Wow! Such a good movie.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

The Sahara -- Years Ago! Land of Sand, Riffs, Adventure, and beaded curtains! Also fairy tales like this story. Burt Lancaster is a sergeant in the French Foreign Legion, head of a pack of madcap ne'er-do-wells including some of the leading lights among the supporting players of the 40s and 50s. There's Gilbert Roland, Mike Mazurky, George Tobias and John Dehner. Yes, they will fight over a pair of socks but share the last drop in their canteen with the others. When they die, it's with a joke on their lips. ("Why does the chicken cross the road?") One for all; all for one. For added thrills and laughs, there is Mari Blanchard in a canary yellow dress and a fluffy hair do of the same tint.Lancaster and his men capture a Riff prisoner and bring him back to Lieutenant Kruger in temporary charge of the base at Tafra. Kruger is played meanly by Stephen Bekassy. Bekassy was a Hungarian but no matter. One foreign accent sounds much like any other to Hollywood's ears, and it's as well that the mean guy should be a German because 1951 was only six years after the end of World War II and we still hadn't forgiven the Nazis. Bekassy and Lancaster hate each other. And while Bekassy is busy torturing the Riff prisoner, Lancaster's Sergeant Kinkaid does roughly to Bekassy's girl friend what Lancaster's Sergeant Warden did to HIS captain's wife in "From Here to Eternity." Result: Lancaster and his musketeers are sent on a dangerous mission through the desert in order to avert a Riff attack on the undermanned base. They kidnap a princess who is the cause of it all and gallop off into the wasteland. This is some princess too, well worth kidnapping, even if it doesn't prevent a war. Jody Lawrance, in dark makeup, is sublimely beautiful and sexy. She burns with hatred for the Legionnaires. She glares at them with irises the color of obsidian. When she speaks her voice is low, throaty, piercing, menacing, bitter, conjuring up personal images of marriages past. And she's awfully cute when she's mad. The men, of course, all want to ravage her -- except for Lancaster, who saves her from their brutality. For a moment, Lancaster and princess clinch while the ghost of Rimsky-Korsakoff plays a romantic tune in the background.Situation Report. The half-dozen or so legionnaires are hustling across the desert with the sultry princess in tow, pursued by a multitude of black-robed, outraged, and frustrated Elf Kings. The chase is not without its hazard. Three of the legionnaires are picked off, each after some heroic deed, expiring in the arms of a comrade, always cheerful. "Londos, you're hurt bad." "I'm cashing in my chips, Mike, but why -- why -- did Descartes suddenly disappear in the wine shop? (Gasp.)" The ending is a Donneybrook in the enemy camp, so comic it could be Bing Crosby and Bob Hope instead of Lancaster's men. There are tense moments when a Riff has Lancaster pinned under him, both men straining against the Arab dagger, only quivering inches from Lancaster's taut face. Do Burt and his men save the fort? Does Burt get the girl? Is that supposed to be a joke? Burt Lancaster is at his best here. With a few exceptions like "Atlantic City," he was never much of a serious actor but he was great in these early adventure roles. He pulled out all the stops to magisterial comic effect. His grin is filled with Chiclets. He bounces around as if he were half his actual size, limber but not muscle bound. Off the screen he was an equally admirable altruist. Lots of fun.

The movie was excellent. To me, it was a very funny version of the movie Dirty Dozen (although the Dirty Dozen did not come until 1967). In the movie Dirty Dozen, Lee Marvin tells the prisoners that if one screws up, the others go right back to prison, so therefore, they are depend on each other. Since he is in charge of the mission, Marvin also realizes that his life also depends on them too and pointed out that fact to his superiors.In the movie Ten Tall Men, Burt Lancaster says almost the same thing: "The main reason we're going to do it is we have no other choice. And just one other thing: each man has got to depend on the next man. I'm going to see to it that the next man doesn't let him down." Only difference is that Lancaster has two corporals to back him up while Marvin has the MP sergeant to help him out plus the men under Lancaster's command are not facing a death sentence or long imprisonment for murder. The insults at the wedding and the big brawl which occurred was the highlight of the movie. It's too bad that the movie not available on DVD and I don't know why TMC doesn't have it in its inventory of movies to be purchase.

