Outpost in Morocco (1949)

Simply Perfect

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

**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.

One of four films George Raft did in 1949, this one takes place in dark and exotic Morocco, with his assistant Bamboule, played by Erno Verebes. Verebes and the author Joseph Ermolieff both appear to have had interesting backgrounds; Verebes was apparently born in New York, according to IMDb, made many German films, then suddenly pops up in Hollywood around 1937. Ermolieff started in Russia, moved to Paris, and also appeared on the Hollywood scene in 1937. Co-star Marie Windsor was also busy in 1949, making four films. Here she plays "Cara", the daughter of the emir, who Captain Gerard escorts back to the emir at his fortress. Cara not only dresses in a frilly, white, western-style blouse and makeup, but "forgets" to wear a veil to cover her face in public. The picture quality is pretty iffy, and shakes quite a bit of the time; someone with more expertise would probably know if this is due to poor film quality, poor photography, or just the age of the film when copied onto the DVD. I have the Treeline/Reelmedia Action Collection DVD pack from 2004. Everyone gives a pretty stiff performance here. Inevitable war breaks out, and Cara is stuck in the middle of all those she loves, although they may be on opposing sides. In spite of all the background mattes used, this gets one of its stars just for the foreign, exotic setting and the foreign legion storyline.

Let me start by saying this was not a "Beau Geste" by any means - it was set in Morocco and the locations looked very good, but that is the end of the "penny section!" I had always found George Raft to be completely wooden, and he proved it again in this one, but he did show me he was a very good dancer (clearly the highlight for him in this epic!). And well into his 50's when this was made took away any believability for him to be a romantic hero. The role, had it not been made on a shoe string, needed a Tyrone Power or a Errol Flynn to make it worthwhile. Marie Windsor looked like she wanted to be somewhere else, while Akim Tamiroff was clearly the best performer in the cast. Seeing Raft "act" makes me so glad to rejected the leads in "High Sierra" and "The Maltese Falcon" - had he not done so, they would not be genuine movie classics.

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).