Fort Algiers

For a plot, "Fort Algiers" leaves nothing to the imagination. And very little hidden. Right away, we know who the bad guy is, so there's no intrigue at all to this film. It's not very well directed or edited, and the acting is just so-so. One reason to watch it is to see Raymond Burr before he became Perry Mason and found his niche on TV. Another reviewer commented that he or she could see why he left Hollywood. Yes, it's obvious that he wasn't much of an actor. Even in these early films of his – I've watched a couple lately, his weight must be over 300 pounds.

The romance and spying in this are just plain hokey. It's not even a very good picture of life in the Foreign Legion. Yvonne de Carlo has one of her roles as a foreigner, and she probably does the best acting job for the whole film. The battle scene provides a little action but even that seems awfully stagy. The tribes must have been a few miles away when the oil field workers spotted them approaching. Once they charged at full gallop, it took forever for them to cover the ground to the oil wells. While the film quality is very good, the production values are clearly second-rate.

This just isn't a film I can recommend.

Hang on to your turban and ride your magic carpet to North Africa in search of camels, cabaret and oil. Set in 1953, the English and French already have their spigots in the "open" position. Sultry Yvonne Decarlo has been recruited to spy on an Arab rebel leader who has slaughtered hundreds of French Foreign Legionnairs at a place called Fort Algiers. The shot of numerous soldiers lying motionless on the grounds is shocking. The production values are so good, I thought they might have been lifted from another film. Oddly, the set dresser leaves the walls of the cabaret and palace bare--no art or detail. Ms. Decarlo has a role that is ahead of its time. She knows how to read and send codes, ride horses, fire weapons, and detonate explosives. She can also sing and speak Arabic. She is in high demand. The writers give her a neat spy kit to employ against the mean "Amir" and his palace guards. Carlos Thompson plays the love interest of Miss Decarlo. He looks and sounds a little bit like Danny Kaye--with an accent. They make a good team. One strange angle: there appears to be very little discipline in the outfit. The men talk back to their superiors, drink and play cards much too often, and are lacking in spit and polish. On the other hand, Miss Decarlo's shirts are always crisp and clean. She should lead the charge.

The usual desert hokum, with a noisy woodwind score by Michel Michelet (that bursts into piano at the end) but a budget that didn't run to colour; but fortunately embellished by elegantly stylised sets (probably left over from previous productions) lit to heighten their impact by master cameraman John Seitz (plus cool second unit work).

Top-billed Yvonne de Carlo as a glamorous spy photographs well in black & white (as 'The Munsters' later demonstrated), has a fabulous wardrobe and can ride a horse, while a good supporting cast - including Raymond Burr as a villainous Emir - keep straight faces.

Low grade, low budget junk on the same level as 1955's Escape to Burma, although that film was actually better. There's hardly a believable moment in the whole script, the best parts the African desert, the actual tribesman extras, and Raymond Burr and Yvonne DeCarlo. Potential viewers other than RB and YD completists can skip it.

Imagine the tired excitement of those fleapit cinemas in back streets all over the UK watching this dross and having to have paid money for the experience. Did it ever open in cinemas in the centre of cities ? I wonder. Films like this were churned out, with bad acting, bad cinematography with appalling regularity and this one epitomises all of them. Yvonne de Carlo was never that good; here she is appalling and opposite her is Carlos Thompson, a handsome actor who had nothing to offer on screen except his looks. I am perhaps one of the few who saw him in the now lost ' The Flame and the Flesh ' with Lana Turner and there by the sheer force of gravity of Turner's performance he adequately responded. Here Yvonne de Carlo does not give him the same rope of rescue, and he flounders in limp gestures and clichés. Thanks to the ' Talking Pictures ' channel we the public are often allowed to return to these fleapit films and I guess for some there is a sentimental value in watching these primitive films. One star for their strange fascination. The depressed, the lonely and the young lovers would go to see them and tawdry films like these would replace their different realities with double bills of cynically made inadequacy.