Plot
After capturing an important Rif prisoner in an undercover operation, Sergeant Mike Kincaid (Lancaster) is imprisoned himself for striking a lieutenant (Stephen Bekassy) who beats a French woman (Mari Blanchard) with his riding crop for preferring Kincaid to him. Kincaid has a longstanding rivalry with the lieutenant, but the lieutenant is now in command of the company holding the city of Tarfa while the regiment is away. As the ranking officer, the lieutenant uses Kincaid's striking of him to get his revenge.
Kincaid is imprisoned alongside seven military prisoners and the captured Rif who has refused to talk, with the lieutenant refusing food and water to both Kincaid and the Rif. When his two comrades-in-arms who accompanied him on the mission, Corporals Luis Delgado (Gilbert Roland) and Pierre Molier (Kieron Moore), sneak food and water to Kincaid, he shares them with the Rif. To repay Kincaid's kindness and assuage his own guilt for telling the lieutenant about Kincaid's assignation with the Frenchwoman, the tells of an impending attack on Tarfa while the garrison is weak. The Rif believes Kincaid will escape to save himself, but he instead warns the lieutenant.
The experienced Kincaid tells the lieutenant that their only chance is to release him to lead a series of guerrilla hit-and-run attacks to delay the enemy for five days until the regiment returns. The lieutenant agrees, but only if Kincaid will testify that the idea was his. Kincaid agrees to his terms. The only men available for the mission are the seven prisoners, who receive full pardons for their crimes. His two corporals join them, raising their number to ten.
When scouting an enemy camp, the Legionnaires discover two rival tribes have joined forces, making them strong enough to take the city. Using his expertise in disguise and language, Kincaid finds out that the Rif leader, Khalid Hussein (Gerald Mohr), is marrying Mahla (Jody Lawrance) in order to cement an alliance with the other tribe. Kincaid kidnaps her to force the enemy to chase him for the five days.
Mahla begins to fall in love with her handsome captor, as Hussein pursues the Legionnaires across the desert. In the midst of the dangers, the patrol finds a destroyed Legion truck containing a safe that one of the men opens, revealing a large Legion payroll. When Jardine (John Dehner) tries to get away with the payroll, he is shot, but that tells the Rifs where they are.
Kincaid is eventually captured and Mahla freed. She demands that Kincaid be released unharmed, or she will not marry Hussein. Hussein reluctantly does so. Kincaid and his men infiltrate the wedding ceremony, and fighting breaks out. Mahla's tribe switches sides, and Hussein is killed.
Burton Stephen Lancaster was an American actor and producer. Initially known for playing tough guys with a tender heart, he went on to achieve success with more complex and challenging roles over a 45-year career in films and television series. He was a four-time nominee for the Academy Award for Best Actor, and he also won two BAFTA Awards and one Golden Globe Award for Best Lead Actor. The American Film Institute ranks Lancaster as #19 of the greatest male stars of classic Hollywood cinema.
From Here to Eternity is a 1953 American romantic war drama film directed by Fred Zinnemann and written by Daniel Taradash, based on the 1951 novel of the same name by James Jones. The picture deals with the tribulations of three United States Army soldiers, played by Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, and Frank Sinatra, stationed on Hawaii in the months leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Deborah Kerr and Donna Reed portray the women in their lives. The supporting cast includes Ernest Borgnine, Philip Ober, Jack Warden, Mickey Shaughnessy, Claude Akins, and George Reeves.
Ulzana's Raid is a 1972 American Revisionist Western film starring Burt Lancaster, Richard Jaeckel, Bruce Davison and Joaquin Martinez. The film, which was filmed on location in Arizona, was directed by Robert Aldrich based on a script by Alan Sharp. It portrays a brutal raid by Chiricahua Apaches against European settlers in 1880s Arizona. The bleak and nihilistic tone of U.S. troops chasing an elusive merciless enemy has been seen as allegory to the United States participation in the Vietnam War.
Robert Burgess Aldrich was an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. An iconoclastic and maverick auteur working in many genres during the Golden Age of Hollywood, he directed mainly films noir, war movies, westerns and dark melodramas with Gothic overtones. His most notable credits include Vera Cruz (1954), Kiss Me Deadly (1955), The Big Knife (1955), Autumn Leaves (1956), Attack (1956), What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), The Flight of the Phoenix (1965), The Dirty Dozen (1967), and The Longest Yard (1974).
