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Having seen Pontecorvo's "La Battaglia di Algeri" (The Battle of Algiers) which is an excellent French docudrama my attention was drawn to this. I have to say that it is a good movie which not only serves as an entertaining drama (unlike the previously mentioned which was more documentary-like), but a reasonable record of some of the issues facing Algeria, France and society at the time. The choice of George Segal in the role of as Mahidi was particularly odd but reflects the era when it was made. Alain Dellon was in his prime at the time (and very good looking). Anthony Quinn as Raspeguy also surpasses many of his other roles in being highly engaging and convincing without the need, as was the case of some of his other roles, to resort to comedy. Two hours long but a lot packed in. The action sequences are well handled.

See it – This isn't a great war movie, but it's a pretty good action movie. Anthony Quinn leads French commandoes against a band of rebels in the Algerian War for Independence. The title is a bit misleading. It's not about a group of men who have gotten "lost" behind enemy lines. It's about Quinn's character, who loses command of his unit after a campaign in Middle China, and is given one last chance in Algeria to redeem himself. Willing to do anything to complete his mission, Quinn and his men tread the path of anti-heroes. The story doesn't flow particularly well, but the action and adventure is definitely there.

French army colonel Pierre Raspeguy (Anthony Quinn) is defeated by the Vietnamese at Dien Bien Phu. After the armistice is signed, he and his troops are sent back to their homes far away. One of the troops is an Arab named Mahidi (George Segal!), and when he gets back home to Algeria, he joins the revolution against the French colonial powers, eventually becoming a notorious leader of the uprising. Raspeguy is sent to quash the rebellion. Also featuring Alain Delon as a conscience-stricken soldier, Claudia Cardinale as Mahidi's sister, Michele Morgan, Maurice Ronet, Gregoire Aslan, Jean Servais, Jacques Marin, and Burt Kwouk.

If the casting of Segal and Cardinale as Algerian Arabs didn't clue you in, this is a very Hollywood look at this historical conflict. Some of this works as an action flick, some of it as a melodrama, but as a whole it's lacking, with a facile presentation of the complicated real-world bloodshed.

Perhaps because it came out so soon after Pontecorvo's classic "La Battaglia di Algeri" (The Battle of Algiers), "The Lost Command" got, well, lost. That's too bad, because I saw this movie only once about 20 years ago, but still recall it vividly as a surprisingly well-done action film spiced with social commentary that doesn't overwhelm the whole.

Anthony Quinn is especially believable as a hard-bitten professional soldier who manages to rise to high command in spite of his peasant birth. Alain Delon is his pretty boy right-hand and George Segal has a particularly interesting turn as an Arab serving with Quinn and Delon in Indochina at the film's beginning who is radicalized upon returning to his native Algeria and takes up arms against his former comrades.

The highlight of the film is its retelling of the Battle of Algiers, with Quinn in the role of the real-life para colonel Jacques Massieu.

The battle scenes are well-done and realistic, especially the opening sequence, which is set in the final, desperate hours at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. Despite being well-made and underrated, this film is not often shown on television, so you'll probably have to rent it.

An impressive, blood-spattered and historical film in Hollywood style, being based on The Centurions by former paratrooper Jean Larteguy. This big budget Hollywood adaptation begins with a prologue: 'After eight years of fighting between the proud French army and the rebel Vietminh guerrillas in Indochina, the end is near... Dien-Bien-Phum, May 7, 1954. After the peace treaty a group of paratroopers are released and they return to France where Colonel Raspeguy receives the command of a new airborne regiment bound for Algeria. There the French are trying to prevent Algeria from obtaining full independence from France. Colonel Raspeguy (Anthony Quinn) commands his paratroopers (Alain Delon, Maurice Ronet..) in battle against the Algerian rebels led by his former Lt. Mahidi (George Segal). Set when the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) is leading the resistance in Algeria against their French rulers, the FLN that the colonial authorities believe, or want to believe, comprise only a small minority of the Muslim Algerian population in wanting Algerian independence. Subsequently, specifically violent incidents taking place in the battle in Algiers -between 1954 and the final time of independence in 1962- are introduced. Finally , the Évian Accords were a set of peace treaties signed on 18 March 1962 in Évian-les-Bains, France, by France and the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic, the government-in-exile of FLN, which sought Algeria's independence from France. The Accords ended the 1954-1962 Algerian War with a formal cease-fire proclaimed for 19 March and formalized the status of Algeria as an independent nation and the idea of cooperative exchanges between the two countries . They lived and loved and fought across three continents ! The French Colonel...who was forced even to torture ! . One of the many women...who stopped at nothing to win! . The Revolt that Stirred the World!

