Sign up for a quick ten years. Why not?
DESERT LEGION, the French Foreign one, this time officer’d by Alan Ladd, stoic as a sphinx, with a delivery drier than the Sahara in August. He released four pictures in 1953. The classic Shane was a huge hit, the others did well enough money wise but hardly came close in quality. Botany Bay was better than Paratrooper/The Red Beret and that one sat above this this silly sand-capade on the bottom shelf. A better title? How about ‘Desperate Lesion’ ? It did make $5,000,000, spot #62.
“A brave and silent soldier. We shall see how long you can remain brave and silent.” Good old pre-torture pep talk.
Don’t get overly excited
As fanciful adventures go, this one’s a doofy doozy. After his company of Legionnaires is ambushed in an Algerian canyon and wiped out, knocked unconscious sole survivor ‘Capt. Paul Lartal’ (Ladd) awakes in a tent to behold ‘ Princess Morjana’ (Arlene Dahl) a red-tressed, ivory skinned, blue-eyed beauty (like you’d normally bump into in Algeria) whose attentions (and basic vavoomishness) lead him to the secret mountain city of ‘Madara’, a sort of Lost Horizon’y situation (again, common in the Sahara Desert) complete with phony backdrops and budget-impaired sets. “Tonight at dinner you meet the man we call our leader“, who turns out to be the nefarious usurper ‘Crito Damou’ (Richard Conte), dripping with insinuation. Will Alan and Arlene fall turban over veil for each other? Does she have an inexhaustible supply of princess-wear costumes? Will sinuous dancing girls do a number that’s at least a continent removed from North Africa? Will Ladd and Conte fight to the death on a cliff while a battle finale rages around them? Would I have enjoyed this nonsense as a kid? Yep.
Matte-made mythical Madara
The story came from”The Demon Caravan”, written in 1922 by Georges Arthur Surdez (1900-1949). He was a prolific author of pulp adventures, many of them about the Legion. He’s credited with coining the phrase “Russian Roulette”. Whether “The Demon Caravan” is a fun read we can but muse, but the script concocted by Irving Wallace (The Chapman Report) and Lewis Meltzer (High School Confidential) for the movie version is sheer comic book drivel, material so flat and/or dopey that the actors must’ve winced or hit the bourbon once they beheld the lines they’d have to deliver with straight faces. Ladd and Dahl have what amounts to anti-chemistry, but to be fair, Tracy & Hepburn couldn’t do anything with the dialogue quicksand they’re mired in. At least supporting hardy Akim Tamiroff (as Ladd’s comic relief cohort) wisely went with the flow and hammed it up.
Competently directed by Universal Studios yeoman Joseph Pevney (Away All Boats, The Night Of The Grizzly), decently scored by the prodigious Frank Skinner. With Leon Askin, Oscar Beregi Sr. (wielding an impenetrable accent), Anthony Caruso, the wife & husband ‘exotic dance’ team Sujata & Asoka (having a good time), Peter Coe, Ivan Triesault. 86 minutes.
Telling Ladd why she dumped Lex Barker for Fernando Lamas
* Since the Legion’s ranks were composed of desperate or adventurous men from varied countries and backgrounds and they were sent to fight all over the globe, the famed fighting force was tailor-made for tale-telling. After taking a WW2 break from the big budget 1930s high points of Beau Geste and Under Two Flags the FFL spread across the 50s with the likes of Desert Sands, Desert Hell, Legion Of The Doomed, Outpost In Morocco, Ten Tall Men, Timbuktu, Rogue’s Regiment and Jump Into Hell. And sure enough, Abbott And Costello In The Foreign Legion.
Rifle, ripped shirt, thrust breasts. Make sure to pack a canteen.
Movies ala Mark 