Sadly Over-hyped

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Saw its title and brief story on tv last week or so and wasn't attracted ... but saw it tonight and well, it's true you shouldn't judge a book by its cover! didn't feel betrayed or lost after watching this little yet really nice movie ... there were many parts about it that brought a smile to my lips and overall i have to say it was quite a 'discovery' for me ... an underrated forgotten work perhaps?

I saw Destination Gobi in 1953. I looked for a copy of the movie for years until I was able to get it on DVD. I have watched this movie several times since, and enjoy each viewing.I differ from some of the more critical reviews. Too often the reviews come off as the "want-to- be movie critics", who seem to nitpick this and that. They fail to recognize that some movies are meant for just entertainment. Destination Gobi falls into this category. It wasn't meant to become Movie of the Year, nor to compete with Gone With the Wind.I have most of the war movies made in my DVD library. World War II created many Hollywood opportunities in creating movies, along with governmental approval to boost patriotism. And, Hollywood produced many, some great, others poor. Movie goers liked some, disliked others. It's just a matter of one's own personal view of what they're looking for in a film. If it's for their desire to have an opportunity to become a pseudo-movie critic, then so be it. I watch movies for entertainment

The plot of this movie seemed to make little sense, so I did a bit of research on the web and it appears to actually be based on real events from WWII--some of the strangest events you could imagine. Richard Widmark stars as a leader of a group of US Navy personnel stationed in Mongolia--YES, Mongolia! It seems they are a very isolated weather station but why the Navy was sent there is beyond me! In case they are attacked by the Japanese, they enlist the help of local herdsmen by providing them with nice new saddles--YES, saddles. As I said, it's all very hard to imagine but based on real events.Unfortunately for our small but intrepid group, their base IS attacked by the Japanese Air Force and their equipment ruined. As they are in the middle of no where and the American commanders must assume they are dead, they seem to have no choice to to make their way east--though the coast is over 800 miles from their base.While this is certainly not a great film, it's a great one for someone who loves WWII history--as it certainly doesn't get any more unusual than this. Plus, the film is enjoyable, well-acted and likable. Truly an odd movie but reasonably well made with its mostly American-Indian supporting cast.

Hollywood was awash with triumphalist movies about the US military's comrades-in-arms in the first 10 years after the war in a self-congratulating furore to re-write history according to US attitudes and prejudices. You know the routine: sassy one-liners, everyone's nickname is "Mac" or "Buddy", everyone looks like a hero, serious leg-wounds that hospitalize us mortals are laughed off as inconvenient flesh-wounds that only need a quick bandage. Not for the Japs or Jerries, of course. The nasty-horrible baddies pepper the battlefield with bullets and grenades and one US hero dies; the US lieutenant fires his pistol once and a squadron of Nazi tanks explode and a thousand enemy soldiers writhe on the floor in screaming death-throes. Ha, ha, ha... ho, ho, ho... this is how we won the war, boys! It's so clichéd it could pass for pantomime.Destination Gobi is no exception. Watching this movie demonstrates how much our attitudes have changed.This is another one of those movies, but with the added bonus of being set in the Gobi Desert... if the Gobi Desert looks anything like California. The Mongols are suspicious savages - little more than replicas of the caricatured American Indians, but wearing supposed Mongolian clothes instead. The Mongols ride big, US Cavalry style horses and speak in monosyllabic words. They steal stuff from the US navy men. They want to kill one of them for using a camera, naturally. Makes sense, of course... since the Mongolians are ignorant savages who don't respect the brave US military servicemen and they all think a little camera's going to kill them.It never occurred to the film-makers to actually visit Mongolia and find out that the Mongolians ride small but sturdy ponies, live on a diet of goats and sheep milk and meat, learn how to wrestle for a centuries-old tradition of annual competitions, thunder across the desert and steppes on their ponies for countless miles in great tribal gatherings, have a typical Far Eastern respect for foreigners and strangers and their possessions and are a modest, reserved breed of people who live a tough existence in one of the most windswept places on earth. If the film-makers had, the Mongolians in this movie wouldn't have ended up looking like Klingons in fur caftans.Of course, the brave, all-knowing US servicemen in this movie drill the Mongolians in cavalry techniques. Only stands to reason, naturally. If it weren't for the US Cavalry in the Middle Ages, Genghis Khan wouldn't have sacked China, traversed the endless Russian Steppes, crushed a mighty East Indian kingdom guarded by walled fortress cities, crossed the unexplored Arabian Desert, sieged Baghdad while it was being invaded by Crusaders, and thundered into a startled Europe.Having been raised on a diet of such laughable caricatures and cultural superiority (as we all were in the 1960s, 70s and 80s), is it any wonder that the US faces current levels of fragile international relations?