An impressive, blood-spattered and historical film in Hollywood style, being based on The Centurions by former paratrooper Jean Larteguy. This big budget Hollywood adaptation begins with a prologue: 'After eight years of fighting between the proud French army and the rebel Vietminh guerrillas in Indochina, the end is near... Dien-Bien-Phum, May 7, 1954. After the peace treaty a group of paratroopers are released and they return to France where Colonel Raspeguy receives the command of a new airborne regiment bound for Algeria. There the French are trying to prevent Algeria from obtaining full independence from France. Colonel Raspeguy (Anthony Quinn) commands his paratroopers (Alain Delon, Maurice Ronet..) in battle against the Algerian rebels led by his former Lt. Mahidi (George Segal). Set when the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) is leading the resistance in Algeria against their French rulers, the FLN that the colonial authorities believe, or want to believe, comprise only a small minority of the Muslim Algerian population in wanting Algerian independence. Subsequently, specifically violent incidents taking place in the battle in Algiers -between 1954 and the final time of independence in 1962- are introduced. Finally , the Évian Accords were a set of peace treaties signed on 18 March 1962 in Évian-les-Bains, France, by France and the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic, the government-in-exile of FLN, which sought Algeria's independence from France. The Accords ended the 1954-1962 Algerian War with a formal cease-fire proclaimed for 19 March and formalized the status of Algeria as an independent nation and the idea of cooperative exchanges between the two countries . They lived and loved and fought across three continents ! The French Colonel...who was forced even to torture ! . One of the many women...who stopped at nothing to win! . The Revolt that Stirred the World!
Crisp adventure set in post-WWII North Africa where a French colonel, relieved of his command endeavors to regain power by battling a powerful Arab terrorist with his own specially trained platoon of soldiers. Four years after the end of the Algerian war, in which the African country gained independence from France, this film was made, of American production, but with a mostly European cast. The plot partially moves away from a critical vision of the conflict to present a film of war adventures, mostly set in the deserts of southern Spain, shot on various locations in La Pedriza, Manzanares el Real, Madrid, Adra, desert of Tabernas, Almería, Málaga, Andalucía, Cueva de los Medinas, Almería, and Roma Studios, Madrid. Scenes of incredibly tough paratroops training and sequences of bloodthirsty battles help to take you mind off thinking that the script story of France's war against Algeria. The movie's sympathies are with the tough pragmatism of Quinn's Basque-raised commander, yet at the same time there's room for comrade Delon to decry the use of torture and the point's made that the French military effort is wholment. That's why it contains a mixed message, resulting to be a curious amalgam of bang-bang action and pensive realpolitik so riveting, synthetic French dialogue and overlength notwithstanding. This committed and at times piercing film is a good company to the classic and much better 'The Battle of Algiers', but the latter is seminal semi-documentary style movie well directed by Gillo Pontecorvo; the Algerian government backed adapting Yacef's memoir as a film shot in black and white and experimented with various techniques to give the story the look of newsreel and documentary film.
The Lost Commando (1966) is a decent film which makes use of big-name actors, realistic violence, Robert Surtees' colorful cinematography, Franz Waxman's exciting score and a boldly propagandistic sense of social outrage . The motion picture was competently directed by Mark Robson, though has some flaws , gaps and failures. Rating: 6.5/10.
