Lost Command

Well, here's a puzzler: take The Battle of Algiers (1966), give it to a competent but unremarkable Hollywood director, remove the political content, edge and documentary style, get an A-list cast, shoot it in Spain and throw in lots of battles. Do that and you've got Lost Command, a decent shoot'-em-up action film that doesn't even begin to come to grips with its complex subject matter - France's colonial wars in Indochina and Algeria.

A battalion of French paratroopers led by Lt. Colonel Raspeguy (Anthony Quinn) is among the last French troops defending Dien Bien Phu in Indochina. Raspeguy, along with colleagues Escavlier (Alain Delon), Boisfeuras (Maurice Ronet), and the Algerian-born Mahidi (George Segal), survive months of brutal Viet Minh captivity. Raspeguy is sacked upon return to France, but manages to wheedle his way into command of the new 10th Paratroop Regiment, destined for Algeria. Raspeguy and his "lizards" wipe out a band of rebels in the countryside, then move into Algiers, fighting more insidious urban terrorists. They find their primary antagonist is Mahidi, who joined the rebels after his brother was killed by French troops.

Released the same year as Pontecorvo's film, Lost Command screams for comparison. Based on Jean Larteguy's novels The Centurion and The Praetorian Guard, it nonetheless echoes Pontecorvo's film in both setting and set-pieces: "forceful interrogation" of suspected terorrists, an Algerian woman (Claudia Cardinale) smuggling bombs into European Algiers. It's not uncommon for two films to be made on the same subject at the same time, but rarely such different ones. And the comparison is not exactly flattering to Lost Command, a conventionally entertaining but dubious Hollywood product.

Predictably, political ambiguities are all but wiped out: it's enough that our protagonists are fighting the Algerians for us to root for them. Aside from two brief torture scenes and a massacre of Algerian villagers, the virtue and righteousness of the French paras is unquestioned. These atrocities as regrettable but understandable: after all, the Algerians started it. The FLN are typical movie Arabs, faceless fanatics who need extermination; the movie makes little effort to explain why they want independence. The ending is a mirror image of Pontecorvo's film: Algiers has an anti-climactic French victory that merely presaged more violence, while Command's explosive, triumphalist climax overwhelms a pathetic coda.

Other elements are even more questionable. Our protagonists seem decidedly unmilitary: they come off as rowdy, insubordinate, irreverent goofballs like the protagonists of Gunga Din. (Granted, if this is anywhere near true, one can certainly understand the OAS terror campaign and General's Putsch launched by the paras after the war.) The individual characters are well-developed, but the class warfare between the peasant Raspeguy and his superiors is puerile and uninteresting. Perhaps most questionably, the scene where the paras usurp civilian authority is treated in gung-ho John Milius fashion, almost as a joke, jarring with the film's serious tone.

All this may not bother a Layman, but arguably there are some subjects that oughtn't be dumbed down. Treating a complex and contentious issue as fodder for a brainless action film is borderline insulting, and unfortunately one that hasn't gone away (see Rambo). At least adventures like The Four Feathers and the aforementioned Gunga Din had no pretense to seriousness or realism, and a half-century or more remove from its subject. Lost Command is mostly serious, yet treats it subject as unimportant. Why use such an explosive topic as Algeria if you have nothing to say?

Taken as a straight war movie, Lost Command is good enough. Veteran director Mark Robson handles the physical action well, with lots of exciting ambushes and battle scenes. The movie films in Almerian locations familiar to Spaghetti Western fans, which substitute well-enough for Algeria; the only jarring note is the "Vietnamese" desert! The film's fast-moving pace is quite welcome; despite covering three continents, it never drags and remains watchable throughout. The major characters are well-done and the complex plot is easy to follow. A nice score by Franz Waxman doesn't hurt either. If it's conventionally entertaining, it is entertaining.

Anthony Quinn gives an excellent performance: his mixture of ruggedness, virility and off-hand, earthy charm suits Raspeguy perfectly. French stars Alain Delon (Is Paris Burning?) and Maurice Ronet (Carve Her Name With Pride) are fine, but George Segal's brownface turn as Mahidi is embarrassing. The always-gorgeous Claudia Cardinale (Once Upon a Time in the West) is on-hand as Delon's love interest, and she does well in a limited role. Spaghetti Western fans may recognize Al Muloch and Aldo Sambrell in bit parts; perennial Frenchman Jacques Marin (Charade, The Train) also turns up.

If viewed only as a mindless shoot-'em-up, Lost Command is good enough. But it can't hold a candle to The Battle of Algiers, and anyone seeking an understanding of the Algerian War should look elsewhere.