Saturday, January 05, 2013

Movie review - "Outpost in Morocco" (1949) ** (warning: spoilers)

George Raft manages to look miscast in every role he plays except for that of a gangster, so he sticks out like a sore thumb in the French foreign legion. The scriptwriters have seemingly tailored the part for him - he's a man with a past, a lady killer and a great dancer... but he still looks and sounds weird defending the interests of colonial France. It doesn't help that at times he seems old and bored (his career as a Hollywood leading man was about to end).

It's not a bad story - he falls in love with Marie Windsor (equally miscast) the daughter of a local emir who may or may not be intent on causing trouble against the French. There is some decent action and Akim Tamiroff as a local; it loses points for having Tamiroff pray for rain at a key point and it actually rains, but gains them for the downbeat romance between Raft and Windsor - which results in him effectively ordering her death!

It's not in colour but benefits immeasurably from location shooting. The real foreign legion actually collaborated with the filmmakers, which might explain why there's a scene where a bunch of tribes refuse to join in the uprising against their colonial masters.

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