Ten Tall Men

The Dirty Dozen may be the most well-known, but director Robert Aldrich's WWII convicts-turned-commandos adventure is just one in a long list of movies that used the same basic formula. Start with a suicide mission that is almost certain to fail -- but almost always succeeds in the end -- and add in a heavy dose of unwilling participants who want nothing to do with it. A good place to start? Go to the local prison/penitentiary and recruit some convicts. They come cheap and can't really make demands, and if they don't make it back, well too bad.

Aldrich's classic perfected this formula with Lee Marvin leading a group of 12 prisoners sentenced to death or extended prison sentences. But to say that formula is limited to just war movies would be wrong as westerns, historical movies, and action/adventure also put their own personal spin on the idea. Even Michael Bay's The Rock used Sean Connery as a prisoner turned savior. Making this premise easier to spin comes easy for French Foreign Legion stories, like 1951's Ten Tall Men, where this international group of soldiers often came from the dregs of society to begin with.

So starts Ten Tall Men where Sgt. Mike Kincaid (Burt Lancaster) and his two corporals and close friends Luis Delgado (Gilbert Roland) and Pierre Molier (Kieron Moore) return to their Foreign Legion post in Tarfa with a prisoner. Kincaid gets thrown in the stockade for going after the acting unit commander's girlfriend (Mari Blanchard). Put in the cell next to the prisoner he brought in, Kincaid finds out the Rif tribes are organizing and plan to attack the city in less than a week.

Approaching the unit commander, Lt. Kruger (Stephen Bekassy), Kincaid offers a proposition; let him take out a group of prisoners currently rotting away in the cells and slow up the Rif tribes until the regiment can return to help defend the city. Kruger somewhat suspiciously approves so Kincaid rides out with Luis and Pierre and seven prisoners in tow. Now, the tough sergeant must figure out how to slow up the upcoming attack while also keeping his guardhouse squad under control. Kincaid decides on a risky plan, kidnap the daughter (Jody Lawrance) of one of the chieftains who is responsible for bringing the previously warring tribes together.

'Tall Men' was released a year before another Lancaster movie, The Crimson Pirate, that while dealing with vastly different subjects, is similar in tone. Both movies were made to be as entertaining as possible with no deeper meanings or awards aspirations. Filmed in Technicolor, this Legionnaire story is colorful, full of action and over the top characters. Even when the evil Rif tribesmen, led by Gerald Mohr's Khalif Hussein, start to track down Kincaid's squad there's never a real sense of danger because in the end you know Kincaid's going to get the job done, and of course, get the girl, the Rif princess who hates him at first but ultimately falls for him. Totally didn't see that twist coming, right?

This is the type of role that Lancaster was born to play, extravagant, over the top, a lover of life who's always ready to flash his famous grin at whatever is put in front of him. Later in his career, Lancaster played a fair share of more serious, low-key characters, but this is him at his best. And less than five years removed from his screen debut in The Killers, Lancaster -- a circus performer before he got into movies -- does almost all his own stunts. In the Beau Geste/Gunga Din vein of the trio of friends, Roland gets to be the flamboyant 'Mamacita'-shouting Spanish legionnaire and Moore plays the equally nutty Frenchman. The convict squad Kincaid puts together includes Michael Pate, John Dehner, Mike Mazurki, George Tobias, and Nick Dennis.

With a Foreign Legion story, there isn't as much action as one might expect where its predecessors like Beau Geste and Gunga Din (even if it isn't Foreign Legion) were heavy on the gunfights and shootouts from the start. What's here is decent although a lot of it is tongue in cheek. As opposed to the Legionnaires gunning down Rif tribesmen, there's a lot of fistfights and hand to hand struggles. Let's face it, what solves a dispute better than a good old-fashioned brawl with crazy sound effects? The story though is a lot of fun, giving star Lancaster and the cast a chance to ham it up for some exciting action. A nice enough way to pass 90 minutes.

Ten Tall Men (1951): ** 1/2 /****