Director: Robert Florey
Year: 1949
Rating: 4.0
George Raft is in the French Foreign Legion in this 1949 film. He was 54
at the time trying to look a lot younger and desirable. Raft was once a huge
star in the 1930’s getting a weekly salary from Warner Brothers of $5,000
a week which was one of the highest in Hollywood at the time but today he
is more famous for the films he turned down than the ones he was in. It is
hard to even think of a good film in which he was the main lead. But he turned
down the lead role in Dead End (it went to Bogart) because it wasn’t an important
film; he turned down High Sierra (it went to Bogart) because the character
was killed in the end; he turned down Sam Spade in the Maltese Falcon because
it was the director’s debut (some obscure director named John Huston and
yes the role went to Bogart); he turned down Casablanca as did a bunch of
actors (yup to Bogart) and finally he turned down the Fred McMurray role
in Double Indemnity because he wanted the character to end up being an undercover
FBI agent and Billy Wilder thought he was nuts. Though in truth both McMurray
and Stanwyck initially turned down their roles because they were worried
it would be extremely detrimental to their career to play those immoral characters.
Raft grew up in Hell’s Kitchen and many of his early friends went into the
gangster trade. He instead became a dancer and a reputed gigolo but all his
life he stayed friends with the mob – Bugsy Siegel and Al Capone were drinking
buddies. But he was also considered one of the stupidest actors in Hollywood.
When Warner Brothers was pushing Houston to take Raft, Houston and Bogart
cooked up a plan to make the film look like it would be a louse and beneath
a great star like Raft. He bought it and Houston said he was one of the dumbest
people he had ever met and a bad actor. Warner’s got tired of Raft turning
down roles and negotiated to let him out of his contract. In negotiations
Warner asked Raft what his price was to break the contract. Raft said $10,000.
Warner agreed and watched with astonishment as Raft wrote out a check for
the amount and hand it to him. Warner had been expecting to pay Raft. After
leaving Warner’s Rafts career started to slide.
Which explains I guess his taking this role in a film that crawls along like
a wounded camel. A real stinker. Those darn Arabs are getting restless under
French rule and Raft is ordered to escort the daughter of a suspected rebel
Emir to her home. On the way he is insolent and imperious and so of course
she falls madly in love. In a really odd bit of casting the Princess is Marie
Windsor. She was great in a number of tough-ass noir films but a demure innocent
Muslim Princess? Windsor could bend steel with a sarcastic look and their
romantic whisperings were as phony as a rabbit running in the Derby. Why
they didn’t pair these two in a crime film instead is a mystery. For all
its promise of perhaps being a good adventure film, nothing really happens
till the final five minutes when there is a magnificent 100 horsemen charge
on the fort.
These are tough scenes to film. I watched a documentary on Kurosawa during
the shooting of Ran and he explains how difficult it is to capture the excitement
of horses charging and choreographing it perfectly. So, they do that well
but there is basically no fight. It just putters out. They must have run
out of money. I pretty much ran out of patience I know. Watching these old
colonialist films today is rather strange – I know I am supposed to cheer
for Raft and the French Foreign Legion but should we be? In this case though
the decision was easy – rooting for the rebels all the way.
