Turner Classic Movies is featuring movies made about Israel this evening into the overnight hours.  Three of them are seldom seen.  The line up is as follows:

Hill 24 Doesn't Answer (1955)  is the first feature film produced in Israel.  Directed by Thorold Dickinson, the plot revolves around the personal stories of a number of soldiers who are on their way to defend a strategic hill overlooking the road to Jerusalem.

Sallah (1964)  a/k/a  Sallah Shabati  sold 1.3 million tickets in Israel when the total population of that nation was a little over 2.5 million,    It is an often biting comedy about how both a Yemenite family and Israeli institutions attempted to cope with the relocation of 49.000 Jews from Yemen to Israel after Operation Magic Carpet.

Sword in the Desert (1949) is a Hollywood backlot production about a mercenary American freighter captain smuggling Jewish refuges into Palestine through the British blockade in 1947-48.  As the fighting depicted in the movie is all between Palestinian Jews and the soldiers of the British mandate, it was very controversial, especially in Britain.  Its London release was cut short after fascist elements picketed theaters which showed the film.   

Exodus (1960)  is a three and a half hour Hollywood blockbuster filmed on location in Cyprus and Israel. Otto Preminger directs a Dalton Tumbro script based on Leon Uris's best selling novel about the founding of Israel.  The cast is led by Paul Newman and Eva Marie Saint.