User reviews

I love Mantan Moreland but I don't like this picture. I have watched a lot of black and white pictures that go back to the 1940s.

Mantan Moreland is a great black actor. Funny with big eyes and a high pitched laugh. I am a white female & like mysteries like Charlie Chan. and Mantan is in a lot of them as "Birmingham Brown"

I feel this movie degrades the black people especially the men. The reason I don't like this movie is the difference between the parts the black and white actors played. Sgt Williams/Moreland is in charge of a group of all black parachuters. Most of the white military men are in high positions. The parachuters talk on the airplane. The script makes them dumb. Some don't know how to count to ten when they have to jump out of the plane and pull their parachute cord.

Sgt Williams tells them what they must do. It seems they were not trained previously.

I don't know how it turns out, I stopped watching it. I felt they made the parts of the men that were black, stupid and used their performance as something that was funny to laugh at. I think I saw this awhile back and the parachuters are a part of winning the war.

I also watched a movie where Moreland was friends with Frankie Darro a short white actor in "The Gang's All Here" 1941. They were just friends in the movie and Darro was not his boss. Moreland played Jeff & calls Frankie "Mr Frankie" throughout the movie and Frankie played by Frankie Darro call "Jeff" just Jeff.

As Christian for a long time watching these older movies gives me a lot of insight on the way people are and were treated. Things I did not notice before I see now and it makes me sad. I am glad God woke me up.

Ralph Byrd is really pretty poor here as "Lt. Paul Dupont", an officer in the French Foreign Legion sent to Morocco to train an elite squadron of paratroopers. On his way across on the boat from France, he meets "Helene Laroche" (Lorna Gray) and they have a brief romance before they realise that she is engaged to his best friend George Lynn ("Capt. Bridaux") who is also stationed at the same fort. When some local tribesmen attack the camp, and "Bridaux" is injured, their wedding is postponed and the ringleader of the attackers - the brother of the local Sheikh - is executed. Needless to say, that causes some resentment and the Sheikh vows to avenge the death of his brother. The star of the film is undoubtedly Mantan Moreland as "Sgt. Williams" - he injects bags of charisma and some humour as his officers become just a bit too preoccupied with their love triangle. The ending is never in doubt, indeed the film seems to wrap up with an almost undue haste, but it's at the better end of these sandy action films that is just about worth the hour it takes to watch.

I'm going to make a stab at simply explaining the story of this film. Because there are a good many characters and a great many plot threads its going to sound much blander than it is since I'm compressing so much into so few lines (trust me its much better than this): Ralph Byrd plays a member of the French army stationed in Morocco. Taking a ship from France to Africa he meets and woos a young lady who suddenly disappears when the ship docks. Picking a contingent of Senegalese troops he heads off to his fort where he's to teach them to be paratroopers. Upon arriving at the fort he again meets the woman who has stolen his heart and who is the fiancé of one of the officers stationed there. While out on training maneuvers Byrd and his men are attacked by Arabs who want them out of the country. They manage to capture one of the attackers who is the brother of a sheik that Byrd had met on the ship from France. The brother denies his involvement to the sheik, who then plots revenge when the brother is executed.

This is a very breezy very complicated little movie moves like the wind. Byrd and the rest of the cast are excellent in this tale of conflicting loyalties, romance and action. I must single out Mantan Moreland as the New York native now in charge of the paratroopers. Moreland, best known as Charlie Chan's butler Birmingham Brown gets to be an action star showing little of his trademark fear and anxiety as he charges in with his men on more than one occasion (his method of getting information will be positively frightening to Chan fans). Moreland also is allowed to be more than just comic relief in a role that is more than just jokes and reaction (The scene where he asks Byrd if they can bury one of his men with a parachute is especially touching). This film is more proof that Moreland was an under used actor.

I really liked this movie a great deal. Clearly a low budget programmer, this film somehow rises above its humble origins to become an excellent little adventure film. Regrettably its not better known. This is one to keep an eye out for.