The phrase "they don't make them like this anymore" is often used in this CGI-infested age to describe extra-laden and 'authentic' Hollywood spectaculars of yesteryear but, frankly, watching this more modest, tongue-in-cheek Foreign Legion adventure, I was equally struck by just how old-fashioned (and refreshingly so) it all was – not that the sand storm sequence included here would pass muster with today's audiences! Anyhow, from the very start of the film, we have Burt Lancaster, Gilbert Roland and Kieron Moore disguised as, respectively, an Arab merchant and his two daughters!; legionnaires who are punished for daring to look twice at their Lieutenant's fiancée; an Arab chieftain who marries off his daughter to a rival Sheik to bring peace between their warring tribes and in a bid to rid their country of the 'French' infidels; the kidnapping of that same feisty daughter who, not only turns the heads of all her ten titular captors but, after several escape attempts, eventually steals the heart of tough guy Lancaster; etc. However, shot in lovely Technicolor and moving at a rapid pace, the film is an enjoyable ride through familiar territory; what was somewhat surprising, plot-wise, is that while much was made initially of the unloved Lieutenant (Stephen Bekassy) and his blonde girlfriend (Mari Blanchard), their characters virtually disappear once Lancaster's jailbird unit sets out on its mission! Despite its baffling ultra-rarity, the film is peopled by an interesting pool of talent both in front and behind the camera: Lancaster is in his third adventure flick; Gilbert Roland is his usual laid-back, womanizing Latino self; John Dehner the proverbial rotten apple in the group; George Tobias (perhaps thankfully) sacrifices himself early on; Nick Dennis and Mike Mazurki are among the rowdiest of the 'Ten'; Gerald Mohr adequately provides the required villainy; this was the second product from Norma Productions (which first partnered Lancaster with producer Harold Hecht); writer Roland Kibbee would much later go on to share directorial credit with Lancaster on THE MIDNIGHT MAN (1974; which I will be revisiting presently); associate producer Robert Aldrich would later direct Lancaster in four movies – including TWILIGHT'S LAST GLEAMING (1977; which I'll be viewing for the first time during this ongoing Burt Lancaster tribute); and, most interestingly perhaps, this was multi-talented Willis Goldbeck's most notable directorial effort but, at least two of his screen writing credits are highly impressive indeed: Tod Browning's FREAKS (1932) and John Ford's THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE (1962; Goldbeck's last film work)! One final note: after searching high and low for this film on account of a friend of mine who is a big Burt Lancaster fan (and recalls the star's brief sojourn in Malta in the 1970s), ironically, it was he who eventually provided me with a means to catch up with it via a surprisingly well-preserved VHS-sourced copy he acquired!

The French Foreign Legion movie usually ranked as one of Hollywood's most enjoyable sub-genres, and this is a good though undistinguished example of it. If it doesn't quite match 1953's "Desert Legion," it's probably because of a tongue-in-cheek tone which sometimes seems a bit juvenile, and because of an unconvincing leading lady -- Jody Lawrance -- who seems more North Hollywood than North Africa. However, Burt Lancaster shone in this kind of adventure and you don't have to wait long before he has his shirt off in a bathtub scene. He also winds up, as was often the case, in a beefcake-bondage scene which has him bound with outstretched arms inside the villain's tent. "I imagine it'll be dawn before you finally die," the villain says. "I should like to watch your entire performance ... to the very end." The villain then nods toward a wizened Arab who's gleefully heating up a variety of branding irons to be used on Lancaster's sweaty face and naked torso. "You'd be surprised at how much Tarik can get from even the most phlegmatic types."Lancaster's back got lashed in "Rope of Sand" and "Kiss the Blood Off My Hands," so it'd be a switch to see his chest bear the brunt of the torture for a change, but circumstances spare him from such a fate.Incidentally, this being the prudish era of the early 1950s, Lancaster's pants during this bondage scene are worn high enough to cover his navel.