbers story of desperate flight across a barren terrain. The color is nice, especially the blue of the desert night scenes. There are cute references to Tarzan and Harpo Marx, and the frequent shirtlessness of the men is a bonus. Supposedly based on an actual wartime incident. [FMC]