With just a little more fire, "The Desert Hawk" could have been a great movie within its genre. As it is, it's still pretty good. It has nearly all the necessary trappings: a noble hero (a Robin Hood of the desert), a beautiful princess (and with Yvonne De Carlo in the role, "beautiful" is an understatement), tyrannical villains, palaces, harems, horses, swordfights, etc., all in the splendor of Technicolor (even though I watched an "unofficial" DVD-R version (apparently the film has never been released "officially"), the print was pretty good). The plot is actually quite elaborate, and although the fight scenes are no great shakes in terms of choreography, they are OK for 1950. I found the last 3 minutes of the film particularly satisfying - a bit of gender politics with a humorous and sensual touch. **1/2 out of 4.
Review of The Desert Hawk
