The Counterfeit Traitor (1962)

Christian faith is often neglected as a motive in the resistance to Nazi tyranny.

The Counterfeit Traitor, based on a real-life incident, is primarily an espionage adventure about a cynical opportunist who winds up doing the right thing in spite of himself. But it also examines issues of belief. Eric Erickson (William Holden) is an American-born Swedish oilman who's trading profitably with the Germans during World War II. Blackmailed into working for Allied intelligence, he recruits sympathetic German friends and is allowed to visit all the Nazi refineries, which he scopes out as future bombing targets.

Eric falls in love with his main German contact, Marianne Mollendorf (Lili Palmer), a practicing Christian who's placed in great danger by their missions. Writer-director George Seaton (Miracle on 34th Street) subtly examines the workings of her conscience. The movie's suspense is as involving as its characters’ interior moral conflicts.

Saudi Time Bomb (2001)

One of the unsettling consequences of the Sept. 11 bombings is the realization that Saudi Arabia, a long-time U.S. ally, may no longer be trustworthy in the fight against fundamentalist Islamic terrorism. Writer-producers Martin Smith and Lowell Bregman examine some of the reasons why in Saudi Time Bomb, a 60-minute PBS documentary. They skillfully combine archival footage with interviews with former U.S. officials like James Baker, Brent Scowcroft and Richard Holbrooke. For balance there are also brief analyses by Middle East experts from the region.

Particularly disturbing are the connections established between the Saudi royal family and the extreme form of Islam called Wahabism. The movie traces how their “madrassas,” or religious schools, have spread their fanatic, militaristic message across the globe to places like Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bosnia, among others.

Beau Geste (1939)

The deserts of the Middle East were once a favorite Hollywood setting for exotic tales of mystery and adventure. Beau Geste, based on Percival Christopher Wrenn's novel, goes beyond the genre's usual conventions in also dramatizing the power of self-sacrifice. The movie begins with a tantalizing set of images: a desert fort strewn with the corpses of French Legionnaires, a note with the confession of a strange theft and a destructive fire of unknown cause.

The action flashes back to England 15 years earlier, where the three orphaned Geste brothers (Gary Cooper, Ray Milland and Robert Preston) are being raised by an impoverished aristocrat (Heather Thatcher). When the eldest, Beau (Cooper), learns that she has secretly sold the family jewels to pay for their upbringing, he claims to have stolen it himself and saves her honor. Then he and his siblings rush off to join the French Foreign Legion. Director William Wellman (Wings) captures both the harshness and the romance of Legion life and stages some harrowing battle scenes.