An unusual adventure story, set in the Middle East in 1948 and concerning an American emissary (Michael Sarrazin) sent to find a senator's daughter (Jennifer O'Neill). After unsuccessfully marrying a native army officer, she has joined a nomadic caravan travelling across the desert. Douglas Slocombe's photography and Mike Batt's distinctive music are the real stars of this film, which also features Anthony Quinn as a kind of Zorba the Sheik. Apart from varying blue and grey skies over a desert ghost town, in fact, Slocombe's glowing colour work is well up to his usual high standards. The size of the drama is not sufficient to make this a great film but it remains in many ways an exhilarating, fascinating experience.

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