Ordeal in the Desert

The Hill. Under the merciless white sun, five soldiers bearing full packs stagger up the sandy slope of a man-made pyramid in North Africa. If they falter they face further punishment. If they fall, they are doused with water and forced to continue until they collapse from heat, hate and exhaustion. The five, led by an insubordinate British officer (Sean Connery) and a black West Indian sneak thief (Ossie Davis), are prisoners in a British army stockade during World War II. The architect of their torture on the hill is a brutal sergeant major (Harry Andrews) who believes that any malefactor must be smashed flat if he is to shape up again as "a credit to the uniform."

Though a plot as old as The Hill's can well be a handicap, U.S. Director Sidney Lumet (The Pawnbroker) nails the action of this spiky British drama into so taut a frame that an audience can feel every jab in the belly, taste every mouthful of dust. It is less easy to hear the dialogue, much of it delivered in accents too angry or authentic for swift comprehension. Yet the lines thrown away are scarcely missed because Lumet crowds the screen with strong, spare imagery built around the fearful mound. After a ghastly ordeal on the hill, filmed from the sweaty side of a gas mask, one prisoner dies, hounded to his doom by a sadistic guard. Subsequently, the entire camp boils over in a cell-block riot that becomes a triumph for the sergeant major--and for Actor Andrews, who struts through the scene with malevolent skill, clearly a match for the best of movie badmen.

Stunningly professional as action drama, The Hill seems unlikely to move mountains as a message film. The cold, cruel military mind has been tried and convicted all too often. The more current point is crudely made. Racial scores are settled in preposterous sequence that requires Actor Davis to sprint around the compound half-naked. Declaring himself free, he mocks his white captors in a great burst of courage, humanity and civil righteousness that sounds suspiciously like a cue for applause.

It can be said, however, that Hill provides a significant change for Sean Connery fans everywhere. Rough as a thistle, sporting a mustache, he lends muscular presence to a conventional he-man role, and stirs up a hint or two that what has heretofore been sealed in Bond may be the screen's new Gable.

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