Sands of the Kalahari Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.0

Sands of the Kalahari Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov July 24, 2025

Cy Endfield's "Sands of the Kalahari" (1965) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber. The supplemental features on the release include new audio commentary by critics Howard S. Berger and Nathaniel Thomson and vintage trailer. In English, with optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature. Region-A "locked".

After the crash

Sands of the Kalahari and The Flight of the Phoenix are frequently compared because they emerged at the same time and tell similar stories about survival in the desert. However, these films were not meant to be competitors. While an ambitious project, the former was quickly put together to capitalize on the success of Zulu. The latter was a much bigger Hollywood project, uniting an iconic director and several legitimate stars, with a long and complicated production history. More importantly, these films entertain and impress for completely different reasons.

In Sands of the Kalahari, several international travelers learn that their commercial flight to Johannesburg has been delayed. Even though the airline immediately books individual rooms for them in a decent hotel, they organize and hire a local pilot to help them continue their journey with his charter plane. An hour later, the charter plane enters a massive cloud of locusts and then crashes in the middle of the Kalahari Desert. Six survivors, one woman and five men, one of them seriously injured, walk away from it. While the plane still burns, they leave and eventually, after nearly perishing in the sand, reach a rocky area with fresh drinking water.

But it is not long before the survivors discover that the same area is also home to a large pack of baboons, which may or may not have seen humans before. As time passes, the survivors and the baboons, both improvising to stay alive under the scorching desert sun, become competitors, and the more the strongest among them dominate the rest, the more they begin to look alike.

Even though the survivors face an almost identical dilemma in both films, Sands of the Kalahari and The Flight of the Phoenix produce very different drama. In Sands of the Kalahari, the drama is essentially a ruse for an intriguing reexamination of a range of traits and qualities that separate humans and animals. As the drama intensifies, the ones that make humans intellectually superior creatures and the ones that make animals greater outdoor creatures are reshuffled in several ways, and as violence alters crucial relationships, the ongoing game of survival that the humans and animals are engaged in produces some quite surprising food for thought. In The Flight of the Phoenix, the game of survival is similarly dangerous, but it is played differently and observed from a conventional angle.

While boasting some rather impressive panoramic shots from the notorious desert regions of Almeria, Spain, Sands of the Kalahari does not have the striking visual power of The Flight of the Phoenix. The same can be said about its special effects, which easily reveal its budget limitations.

The survivors are played by Stuart Whitman, Stanley Baker, Nigel Davenport, Harry Andrews, Theodore Bickel, and Susannah York. Whitman’s character is the one who alters the game of survival and resets the entire film.

*Another similar and very entertaining film that alters the game of survival even more is Sole Survivor. It is very loosely based on a fascinating true story.

Sands of the Kalahari Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.35:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Sands of the Kalahari arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber.

In America, Sands of the Kalahari made its high-definition debut with this release, produced by Olive Films in 2011. I have the release in my library and think that it offers a good, though slightly dated, organic presentation of the film.

Kino Lorber's release introduces a new 4K restoration of the film, sourced from the original camera negative and finalized at Paramount. The 4K restoration is very good, and its presentation is a substantial upgrade in quality over the previous presentation of the film from the original release. You do not need a large screen to see and appreciate the various improvements. For example, while there are plenty of fluctuations introduced by the original cinematography, delineation and depth are quite a bit better in close-ups and larger panoramic shots. The density levels of the visuals are superior as well. Unsurprisingly, grain exposure is more even and more natural, helping the visuals maintain a similarly consistent organic appearance. Color reproduction is convincing. I felt that primary blue could have been a tad more prominent, but the overall temperature of the visuals is wonderful. Image stability is excellent. There are no distracting cuts, marks, debris, warped or torn frames to report in our review. My score is 4.75/5.00. (Note: This is a Region-A "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-A or Region-Free player in order to access its content).

Sands of the Kalahari Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. Optional English SDH subtitles are provided for the main feature.

The audio is healthy. I would describe its overall quality as excellent, too. However, I pulled out the original Blu-ray release of Sands of the Kalahari from 2011, did several comparisons, and I must warn that anyone expecting the lossless track on this release to reveal significantly better dynamic strength is likely to be disappointed. Sharpness, clarity, and the dynamic strength on the old and current lossless tracks are very similar, perhaps even identical. The upper register might be slightly healthier, but only a very detailed comparison can make this clear. Also, while easy to follow, the dialogue has some uneven areas, so turning up the volume a bit more than usual is not a bad idea. Unlike the previous release, this release has optional English SDH subtitles.

Sands of the Kalahari Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary - this exclusive new audio commentary was recorded by critics Howard S. Berger and Nathaniel Thomson. The bulk of the information that is shared in it addresses the production history of Sands of the Kalahari, in what ways it is and is not similar to The Flight of the Phoenix, and key themes (with the morality of the main characters being, according to the commentators, the most attractive one).

• Trailer - presented here is a vintage trailer for Sands of the Kalahari. In English, not subtitled. (3 min).

Sands of the Kalahari Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Stuart Whitman's character alters the game of survival in a way that creates a pretty obvious gap between Sands of the Kalahari and The Flight of the Phoenix, which many consider to be the former's main competitor. I do not. While it is easy to understand why these films are compared, there is too much that makes them very different, especially in terms of messaging. Kino Lorber's release introduces a wonderful 4K restoration of Sands of the Kalahari, recently prepared at Paramount. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.