I love this movie so much

This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

Best movie ever!

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

This is a classic 1940s/50s lightweight action adventure piece, with all the classic elements: a historical tie-in, small-unit military action, horses, an expedition through a wilderness, a leading man in a classic romanticized leadership mold (here, a U.S. Marine), and of course the love story of two people who get the hots for each other but can't figure out what to do about it except circle and maybe even hiss at each other until a sudden dramatic kiss seals their engagement in the last five seconds of the film. (There was also a certain amount of comic relief, centered in large part around a comic actor or two brought in just for that purpose, as Howard Da Silva, Connie Gilchrist, Grant Withers, and even Lowell Gilmore are here.) It's essentially a formula that was followed countless times during the period, and while the producers could move the setting to anywhere from Louisiana (see, e.g., THE FIGHTING KENTUCKIAN, John Wayne, 1949) to, well, the Shores of Tripoli, for variety, most of them were just westerns, usually set in the Southwestern United States. And for Hollywood in those days, any classic romanticized villain would do, whether it was the Barbary pirates, the staid British Empire in the Battle of New Orleans, or even crooked home-grown American land speculators ready to cheat whoever had money and was handy. This kind of thing was rerun ad infinitum on television when I was growing up and any true TV junkie of the 50's or 60's had seen probably what seemed like at least a couple hundred of these things by the time they finished high school. That's all this movie is or was ever intended to be, and it delivers right down the middle like a strike in bowling alley. As others have observed, the production values and especially the location shooting are excellent for the day, and if you like the late Maureen O'Hara (may she R.I.P.) and John Payne, so much the better. If you are in the mood for such old-fashioned mind candy it is just about perfect, and the only reason I gave it only a six is because by more challenging movie standards it lacks the "edge of the seat" quality needed to bump it up another star. What surprises me is how many of the reviewers on here seem to have no experience with this kind of thing and instead try to analyze it as if it were something made in a much more recent era.I might also add that until the modern (i.e., very modern) era of post-World-War-Two (that means, after 1945, less than 100 years ago) strife broke out in the middle east, there was no particular prejudice against or hatred for Moslems in America or Western Europe generally (at least not for several hundred years, at any rate), who were rather typically regarded as merely different, if not actually exotic or even fascinating. Indeed, as another, especially clever reviewer of this movie on the IMDb suggested, Europeans thought enough of Arabs to adopt their system of numerals (i.e., 1,2,3,4,5, etc., not mention the whole concept of "zero") from them, along with algebra, averages, algorithms (for you computer junkies out there), the name of every star in the sky you could see without a telescope that was worth naming (e.g., Aldebaran, Altair, Deneb, Fomalhaut, etc., etc.) along with any number of words (alcohol, alchemy, admiral, alcove, alfalfa, albatross, azure . . . ) and certainly, LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (1962), an extravaganza about an Englishman who practically tried to turn himself into an Arab during World War One would never have been the immense hit that it was only about 50 years ago. The current trend among a truly ridiculous number of people today towards branding any Moslem as evil is less than 25 years old and is the result of a concerted propaganda campaign straight of of George Orwell's book *1984* -- to get people into line, you first give them a common enemy to hate. (Unfortunately for theses propagandists, too many of us live in a fact-based world, and know that the .001% of the world's 1+ billion Moslems that are terrorists are only a minority of a minority of a minority at best), but then there are always the gullible, the fearful, the paranoid, the hateful, the low, the trashy, and the stupid who will believe anything in order to indulge their appetite for enjoying getting angry.) That kind of mentality had nothing to do with this movie when it came out in 1950.

