Destination Gobi
| Destination Gobi | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Directed by | Robert Wise |
| Produced by | Stanley Rubin |
| Screenplay by | Everett Freeman |
| Based on |
Ninety Saddles for Kengtu 1952 Collier's by Edmund G. Love |
| Starring |
Richard Widmark Don Taylor Casey Adams Murvyn Vye |
| Narrated by | Richard Widmark |
| Music by | Sol Kaplan |
| Cinematography | Charles G. Clarke |
| Edited by | Robert Fritch |
|
Production
company |
20th Century Fox
|
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
|
Release date
|
March 20, 1953 |
|
Running time
|
89 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $1,340,000 |
| Box office | $1.2 million (US rentals) |
Destination Gobi is a 1953 Technicolor war film starring Richard Widmark and the first color feature film directed by Robert Wise. Set during World War II, US Navy chief Sam McHale (Widmark) takes command of a unit of weather observers stranded behind Japanese lines in Inner Mongolia. McHale must lead his men across the treacherous Gobi Desert to the freedom of the seacoast. Rescued from the Japanese by a Mongolian chief (Murvyn Vye), the men are compelled to repay their rescuer by securing enough saddles for his sixty horses. A flummoxed Pentagon okays the requisition, and the chieftain leads Widmark's band to Okinawa.
After the picture's opening credits, a written foreword reads:
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.
The unit involved was part of the Sino-American Cooperative Organization (SACO), referred to as Sino-American Combined Operations in the film.
In November 1944, Chief Boatswain's Mate Sam McHale (Richard Widmark) is aghast to learn that he is being transferred from the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise to Argos Detachment 6, a Navy unit operating a weather station in Inner Mongolia's Gobi Desert. Capt. Gates (Willis Bouchey) explains to McHale that accurate forecasts are crucial to the Allies' success in the Pacific, and that his practical experience is required by meteorologist Commander Hobart Wyatt (Russell Collins) and his crew of "balloon chasers": Jenkins (Don Taylor), Walter Landers (Max Showalter), Wilbur "Coney" Cohen (Darryl Hickman), Elwood Halsey (Martin Milner), Frank Swenson (Earl Holliman) and Paul Sabatello (Ross Bagdasarian). Despite his longing for the ocean after six months in the desert, McHale adjusts to the new routine, although his dependence on red tape and the chain of command bemuses Cmdr. Wyatt.
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Wikipedia