Outpost In Morocco (1949)

Set in Morocco, a womanizing officer (George Raft) in the French army is assigned to lead a patrol escorting a local Emir's daughter (Marie Windsor), newly arrived from France, back to her father (Eduard Franz). Her father, however, is anti-colonial and wants the French out of his country. Directed by Robert Florey (THE COCOANUTS), this is a typical desert programmer with its French colonial heroes and the Arabs as the bad guys. An aging Raft is the "dashing" hero and it's rather amusing to see his sudden athleticism in the action scenes courtesy of a stunt double! The Foreign Legion actually cooperated with the film makers in this effort (no hyperbole, there's literally a cast of thousands) and Richard Rosson did the second unit location work which was reused in several 50s desert adventure movies. There is a rather touching moment in the film when the cavalry soldiers must abandon their horses to the desert after their water supply has been cut off, one of the few touches that elevate it out of the "B" movie territory plus an unusually downbeat ending. With Akim Tamiroff, John Litel, John Doucette and Erno Verebes whose comic relief wears out very quickly.