Bright, unpretentious foreign legion tale, with enjoyable colour and production design. Like Errol Flynn with Against All Flags, Alan Ladd was lured over to Universal Studios after a ending a long-running relationship with another studio (in Ladd’s case, Paramount) for a one of film in exchange for a share of the profits, and even though Desert Legion is rarely mentioned among Ladd films it holds up pretty well.
Ladd is in good form – he’s a bit sunburnt, and very American, but it’s the foreign legion so it works (certainly far better than his knight in The Black Knight did). In the 50s Ladd often sleep walked through roles but he’s switched on here. He plays a soldier whose patrol is wiped out by a bunch of nasty Arabs; he gets involved in a secret kingdom in the desert, a sort of Shangri-La which is threatened by internal treachery (Richard Conte). Adele Jurgens (in a role surely meant for Maureen O’Hara) is the red headed princess who should take over but the kingdom will only accept a man so they want Ladd to marry her – which is a bit off.
After a promising beginning the second act of this goes pear shaped with not nearly enough action, but it recovers for a last third which includes an exciting spear duel between Ladd and Conte (they keep missing each other), a sequence where Ladd is almost stoned to death, and a decent battle.
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