Patrol in the Desert

Shades of Lawrence of Arabia in a worn but often beautiful film of WWI desert exercises in Egypt.

Mounted Australian infantry are deployed on spectacular exercises in the expanses of the Egyptian desert. The heroic shots of massed lines of horses and troops stretching across the sand as far as the eye can see are suggestive of the epic film Lawrence of Arabia, made almost 50 years later. The visual quality of this film is sadly compromised by damage to the original film stock.