Hombres sin patria

One of the few Foreign Legion films that takes the Legion out of the desert. The Legion was instrumental in the conquest of Indochina in the 1880s, and fought a bloody, futile war in a vain attempt to retain it, from 1946-54. In the late 40s, the French government prohibited sending conscripts to serve in Indochina, so the Foreign Legion was greatly expanded. A major falsehood presented by the film is the great effort made by former SS enlistees to conceal their past, since the French were said to execute any they discovered. The reverse was in fact true, and the French actively (though covertly) sought out and recruited former Wehrmacht and SS men. For the first time in the Legion's history, large enlistment bonuses were paid and former officers and senior noncoms were advanced to sergeant upon completion of training and a short probation period. Jobs were hard to come by in postwar Germany, and the French eagerly made use of this large pool of disciplined, fully trained professional killers. Just the thing for a dirty, distant, unpopular war.

Dick Powell joins the Legion to find a wanted SS war criminal. Despite the above, most of the movie is quite realistic and fast moving. There are good action, and even training sequences, and the atmosphere is appropriately gritty and depressing. The legionnaires are depicted with American M1 rifles. This was accurate in the early part of the war. Ironically, these were later replaced by inferior and obsolete French equipment.

An interesting mix of war movie and film noir done reasonably well.

I will remind Stephen Mc Nally's character here, where he shines as the villain, Nazi on the run. This is a great B movie, or a minor grade A picture, you can choose. It is convincing, rather fast paced, with plenty of suspense and action. I like that the screenplay focuses much of Mc Nally's role, more than I would have thought in the first place. Dick Powell is of course the hero, the good guy, I would not have imagined him as the Nazi war criminal.... This is one best example of what Robert Florey was able to do for the US film industry in those forties decade. Such a shame that he left the movie business to go to TV one, but with success, I admit. It also evokes the War in Indochia for French, but in a quite different way to David Butler and his JUMP INTO HELL.

The Nuremburg trials are nearing their end, with some Nazis being hanged and others sentenced to life imprisonment, but one criinal remains untouched. No one knows what he looks like. So they send Dick Powell after him. Since this evil man has joined the French Foreign Legion, Powell does likewise, and is sent to French Indo-China to catch what turns out to be Stephen McNally and make love to Märta Torén.

It's a capable programmer. There are battle scenes. There's Vincent Price in villain mode, expediting McNally, and the shadows grow darker and longer gradually, under the camera of the under-rated Maury Gertsman. Director Robert Florey fills the time ably; although the movie times in at 85 minutes, it never grows dull.

1948 and US agent Whit Corbett is given a mission to track down Nazi war criminal Martin Brunner . It is believed Brunner has fled to French Indo-China to join the French Foreign Legion . The French meanwhile have a problem in the country where the Viet Mink are waging a war of national liberation

In order to get the best out of this film it's necessary to suspend all disbelief . We're given a short history lesson on the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial where 30 Nazis were found guilty of crimes against humanity - all except one Martin Brunner who has disappeared from the surface of the planet and the entire resources of American , British and French intelligence have no luck in finding . Their task isn't helped by the fact he hasn't been photographed since 1935 and as agent Corbett finds out there's a good reason : " After Hitler and Himmler Reicher was the third highest ranking Nazi . All this leads to a couple of serious questions

1 ) Have the allies tried looking in South America where all the real life Nazis like Josef Mengele and Adolph Eichmann were hiding

2 ) Hitler and Himmler or indeed any other Nazi didn't mind being photographed so why is Brunner different ? No doubt he looked in to a crystal ball and saw he'd be a fugitive so decided to forsake any photo opportunities . Either that or the film wouldn't have worked but you do get the impression the producers could have come up with a better way round this plot point

As it stands the film plays out almost as much as you expect it with the American good guy and a Nazi bad guy who conveniently has met Brunner joining the Legion at exactly the same time . It does play up to the myth that erstwhile Nazis joined the Legion to escape from war crimes . There is some truth in this but the truth of this myth in painfully over stated such as in novels The Devil's Guard by George Robert Elford which purports to be a true story but was very quickly debunked . Perhaps ROGUES REGIMENT is the one piece of fiction that started off the myth ?

An uneasy mix of war movie and film noir with a political slant it's not a very good film in its own right but one thing that is fascinating is the politics . The French are fighting the native population and they're portrayed as being communist stooges . There's also a scene where a French officer studies a wall chart on Viet Minh tactics but later on there's a scene where a Viet Minh leader states that " My friends ? Huh The Viet Minh are not such easily fooled , we may free our selves from [ our French masters ] only to be devoured by the red ones " and this astonishing and prescient line could have changed the whole course of history where Vietnam would 25 years later would have been an obscure exotic country rather than a metonym of bloody folly followed by inglorious defeat

The French are having a hard time with the Viet Minh guerrillas of Ho Chi Minh operating in the jungles in Indochina and striking whenever they can while staying hidden out of reach, creating a constant terror for the Europeans, but this film is not much about that. To combat these insidious freedom fighters France is applying the Foreign Legion, and after the war many ex-Nazis join this 'Rogues Regiment' where they can go on living in anonymity, even if they are chased all over the world. Dick Powell is assigned the mission to find a certain Nazi fugitive hiding in this army, so he joins the legion himself and finds it swarming with Nazis among the other usual delinquents. Vincent Price provides the guerrillas with weapons and ammunition and knows the wanted fugitive, having helped him to secretly join the legion, and there is an attractive night club singer Märta Torén who knows them all, whom Dick Powell falls in love with like everyone else. It's a tricky story amidst some difficult jungle fights, but finally Dick Powell gets his man, while in reality he actually got away - a certain Alois Brunner, who is here called Martin Brunner with some traits of Martin Bormann, another mystery Nazi who some believe got away. It is not a bad film, but it is not altogether outstanding either, but it is interesting for its anticipation of the Vietnam war which would go on for almost 30 years, the French giving up and leaving it to the Americans to keep up the hopeless case. Stephen McNally as Brunner is actually the most interesting character, while Dick Powell is just an ordinary tough guy and Vincent Price that ordinary crook he generally makes, while Marta Toren offers some refreshment. It is exotic and intriguing but hardly first class.