I'm a sucker for movies about the French foreign legion and this one has the benefit of a great time period - 1940 in French North Africa, with the mother country fighting the Germans. There is so much potential here - the conflict between Vichy and Free French, the Axis country men who had infiltrated the Foreign legion, the relationship with the Allies... most of which is ignored. Still, what we have isn't bad, with mercenary gun runner Victor Mature getting involved in an Arab attempt to kick out the French while the Germans are on the march. There is a nationalistic Arab who is the baddie and an Uncle Tom goodie - but a French colonel (George Dolenz) who sends his wife (Yvonne de Carlo) to seduce Mature to their cause. Very French!
There's plenty of action, some hilariously American actors playing Arabs, a nifty torture scene involving a spider, some reasonably complexity, Mature sweating his way through his role, de Carlo feels wasted (Dolenz seems monumentally uninterested in her), studio forts. I quite enjoyed it, even if it wasn't in colour - I just wish they'd done more with the story because they could have. There is a great foreign legion movie to be made set in this time period.
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