The Steel Lady

1953 "Searing Sahara-Hot Adventure!"
6.4| 1h24m| NR| en
Details

Surviving a plane crash in the Sahara, four oilmen find and manage to repair a German Afrika Corps tank which had been buried in the sand since WWII.

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Reviews

Scanialara You won't be disappointed!
Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.
Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.
Staci Frederick Blistering performances.
prman-1 I saw this movie only once, on a TV Late Show in 1962, and had to leave in the middle for some other business. I never knew how it ended. I never saw it broadcast since. And, as a B-movie, it was generally unavailable, but now I see that it has been transferred to DVD. I could not recall who starred in it either. Imagine my surprise (and delight) that TCM chose to program it around noon on Sept. 19, 2016. This was 54 YEARS since I first saw it. Talk about closure. I enjoyed the somewhat hard-to-believe premise of the story, and the dealings with the (fake) camel jockey Arabs, who probably would have killed the Americans on first sight—knowing today how they feel about unbelievers. Still, the movie is compelling on a small scale, and well worth watching.
peter_swanson It's great to see that this "B" movie hasn't been totally forgotten. In the early/mid '50's there was a movie house in E. Weymouth, MA (The Victor) that charged 14 cents for kids' admission to Saturday matinée's. The films they showed were of the type that became TV 'movietime' fodder later in the 50's, but until then, for 14 cents you got to see a decent double feature on the big screen - great audio, in "air conditioned comfort." Steel Lady was the film I remember most out of dozens of Saturday potboilers. The plot was totally plausible to a ten year old, and it's good to see that some other reviewers are willing to cut it some slack, even today. I look forward to finding a copy to see how it has held up.
lbacker I watched it on black and white TV in the late 50s or early 60s in Minnesota. My dad, brother, and I sat glued to our seats munching homemade popcorn during the whole thing.The closest thing I've seen to it lately is: "Flight of the Phoenix". Steel lady was far more believable. The old plane, old tank, and action were great. It was a real rush for a collector of old military stuff and old car nut. There is a shot of an ART-13 radio transmitter in the back of the cockpit before the crash.As to the possibility of getting a tank running after being burried for decades, the Confederate Air Force, and others have flown B-29s and a B-47 out of china lake NWC that had been sitting in the desert just as long. Usually an oil change, gassing up, a fresh battery, and repairing vandalism was all it took to get them back in the air. Most tanks used 28 volt (nominally 24 VDC) batteries, as did the planes. Oil and avgas from the plane would work for the tank. It would not take a rocket scientist to get a tank going in a day or so. Much more credible than the redesign and remanufacture shown in "Flight of the Phoenix". I like both movies, but give the Steel Lady a higher mark for technical correctness.I would surely like to get a copy on tape or DVD to relive a pleasant sunday afternoon of my salad years.Larry Backer
bux I've written at least a half dozen scathing reviews of this abysmal little flick and none get published, so I must opine that someone at imdb.com really likes this awful movie. The idea that a bunch of oilmen can resurrect a military tank that has set in the desert for over a decade, and make a fighting machine of it again is ludicrous. So is the acting and direction. Pass on it.