Crisp adventure set in post-WWII North Africa where a French colonel, relieved of his command endeavors to regain power by battling a powerful Arab terrorist with his own specially trained platoon of soldiers. Four years after the end of the Algerian war, in which the African country gained independence from France, this film was made, of American production, but with a mostly European cast. The plot partially moves away from a critical vision of the conflict to present a film of war adventures, mostly set in the deserts of southern Spain, shot on various locations in La Pedriza, Manzanares el Real, Madrid, Adra, desert of Tabernas, Almería, Málaga, Andalucía, Cueva de los Medinas, Almería, and Roma Studios, Madrid. Scenes of incredibly tough paratroops training and sequences of bloodthirsty battles help to take you mind off thinking that the script story of France's war against Algeria. The movie's sympathies are with the tough pragmatism of Quinn's Basque-raised commander, yet at the same time there's room for comrade Delon to decry the use of torture and the point's made that the French military effort is wholment. That's why it contains a mixed message, resulting to be a curious amalgam of bang-bang action and pensive realpolitik so riveting, synthetic French dialogue and overlength notwithstanding. This committed and at times piercing film is a good company to the classic and much better 'The Battle of Algiers', but the latter is seminal semi-documentary style movie well directed by Gillo Pontecorvo; the Algerian government backed adapting Yacef's memoir as a film shot in black and white and experimented with various techniques to give the story the look of newsreel and documentary film.

The Lost Commando (1966) is a decent film which makes use of big-name actors, realistic violence, Robert Surtees' colorful cinematography, Franz Waxman's exciting score and a boldly propagandistic sense of social outrage . The motion picture was competently directed by Mark Robson, though has some flaws , gaps and failures. Rating: 6.5/10.

Unusual in that the terrorists are the French soldiers and not the natives of the occupied country. Well worth a watch but far less exciting than it should have been. It could have done with being a lot more gritty and the French soldiers not looking like they were constantly on parade and not on dangerous active duty.

It's 1954. Lt. Col. Pierre-Noel Raspeguy (Anthony Quinn) is in command at Dien Bien Phu. They would be captured by the Viet Minh marking the end of French involvement in Indochina. Captain Phillipe Esclavier (Alain Delon) is one of the few who survived a volunteer parachute drop into the doomed garrison. Rasepguy's reputation is saved by Escalavier's glowing review after the war. He is to lead a newly formed 10th Parachute Regiment in Algiers with volunteers and rejects from other regiments. His trusted subordinate Lt Ben Mahidi (George Segal) is an Algerian paratrooper who has gone missing. It turns out that Mahidi faced difficulties after returning home and has switched sides to fight for independence.

Algeria gained independence in 1962 after a referendum a year earlier. I can imagine that 1966 would be too soon and too late for this subject matter. The world probably moved on but it's also too soon to dissect this historically. I like the road traveled by Raspeguy and Mahidi. Esclavaier needs a bit more calibrating. He's too naive in some parts and too strident in other parts. He needs to say less. I'm fine with Raspeguy winning the battle. The movie needs to end with terrorist bombings to show that they are actually fighting a small battle in the wider war. There is also the ethnic problem with Segal playing an Arab. Quite frankly, Quinn would be closer in skin color. Their performances are fine but Segal does stand out in his crowd. While I like the slow progression of Raspeguy's descend, it does need more of the horrors. This is a compelling French history drama. I do want it to hit on the brutality a bit harder.

