DESTINATION GOBI (1953)

                       “Destination Gobi” is a film by Robert Wise (“The Desert Rats”, “Run Silent, Run Deep”, “The Sand Pebbles”). It was based on the article in Colliers magazine entitled “Ninety Saddles for Kengtu” by Edmund G. Love. Ernest Borgnine claimed that his character in “McHale’s Navy” was named after Richard Widmark’s character in this movie. It was very loosely based on the Sino-American Cooperative Organization which worked with the OSS (Office of Strategic Services). It set up operations in the Gobi Desert in Inner Mongolia. It provided meteorology reports which were important for the US Navy operating in the Pacific. It also monitored Japanese aircraft and gathered intelligence.

                       The film opens with: “In the Navy records in Washington, there is an obscure entry reading "Saddles for Gobi." This film is based on the story behind that entry, one of the strangest stories of World War II.” It is 1945 and CPO Sam McHale (Widmark) is looking forward to returning to the USS Enterprise. How would he like to do exactly the opposite thing? He does not volunteer to go to a desert, but he is ordered to go to the Gobi Desert. McHale works under Lt. Commander Hobart Wyatt (Russell Collins). They come into contact with local Mongolians led by Kengtu (Murvyn Vye). Wyatt enlists the tribe by giving them saddles for their horses. Training montage! Unfortunately for the Mongols, the friends of our enemy are our enemy, so Japanese planes bomb the Mongol camp. This ends their weather forecasting and their alliance with Kengtu. Or does it? McHale has to lead his crew 800 miles to the coast. They have not seen the last of the Mongols or the Japanese. It’s an odyssey that includes a prison camp that they escape from and a Chinese junk that is chased by a Japanese destroyer. Spoiler alert: they use powder from bullets to fire a cannon to sink the warship.

                       “Destination Gobi” is a trifle that has understandably been forgotten. It tells the story of an operation that did not deserve coverage. I suppose weathermen consider it to be a must-see movie, but for the rest of us, it lacks suspense. And that is after the movie clearly greatly enhances the actual story of the unit. Surprisingly, while the screenwriter tries to add action to an otherwise boring story, he avoids the cliché of unit dysfunction. Only one American complains a lot. There is a bit of a twist involving Kengtu which involves the small world that Hollywood characters live in. This all leads to a battle with a Japanese warship that is one of the most ridiculous naval combats ever to grace the silver screen. On the plus side, Richard Widmark stars in the movie.

GRADE  =  C