OK. I admit it. I'm a French Foreign Legion junkie. And when I saw that Oldies.com had several, and they were really cheap, I jumped for them.

Well, there's a reason these movies are really cheap, folks, and bringing quality films to the masses isn't part of it. This was part of the New Year's Day Videofest 2005 (theme: Deserts) and Mr. Otter, the Squirrel Lady and I settled down to enjoy an amusing romp.

And the cast looked good: George Raft, Marie Windsor and Akim Tamiroff, real Foreign Legion locations, what could be wrong?

Answer: the cast and the script. George Raft, although touted as the 'almost Bogart', having turned down several roles that made Bogie famous (like Casablanca and High Sierra) was unbelieveably wooden and awful in this. Marie Windsor was pretty, in an extremely thin sort of way, but there was absolutely no magnetism between them, it was as if each was saying lines to a cardboard cutout...which, in a way, they were.

And I must confess: we just couldn't finish it. We got about 3/4 of the way through, the fort was about to be attacked, we had been trying to amuse ourselves by msting this awful flick...and finally gave up and went on to the next movie, which was much better.