The more honored documentary like film, The Battle for Algiers by Gillo Pontecorvo is considered the last cinema word on the subject of the title and this film is often overlooked. Yet Lost Command has a lot to recommend it and it's a pity it doesn't get more acclaim than it does.

This is a retelling of a part of the Algerian War for Independence which ate like a cancer at the French body politic. For reasons best left to French historians, the Fourth Republic of France when it was created after World War II, decided to reassert it's sovereignty over its colonial possessions. France was then involved with a whole lot of brushfire wars in its colonies.

The film opens actually in French Indochina at the Battle of Dienbienphu where the French got themselves surrounded and the guerrillas they had been fighting for years came out in the open. Among others surrendering was Anthony Quinn's regiment of paratroopers which included the unit historian Alain Delon and George Segal an Algerian Moslem serving in the French army.

Quinn is a tough and charismatic leader of his troops who's risen up through the ranks to become a Lieutenant Colonel. He's not got any family connections, but he's not above making a few of his own by romancing the widow of his commander Michelle Morgan to get out of the doghouse he's found himself in. The French army as in the days of Dreyfus is looking for scapegoats for Dienbienphu.

Quinn gets command of a new unit of paratroopers assigned to Algeria and upon getting there finds his old comrade Segal now thoroughly radicalized and fighting for independence. Quinn sees an opportunity for promotion and a chance to clear himself if he does a good job in Algeria. Delon is horrified by the brutality of the war on both sides, even more so when he's made a fool of by Claudia Cardinale who is Segal's sister and seduces him into allowing her access to the French command headquarters.

Though the French gave independence to their other African colonies like French West and French Equatorial Africa and Tunisia and Morocco, for some reason they wanted to hang on in Algeria. In their minds they deluded themselves into thinking that it was part of metropolitan France. After the action in this film concludes, the Fifth Republic was formed and Charles DeGaulle returned to power for the express reason of dealing with the bloody war in Algeria. Only DeGaulle had the prestige and clout to get the French to quit Algeria. It was a personal and political risky position to take as DeGaulle soon found out. Time has proved the wisdom of what DeGaulle did.

In a way all of the leading characters either get what they want or are proved right. You'll have to see the film to get my meaning.

The film was shot in Spain which served as Algeria. The battle scenes are excellently done and the players are all well cast. By all means catch this film if it is shown on television.

There's a reason this film did so poorly in the US and only well in France. It was pretty clear this gung ho pro war film was squarely aimed at French.

Still, some elements are like US WWII films. Trying to have one guy from every ethnic group in your unit. There's an Arab, an African, a Viet born Frenchman, and Anthony Quinn as a Basque.

And then show your enemy as a small bunch of fanatics. IRL this was a mass uprising of Algerians, including women and even teenagers.

Some of the mistakes are so clumsy. The Viet Minh speak Chinese. I don't speak a word of either, but the languages sound so completely different it was very jarring, and I laughed and distrusted the film from then on. It's like watching a WWII film where the Nazis speak Russian.

The ethnic imposters also make you laugh. George Segal as an Arab? Claudia Cardinale as one also? Neither Jewish nor Italian actors are believable esp when they don't bother with accents.

Only of historical interest.

I watched this out of interest to see how the French experience of Dien Bien Phu might be portrayed, but this was only a small part of the film, and that dissappointment carried on for the whole film. This is another of those generic war films where the tactics are unrealistic to the point of idiocy, the kit and equipment is whatever comes to hand rather than attempting anything but the vaguest way, and the story is fairly daft too. Only worth watching for the novelty value of its subject matter,

Remember that Henry Fonda movie THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE ? That`s the war movie that was set in the fog shrouded snow bound forests of the Ardennes in December 1944 but for some reason the movie`s big set piece battle takes place on an arid desert plain . LOST COMMAND starts with a very similar error in geography involving the battle of Dien Bien Phu where the French built a heavily fortified base in the middle of a mountainous jungle in 1954 , except this film would have us believe that the battle took place in the middle of a desert !

