La patrouille des sables

To cast Parisian Dany Carrel as a Tuareg halfbreed is guaranteed to net nothing but horselaughs ; as for the directing ,it is as flat as the desert .

However, the film had assets : color films were rare in the first half of the fifties in France ;besides it was filmed on location and the natives speak their own language .

But the screenplay is a spate of clichés,some kind of rehashed "L'Atlantide ": three adventurers including a convict on the run (Dalio playing Dalio), the noble legionnaires, the colonel's daughter who can't make up her mind : the dashing officer or the greedy engineer (Michel Auclair in a part unworthy of him)

At the beginning ,it seems that there are two plots : it begins with scenes of the patrol (check the title),, but later on,the film thoroughly forgets them to focus on the trials of the adventurers , the sands soldiers only coming back to play the role of calvalry coming to their rescue .

A lot of old hat,in praise of colonialism.