A film, in serial form, that impressed me considerably, when I was child, living in Christchurch, N.Z. Shown approx. 15 min. duration (from memory) every Saturday morning at the Grand Theatre in Cathedral Square - it would finish at an exciting moment when you would be keen for the next week to go quickly so you could revisit the Grand (known in local slang as the "Bughouse") to learn how the scene was dealt with. The Grand no longer exists these days. It used to have a clock under the stage with a green numerical dial where everybody could always be aware of the time. The Desert Hawk was, to my mind, an exciting production of the times, well filmed, well produced and well acted. An adventure film, memory has dimmed faces and music themes, with time (made in 1944 but memory is of viewing it in the late 1940's,even possibly 1950-51) I would love to be able to relive the viewing pleasure I experienced way back then and I am grateful to IMDb for giving people the means to learn so much about movies from the database provided. Yours Sincerely, Peter Olo.
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Peter Olo15 February 2002
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horn-513 May 2007But here is what it is about: Evil Hassan (Gilbert Roland, in a dual role) slips back into his native land of Ahad and plots to overthrow his twin bother, Kasim (Roland, again), who has just been crowned the Caliph. Hassan enlists the aid of the chief Chamberlain, Faud (Frank Lackteen, untrustworthy as usual)and they send several henchmen into the royal palace, who then knock Kasim unconscious. Faud and Hassan, hanging around at the palace to tidy up their coup, dispatch a couple of different hirelings to take Kasim into another part of the town and murder him. But before they can find the correct part of the city in which to kill and leave a body, Kasin comes to and, after a furious fight among the stunt-men, Kasim gets away, but has been wounded.
Omar (Ben Welden), a beggar, takes Kasim to his home and nurses him back to health. But, it takes a few weeks for Kasin to get healthy and, by that time, Hassan has a firm grip on the duties of a Caliph and the chances of Kasim walking back into the palace and taking back his job are slim-to-none. He wastes some good serial-action time by going to the public square and denouncing Hassim as an impostor, but nobody hanging around the square believes him, and it isn't long before the royal gendarmes or high sheriffs from the palace show up and chase him off.
In a storeroom, Kasim finds a coat of mail with a great hawk emblazoned across the chest and promptly decides this is the costume he will wear while fighting to get his old job back. The costume has a story and some history behind it, so Kasim just didn't decide he would don this costume just because it was the only item in the storeroom. Plus a hood and a cloak and a sword and a whip and a john-brown belt went with it, so it isn't like Kasim was going to wage war wearing just a shirt with a hawk stitched on it.
Meanwhile, back at the palace, the Emir of Telif (Georges Remarent) shows up with his shapely daughter, Princess Azala (Mona Maris), with the intent of marrying her off to the local Caliph and, possibly ensure that in the event that the kingdom of Ahad rulers are looking to enlarge their borders, they will look in another direction other than toward Talez. But the Emir and Azala are under the impression that Kasin is the Caliph and they have good reports on him from some of the Talez citizens that have visited Ahad in the past. They do not know that the current-Caliph on the royal-throne is the evil twin-brother of the man they had gotten good reports on.
Kasin, as The Desert Hawk, sword-fights his way in and out of the palace and, after throwing some longing glances at the babes in what used to be his harem, meets Azala and is smitten. But, despite the fact he can not prove to her that he is nothing but an outlaw, who happens to look like the Caliph, he does win her confidence.
So, aided by Azala, Kasim/ the Desert Hawk begins his quest to foil Hassan's attempt to victimize the citizens of Ahad, while gathering proof that will expose the false Caliph.
Place this one near the top half of the middle-third of the Columbia serials, which makes it better than those that followed after Sam Katzman took over the serial-production for Columbia.