The Flight of the Phoenix (1965)

Pilot Frank Towns (James Stewart) and Navigator Lew Moran (Richard Attenborough) are bound for Benghazi with 13 passengers from a remote Libyan oil site.  Their plane is an old WWII cargo carrier that is held together by elbow grease and wishful thinking.  On this trip, the radio is out.  Though the weather report was favorable, they instead fly into a sandstorm.  Efforts to climb above it fail and soon the engines are dying.  Towns lands among the sand dunes of the Sahara and the cargo tumbles through the passenger cabin, killing 2 and seriously injuring 1.  A survey of the damage confirms that the plane will not be taking off again.  A hundred miles from the nearest water, they can only hope that a search party discovers them.  Of course, they are well off course, which means the search will likely be in the wrong place.

After several days, the survivors realize that they are not going to be found.  Heinrich Dorfmann (Hardy Kruger) proposes using the intact parts of the plane to construct a new plane.  Frank thinks this is madness but Lew is interested.  Dr. Renaud suggests that, even if the new plane won't fly, it's better to have hope than to sit around and watch one another die.

The story of Sgt. Watson (Ronald Fraser) is peculiar.  When Captain Harris (Peter Finch) is determined to march through the desert to the nearest water, Watson 'injures' his leg.  As such, another volunteers to go with Harris; that volunteer dies somewhere in the desert.  Harris managed to stumble back to the plane.  Not long after, Harris proposes to meet with a mysterious band of Arabs beyond a sand dune.  Watson flatly refuses to accompany the captain, threatening to use a revolver.  Harris marches off with someone else, resulting in more deaths.  Watson's repeated insubordination resulted in his surviving, while those who went with Captain Harris all died.  Here is a man who repeatedly shirked his duty, which proved the wise course.

It is a well-told story with excellent performances from a great cast, but it isn't all that entertaining.  It's okay.  I can definitely see why it was a box office failure, especially since it was released in the same month as Battle of the Bulge, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Doctor Zhivago, and Thunderball.