Kurt Krueger) John Wengraf as Major Hans Von Falken Production The lead role was initially offered to Gary Cooper, Glenn Ford and Brian Donlevy before Bogart. According to Hedda Hopper, Donlevy's wife, Marjorie Lane, was expecting a baby and he did not want to be stuck on location. (A daughter, Judy, was born on February 20.) Variety, however, reported that Donlevy was tired of making war films and Bogart was weary of gangster roles, so the actors swapped assignments; Donlevy stepped into My Friend Curley (though he was replaced by Cary Grant) and Bogart took Somewhere in the Sahara (the film's working title). Production began on January 29, 1943, and wrapped up on April 17. The cast and crew spent eleven weeks on location in the Imperial County, California, portion of the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park near the Salton Sea. Their base was at the Planter's Hotel in Brawley, California, about east of the location. Soldiers and equipment of the United States 4th Armored Division, then training at the Desert Training Center, were used as extras. The soldiers were billeted in tents at the location. The American tank, nicknamed "Lulubelle," was a 28-ton (25.4 t) medium tank with 30 and 50 caliber machine guns and a 75 millimeter cannon. The tank required 100 octane fuel. Because no German equipment was available for the production, U.S. equipment was substituted and dressed with German markings. The aircraft that attacks the tank was an early Allison-powered P-51 Mustang. The German Sdkf-251 half-track and MG-34 machine guns were an American M2 with a M49 ring mounted with a Vickers medium machine gun. In 1992, Kurt Kreuger was quoted by the San Francisco Chronicle on the emotions inherent in making the film, in which he portrayed a stereotypical Nazi: I was running across the dunes when Tambul jumped on top of me and pressed my head into the sand to suffocate me. Only Zoltán forgot to yell cut, and Ingram was so emotionally caught up in the scene that he kept pressing my face harder and harder. Finally, I went unconscious. Nobody knew this. Even the crew was transfixed, watching this dramatic 'killing.' If Zoltán hadn't finally said cut, as an afterthought, it would have been all over for me. The production was beset by the usual difficulties on a desert location: sunburn, sandstorms, and heat. Korda had 2,000 tons of sand hauled onto the