Vera Cruz is a 1954 American Western film directed by Robert Aldrich and starring Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster, featuring Denise Darcel, Sara Montiel, Cesar Romero, Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson and Jack Elam. Set during the Franco-Mexican War, the film centers on a group of American mercenaries tasked with transporting a large shipment of Imperial gold to the port of Veracruz, but begin to have second thoughts about their allegiances. It was produced by Hecht-Lancaster Productions and released by United Artists on 25 December 1954.
Twilight's Last Gleaming is a 1977 American thriller film directed by Robert Aldrich and starring Burt Lancaster and Richard Widmark. The film was a West German/American co-production, shot mainly at the Bavaria Studios.
Robert Clary was a French actor who was mainly active in the United States. He is best known for his role as Corporal Louis LeBeau on the television sitcom Hogan's Heroes (1965–1971). He also had recurring roles on the soap operas Days of Our Lives (1972–1987), and The Bold and the Beautiful (1990–1992).
The Crimson Pirate is a 1952 British-American international co-production Technicolor tongue-in-cheek comedy-adventure film from Warner Bros. produced by Norman Deming and Harold Hecht, directed by Robert Siodmak, and starring Burt Lancaster, who also co-produced with Deming and Hecht. Co-starring in the film are Nick Cravat, Eva Bartok, Leslie Bradley, Torin Thatcher, and James Hayter. The film was shot in Ischia, the Bay of Naples and Teddington Studios. It makes the most of Lancaster's skills as a professional acrobat and his lifelong partnership with Cravat. Critics compared Lancaster favorably with Douglas Fairbanks Sr.
Harold Adolphe Hecht was an American film producer, dance director and talent agent. He was also, though less noted for, a literary agent, a theatrical producer, a theatre director and a Broadway actor. He was a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences and the Screen Producers Guild.
World for Ransom is a 1954 American film noir drama directed by Robert Aldrich and starring Dan Duryea, Patric Knowles, Gene Lockhart, Reginald Denny, and Nigel Bruce.
The Battle of Camarón which occurred over ten hours on 30 April 1863 between the Foreign Legion of the French Army and the Mexican Army, is regarded as a defining moment in the Foreign Legion's history.
Beau Geste is a 1966 adventure film based on the 1924 novel by P. C. Wren filmed by Universal Pictures in Technicolor and Techniscope near Yuma, Arizona and directed by Douglas Heyes. This is the least faithful of the various film adaptations of the original novel. In this version, there are only two brothers, rather than three, and there are no sequences showing Beau's life prior to his joining the Legion.
Apache is a 1954 American Western film directed by Robert Aldrich and starring Burt Lancaster, Jean Peters and John McIntire. The film was based on the novel Broncho Apache by Paul Wellman, which was published in 1936. It was Aldrich's first color film.
March or Die is a 1977 British war drama film directed by Dick Richards and starring Gene Hackman, Terence Hill, Catherine Deneuve, Max von Sydow and Sir Ian Holm.
Legionnaire is a 1998 American drama war film directed by Peter MacDonald and starring Jean-Claude Van Damme as a 1920s boxer who wins a fight after having been hired by gangsters to lose it, then flees to join the French Foreign Legion. The cast includes Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Daniel Caltagirone, Nicholas Farrell and Steven Berkoff. The film was filmed in Tangier and Ouarzazate, Morocco.
Kieron Moore was an Irish film and television actor whose career was at its peak in the 1950s and 1960s. He may be best remembered for his role as Count Vronsky in the film adaptation of Anna Karenina (1948) with Vivien Leigh.
Willis Goldbeck was an American screenwriter, film director and producer. He wrote for 40 films between 1923 and 1962. He also directed ten films between 1942 and 1951. Willis graduated from Worcester Academy.
Hustle is a 1975 American neo-noir crime thriller film directed by Robert Aldrich and starring Burt Reynolds and Catherine Deneuve.
Castle Keep is a 1969 American war comedy-drama film combining surrealism with tragic realism. It was directed by Sydney Pollack, and starred Burt Lancaster, Patrick O'Neal, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Bruce Dern and Peter Falk. The film appeared in the summer of 1969, a few months before the premiere of Pollack's smash hit They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
Jody Lawrance was an American actress who starred in many Hollywood films during the 1950s through the early 1960s.
