Légion étrangère

A lot of post war politics gets mixed up in Rogue's Regiment, a story about a manhunt for an escaped Nazi war criminal. The plot takes a lot from the Orson Welles classic, The Stranger.

But when Edward G. Robinson is hunting Orson Welles and tracks him to Connecticut he's in the comfort zone of the good old USA even if he doesn't know that Welles is whom he seeks. But Dick Powell as an Army Intelligence Officer tracks his man all the way to Southeast Asia and has to join the French Foreign Legion in order to smoke him out.

Which brings us to the point that Rogue's Regiment can lay claim to the fact that it's the first Hollywood motion picture to talk about the Vietnam War. It wasn't Vietnam then, it was French Indochina where the French are rather foolishly trying to reestablish colonial control. A whole lot of history might have changed in the 20th Century if they had realized colonialism was dead. The rebels were called the Viet Minh then and they were making life very tough for French troops outside their outposts. Six years after this film was made, these same French Foreign Legionaires and regular French Army troops would be surrendering at Dienbienphu. But that's getting way ahead of this story.

The Foreign Legion has been the host to all kinds of criminals and other assorted riff-raff since its founding. They ask no questions when you enlist and Germans, some of whom might have been occupying France, are enlisting. It's here that our man hopes to find anonymity and here to where Dick Powell tracks him down.

With the able assistance of French Intelligence Officer Marta Toren who is working a case of her own, Powell ferrets his man out. In fact he uses the same gambit that Robinson does in The Stranger. There's another well known Nazi in the Legion company and Powell uses him as bait.

Such folks as Stephen McNally, Vincent Price, Edgar Barrier and James Millican fill out the cast in this story set in the then exotic locale of Indochina. Carol Thurston who played the tragic Tremartini in Cecil B. DeMille's The Story Of Dr. Wassell also set in Southeast Asia plays another exotic female in love with the wrong guy.

Though Rogue's Regiment gets a little silly at times, Powell gets captured by the Viet Minh and escapes rather too easily, almost like one of those serials, still the film is generally good. And being a first to talk about the war in Indochina, Rogue's Regiment is a historic milestone of a film.

I doubt though that the folks at Universal Pictures thought they were establishing a milestone.

To be fair to this, it does inject a little twist into the usual French Foreign Legion story. This time the Americans implant an agent "Corbett" (Dick Powell) into the platoon in the hope that he can track down a senior Nazi who is trying to get himself (and some loot) to safety after WWII. It's set in French Indo-China rather than North Africa, so there is some scope for a bit of jungle antics as the two men play a bit of cat and mouse. The mystery is helped along by Vincent Price and his dodgy accent as "Van Patten", a travelling art dealer and by the glorified pub singer Lili" (Märta Torén) whom, to be fair, can actually hold a note for her two numbers. It doesn't take us long to work out who is who but the method of smuggling the spoils is quite innovative and though the production is pretty run of the mill, the decent pace keeps it quite entertaining for ninety minutes.

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.

The film follows undercover agent Dick Powell (Whit) as he tracks down fictitious Nazi Martin Brunner as portrayed by Stephen McNally (Reicher) in the French Foreign Legion in Indo-China. I assume that McNally's character is based on real life high ranking Nazi Alois Brunner and the story is a fictionalized interpretation of where real life Brunner may have gone. Incidentally, the real Brunner never got caught. Can Dick Powell track down and capture McNally, or does this story foretell the actual truth of how Brunner may have evaded his searchers?

The film begins in a documentary style with clips from the Nazi war trials before it turns its attention to the plight of one particular high-ranking Nazi who has evaded capture. We follow the leads that place him in Indo-China, and that's where we meet our cast, all of whom give good performances. My favourites are McNally and Carol Thurston, who plays devious Vincent Price's (Van Ratten) servant girl, Li-Ho-Kay. Oh yeah, she's handy with a knife.

The film seems to tie itself up rather too neatly but it is an interesting journey - there is suitable tension throughout the film as well as intrigue as to what will happen. We are taken into the world of the Vietnamese freedom fighters, who, as a separate issue, win a victory in the end, a few years later.

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.