Tombouctou

I have no idea why, but there were many American films made mostly between 1930-1960 which featured the French or British colonials as heroes. Films such as "Lives of a Bengal Lancer", "Gunga Din" and "Another Dawn" all glorify the fight between the colonizers and the locals....and invariably the Colonials are the good guys. But today when you think about it, you were supposed to root for people who had enslaved the locals and the locals were just fighting for freedom! Wow, have times changed in the way we look at these movies. "Timbuktu" is another film glorifying French colonialism, though it's not nearly as good as the average movie in the genre.

The story is set during WWII with a new commander heading to the desert. Colonel Dufort and his wife (Yvonne De Carlo) have just learned that the Tuareg have been rebelling thanks to a holy man, Mohamet Adjani. They also learn that Mike Conway (Victor Mature) is in town, supposedly to do some innocent trading with the locals. Howefver, the Colonel believes that this American is a mercenary...and he's actually running guns to the locals. To confuse things, the wife is VERY attracted to Mike AND it turns out someone else is behind the rebellion...but who??

While "Timbuktu" is not a terrible film, it's also pretty weak. Much of it is because there isn't a lot of action and the movie can be quite talky. Additionally, there just have been quite a few good films in the genre...films better and more interesting than this one.

By the way, despite what the film says, tarantulas are NOT the least bit deadly to humans. It doesn't feel good to be bitten but you cannot die from a bite...let alone die almost instantly...and I cannot recall a single poisonous creature that kills as quickly as the one in this film!

For once it's not the Foreign Legion dashing off against villains in the Saharas, but Victor Mature courting the wife of the French officer in charge, who doesn't seem to mind much. It's always a pleasure to see Victor Mature on the screen, there is no one like him for imposing stature and a kind of brutal but benevolent charm, and Yvonne de Carlo is just the girl for him. It's not a great film, but the tempo is swift, there is nothing wrong with the action and the story, and it even amounts to some suspense towards the end, but it is not a very deep investigation of Muslim mentality and mystery but just another account of another power-crazy local gangster, a beduin speaking perfect English, with some intrigue concerning sewing machines. A decent beefy entertainment with a lot of shooting ambushes, crawling in the sand, running for life on horses and without, great risking in disguises and many casualties, most of them anonymous. Jacques Tourneur has made the best of it backed by decent enough music.

1942: Conway, a renegade American, is running guns to the Arabs in North Africa. But when Colonel Dufort, the new commander in Timbuktu, and his beautiful wife Natalie arrive, Conway agrees to work for the French cause.

Victor Mature plays an American adventurer who plays both sides of the fence by selling guns to the Arab rebels yet spying on the rebels for the Foreign Legion. A real chess player. It's an interesting characterisation amidst the familiar desert adventure with skirmishes, double cross, gunrunning, men impaled like shish kebabs in the hot sun, the colonel who is obsessed with his job and neglects his wife and the wife falls for the hero ( Victor Mature). Still enjoyable, especially if you accept it for what it is -an old-fashioned yet thoroughly decent and efficiently made dessert action adventure. After all, it is directed by the great Jacques Tournier. He keeps things ticking with plenty of action - there's an exciting shoot out at its conclusion- and a nifty plot. Just wish it was in colour. Despite John Dehner being rather miscast as the emir, he does well as the villain who has a penchant of using creep crawlies as torture devices. Yvonne DeCarlo sizzles like always. There's a nice quip by Victor Mature when the holy man says "May Allah's blessing be with you." Victor's reply: "Hope they are bullet proof."

Unofficial sequel (methinks so, anyway) to Yvonne De Carlo's Fort Algiers, this hot and heavy desert drama arrives at the end of Miss De Carlo's initial leap into a Hollywood film career, 1945-59, just before her semi-retirement, and prior to her reemergence as "Lilly Munster," the antithesis of Donna Reed's more perfectly molded vision of motherhood. In this one, American Mature is running guns to the Tuareg tribes, while a French garrison, led by Dolenz, tries their very best to thwart the rebellion and any colonial retribution residue to follow. A love triangle soon erects itself between De Carlo, Dolenz and Mature. It's all very civilized and modern. Dolenz doesn't put up much of a fight. I would. De Carlo is definitely worth fighting for. John Dehner, who played a good guy in Fort Algiers, turns around and becomes the demented, evil Emir in this one. Another sadistic rebel has a scar running down the entire length of his face. Dehner tests one of Mature's automatic weapons on the fellow with the hideous scar. He dies. He later will turn up planted in the Emir's vegetable garden. Nice one. Green thumb? Spiders are cleverly enlisted to torture and kill the French. An Iman is rescued, secreted and forgotten along the way. Strange stuff: a long trek across the sands reveals some legionnaires impaled on spears, like shish-kabobs at an oasis barbecue. It's all a bit convoluted and thematically tangled. But, for the most part, highly recommended for folks who enjoy a few Camels with their Tuareg coffee.

This story is supposed to happen during WW2 ,but it quickly leaves this historical context for exotic horizons.The presence of a short-haired Yvonne De Carlo(in order to give her a "French" style?),a hairdo that does not become her at all,increases this feeling.The script is rather poor,every time a French soldier is introduced,be sure to hear the first bars of "La Marseillaise".There are a lot of betrayals,attacks,a big-heart raider (guess whom,De Carlo ,a French officer's wife, will fall in love with ?).Two very sadistic scenes:a baddie -Arab of course- gives French lieutenant as a snack to his lethal tarantulas,and he wants to reiterate this very bad deed with Victor Mature himself.Will he survive?Do not bother.If you want to see a good Jack (or Jacques ) Tourneur movie,do choose "cat people" instead,or, better, "out of the past"