Every movie set in the Near East in the 40s and 50s had to have an interlude featuring dancing girls. I've always reveled in them. These are typical. Set to Lucien Cailliet's imaginative stereotypical score (oboes and drums), these half-dozen beauties whirl around and suffer abdominal contractions out of Martha Graham, followed by diaphanous veils and whatnot, but discretely dressed in harem pants and bustiers. No pipiks allowed.It's 1805 and the Barbary Pirates along the North African coast have been harassing ships plying the Mediterranean. President Jefferson decides to put a stop to it by barricading their port and sends a few naval ships and a detachment of US Marines to the shores of Tripoli. John Payne is picked to lead the group. Their uniforms are splashy enough to coagulate your eyeballs.So is Maureen O'Hara as the fiancée of the local sheik from whom Marine Lieutenant John Payne must recruit mercenaries to attack the outpost at Derne, overlooking Tripoli. She's stunning in her pastel gowns, orange flame lipstick, and eyelashes long enough to dust venetian blinds. Her comic sidekick is Connie Gilchrest, whose haimische New York accent no one tried to fix, thank God. Lieutenant Payne has the requisite earthy sergeant, Grant Withers, but it's the Victor McLaughlin role and Grant Withers looks and acts like he's been holding hands with a bottle for the past thirty years.Maureen O'Hara, outstanding in a few movies, including "Our Man in Havana," overacts outrageously, but then the director appears to have ordered everyone to overact, so the obviousness assumes a style of its own. If O'Hara is voicing an opinion that sounds suspicious and underhanded to Payne, he doesn't merely glance at her. He frowns, squints and stares directly at her for as long as she speaks. She's sassy, as usual, but the hero helps her find her identity as a compliant mate, as usual. If it isn't John Wayne it's John Payne.O'Hara's figure is fictional, delightfully so, but Presley O'Bannon was real, and so was the commander of the detachment, William Eaton, whose title was Naval Agent to the Barbary States. The titles matched the uniforms. In fact, the story, glamorized and given a commercial sheen in the Hollywood style of the period, sticks fairly close to historical fact, overlooking the occasional irritating inconsistencies that are found in real life. As in history, Payne hires a hundred or so mercenaries who turn out to be a mixed bag of Arabs and Greeks who don't like each other much.Situation report. I was never much of a technical writer and realize the observations above are a little entropic so let me summarize. Half way through the movie, John Payne is leading this motley of Arabs, Greek mercenaries, and ten Marines across the sand dunes of north Africa, with the intention of deposing the miserable wretch who is pirating our ships in the Mediterranean. Maureen O'Hara has her eyes on the wealthy Arab leader but Payne doesn't want her along and has forced her to travel with the "dancing girls." Payne and O'Hara hate each other but the discerning viewer knows how it will work out. There are the usual hazards of journeying across the desert -- lack of water, sandstorms, haboobs, intrigues, shifting allegiances. Some nice location shooting, apparently somewhere near Palm Springs. The model work and special effects are quite good too for the period.The ragtag army finally reaches the sea and gratefully draws supplies from the ships of the US Navy. The plan is to bombard the fort at Derna into submission, then have Payne and his unit charge into the rubble and mop things up. The great battle takes place.But guess what? The Arabs were a clever bunch. (They invented soap in the Middle Ages, but also algebra, an Arabic word, a dirty trick for which they can never be forgiven.) And here, just as the enemy seems about to lose Derna to the Marines, the Arabs break out thousands of hand grenades based on NUCLEAR FISSION and they blow Payne and his attackers to pieces, the disjecta membra thrown into the sea. And when the Arabs are done ravishing Maureen O'Hara, and event that has left her incandescent with pleasure, she too is flung off a cliff to the waiting Kraken. It's a tragedy, true, but an exceptionally light-hearted one.

This is a strongly-scripted and well-made adventure film, with solid stars in Maureen O'Hara, John Payne and Howard da Silva . But its directorial history is a bit curious. Will Smith, then O'Hara's husband, had been wanting to direct. he got his chance with this movie and did a creditable job as producer and as director However, he had been cheating on her, so the couple divorced soon afterward and Price only directed two forgettable movies thereafter. The story told herein is of a mission featuring a force of US marines sent to combat the 18005 activities of the "Barbary Pirates", North African corsairs who were stopping the ships of other nations and robbing them or worse. The Marine's Hymn refers in the line "to the shores of Tripoli", to this same action. Maureen O'Hara, lovely and talented as ever, plays a French countess inexplicably betrothed to a local bigwig; Da Silva is humorous and excellent as a Greek mercenary hired to help Payne's marines find and destroy the pirates and their stronghold. Much of the film's footage concerns desert treks, during which the male-female conflict between Payne and O'Hara turns into something much more than mere instant dislike. There are some very -fine achievements connected with this attractive color production. James Wong Howe did the cinematography, Winston Miller and Price the script, Yvonne Wood the costumes, Alfred Kegerris the sets and Howard Pine the action and second- unit footage, which is far-above average. Those actors who contributed to this fast-moping and unusually-intelligent film included Philip Reed as the Countess's nefarious pursuer, Grant Withers, Connie Gilchrist, Alan Napier, Herbert Heyes, Lowell Gilmore, Grandon Rhodes and Rose Turich. There is a visually-exciting concluding battle and a happy ending. Favorite line: Greek da Silva modestly replying to US brass's thanks by saying, "Always glad to help a young country get started." A favorite film of mine, for several reasons; this is more than just a vehicle for the stars; it has dialogue, lovely scenic values and very good blocking, acting and overall production qualities.

I've seen this film a number of times on TV and caught it in the theaters over a half-century ago and loved it. As a kid, it had great appeal to me and lots of action, fun and, of course, the lovely Maureen O'Hara, who was always worth the price of admission. John Payne was an underused, underrated actor who always turned in solid, albeit low key, performance. This film, which is a yarn based on the military action of the US Marines against the Tripoli pirates basically spins fight scenes between the bad guys and a coalition of good guys, including veteran character actor Howard Da Silva as a Greek mercenary. The good guys win, of course and Payne gets the girl (but we knew that anyway, didn't we?) and this is a film that if it pops up on the late show (no video or DVD listed), is certainly worth checking out for some good, solid escapism.