I love this movie so much

Absolutely Fantastic

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

. . . as he schemes to lessen the "White Man's Burden" in Northern Africa. In this virtually humorless attempted spoof if the classic Pre-WWII British Empire epics, Mr. Raft's character has his "GUNGA DIN" stand-in shot dead for trying grab a cup of water. Stranger still, this flick's doomed "CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE" is undertaken by the natives against an impregnable Imperialist French fort. Adding insult to injury, Raft isn't content to merely dishonor the Muslim Hot Chick. When he's had his fill of her, he blows her up with land mines, and then machine guns what's left of her for good measure. OUTPOST IN MOROCCO recycles LIGHT BRIGADE's fort massacre and GUNGA DIN mountain pass ambush scenes. But if the one-time French tradition of exporting youthful petty criminals as a Foreign Legion were to be applied to America, everyone would be happier. The world's Trouble Spots would stay better pacified, and it would be safe for baseball fans here in Baltimore to watch Orioles home games INSIDE Camden Yards!

**SPOILERS*** Just about to go on leave French Foreign Legionnaire Capt. Paul Gerard, George Raft, gets the news from his boss Col. Pascal, John Litel, to escort a company of legionnaires to the far off French outpost, some 12 days of traveling on horseback, Bel-Rashad and transports the Emir Al-Rashad's, Eduard Franz, beautiful non Arabic looking daughter Cara, Marie Windsor, there for her usually off-season, when the weather is cooler, stay! What Col. Pascal is worried about is that instead of October, when it's cool and pleasant, when Cara visits her father the Emir this time it's in mid-June! The hottest time of he year for that desert town!The French are suspicious that the Emir has been supplied with thousands of modern and highly effective, unlike the 19 century muskets that his men have, German Mauser rifles! And with those modern arms he's planning to start a revolt all over French Morocco and end up throwing the French out. Something he's been dreaming about for years and now is finally able to make that dream come true! Unknown to the Emir Capt. Gerard has gotten his daughter to fall madly in love with him by his dancing ability that has her now going to great lengths, like hiding him in the privacy of her boudoir, in protecting him from her fathers men.It's when Capt. Gerard uncovers, by going undercover, the fact that the Emir had the means, the Mausers, to cause real trouble for his French occupiers that he, by the skin of his teeth, makes it back to headquarters and Col. Pascal with the news. That turns out to be a bit too late for the French Foreign Legion unite, some 100 legionnaires, at Bel-Rashad who ends up getting slaughtered by the Emir men before help could arrive!***SPOILERS*** With thousands of the Emir's horsemen now moving on the main French Foreign Legion outpost outside Bel-Rashad Morocco it's up to Capt. Gerard and his trustful sidekick Let. Glysko, Akim Tamiroff, who always wears in clean shirt in combat so if he gets killed he'll end up being buried with it wait for the inevitable end as the charge of the "Mauser Rifles", some 10,000 strong, is about to begin!**MAJOR SPOILER*** Just when things look like they can't get any worse Cara, in what looked like a fit of insanity, jumps on an Arabian Stallion and takes off to the far off desert battlefield in order to stop her father the Amir from doing in her lover Capt. Gerard and the men he's in charge of. Starting way behind but, with her excellent riding ability, getting to the front of the charge Cara ends up getting blasted together with her father the Emir by a volley of French cannon fire and dynamite explosions! The ironic thing about all this is that Capt. Gerard never knew what Cara's motives were since, by being killed, she wasn't around to tell him.

This is an odd film from the onset due to the odd casting choices. First, having an older (and decidedly lazier) George Raft in the romantic lead seemed silly, though most of his manly roles at this point his his career seemed to think he was 10-15 years younger. Second, and this is the most serious, who would have thought that Marie Windsor could look like the Emir's daughter?! She looks about as North African as Zsa Zsa Gabor and sounded like a débutante! The film begins with Raft being asked to go on a special mission to escort the sultry Ms. Windsor to her father at his fortress. Why was Raft chosen? Well, according to the film he is some sort of super-stud ladies' man and the Commanding Officer wanted Raft to romance Windsor and get her "on our side"!! Really. I'm not making this up, folks! George Raft is a major stud in this film(!). Naturally, at first they don't get along but then later they are quite snuggly (a standard cliché in such films). When she discovers that her Daddy, the Emir, is a nasty jerk, she helps Raft. What a dame. Well, more like what an anachronistic dame--one who acts like no woman in her situation would have acted like.After the romantic stuff, the film becomes a movie about French Foreign Legion troops being besieged in the desert--like BEAU GESTE, ABBOTT AND COSTELLO IN THE FOREIGN LEGION, BEAU HUNKS and a dozen other films. NO surprises here and it looks almost like a slow motion and dull version of the standard "White man in the desert" film.

This effort shows that, if Raft and Windsor had had better luck of the draw, he may have gotten more light romantic lead parts (rather than tough guy things) and she might have done Kubrick-style films more and science fiction less. Raft shows a flair for underplayed humor and Windsor, clearly no fool, outclasses the usual female leads (she later served as a director of the Screen Actors Guild).