The Desert Song

Take a famed operetta scored by Sigmund Romberg, update its tale of romance and heroics with the then-current Nazi peril, include a lively cast and imaginative direction, burnish the burning desert sands with rich Technicolor cinematography and voila! That's 1943's The Desert Song. Now add an immaculate film restoration and resolve rights issues that had long kept this work out of circulation and -- at last - this widely unseen spectacle can be enjoyed by today's fans. Christmas in Connecticut's Dennis Morgan stars (and lends his melodic tenor to several tunes) as the elusive El Khobar, a mysterious man of action whose work as a cabaret piano player hides his identity as the leader of a bullet-frenzied fight against the Nazis' construction of a vital North African railroad. Irene Manning (Yankee Doodle Dandy) plays the strawberry-blonde songstress who catches the hero's eye.

• musical