But I`m more than willing to forgive this goof as LOST COMMAND is a good film , it`s maybe not a great film but if you like action adventure / war films you`ll hopefully enjoy this as much as I did and director / Producer Mark Robson should be congratulated for making a film showing the French fighting man in a good light . Say what you like about French political leaders but France does have a long noble military tradition with a glorious defeat being every bit as courageous as a glorious victory . But the screenplay doesn`t glorify conflict and rightly points out that violence breeds violence , it pits former friends against one another , and it`s always the most innocent who suffer the most

Currently a lot of rear echelon commandoes have denigrated the French for not being grateful lapdogs usually with asides about how they folded in WW2, had to be rescued, etc etc. If the brain dead actually read they would've learned that far from being the walkovers these "jokesters" portray the French soldier was and is just as courageous as his ancestors were in the wars of Europe and the quest for empire. This movie is a spirited reminder of that. Anthony Quinn as the peasant born French para officer has to fight the military politics as well as the armed enemy first at the doomed fort of Dienbienphu and later in Algeria. He's playing for keeps and he and his officers are going to to be ruthless. Good battle scenes and the luscious Claudia Cardinale make this a see it anytime movie for me.

Typical colonialist narrative of wars against indigenous peoples.

Euro version of 'cowboys and Indians'.

That Anthony Quinn - a Mexican American - starred in this only adds to the embarrassment.

Most Mexican Americans would view this movie as western/European propaganda.

A Latino friend once referred to the battle of Dien Bien Phu (when the Vietnamese 'rebels' handed the French their hats) as 'France's Alamo'.

Then let's add the racism of 'Chinese' dialect in the scenes about 'Vietnamese'.

One might be reminded of Douglas MacArthur bragging that he 'understood the Asiatic mind'.

As if all Asian peoples have the same language, the same culture, the same 'mind'.

We can do better than this schlock.

Then again, as 'Tonto' should have said, "Who is 'we', kemosabe."

Main protagonist of the "Lost Command" is a French peasant determined to become a newcomer to the military aristocracy. He was decisive on becoming a general, even if it meant climbing over a mountain of dead bodies, up to the generals' epaulets. For this goal, he is willing to cover up war crimes, to participate in their execution, to kill civilians, to organize torture and to participate in it...

"Lost Command", in a very clear but also very subtle way, shows the class character of the French military and colonial order. Main focus of the movie is the brutality of the colonial war that France waged against the Algerian liberation movements during the Algerian Revolution (1954-1962), until Algeria has won its independence. It is quite clearly shown how big business protects its interests and pressures politicians, who then push senior military officers, who than issue orders and send plain soldiers to die for the interests of big business.

It is quite unusual for a Hollywood movie to bluntly show how the war, and capitalism in general, is the best environment for psychopaths and people who have renounced their humanity, or are actively suppressing it, as well as how promotions and bloody medals are given to the murderers and criminals in the service of the state.

Although the unfolding of the film takes place in Algeria, the opening scene takes us to the siege of Dien Bien Phu, the key battle of the First Indochina War, an anti-colonial conflict in Indochina (now Vietnam), where the forces of Viet Minh defeat the French army. It is interesting that in 1954 Alain Delon, actor that plays French officer whose integrity gets him into conflict with his superiors, voluntarily participated in the Indochina War as a French soldier. This armed conflict lasted from 1946 until the mid-1950s, when France left Indochina and was immediately followed by Vietnam war waged in the same area by the US between the mid-1950s up to 1975.

With the previous films that I just commented: JUMP INTO HELL, Sam Fuller's CHINA GATE and Robert Florey's ROGUE'S REGIMENT, this is one, if not the only, American movie speaking of French colony wars; I mean Indochina, though not that much here - more in JUMP INTO HELL - and especially war in Algeria. Here it may be very interesting, and not too much didactic, for US audiences, but also maybe too cliché for French ones, who know a bit more than Americans about this tragedy. However, no movie in France, or a very few ones, have evoked this hush hush war, and only in the 2000's !!! Only Yves Boisset, the French Oliver Stone, made a movie about it in the seventies: R. A. S. Useless to say that after this movie, Boisset encountered many problems.... So, back to this one, yes, this is a very good American film taking place for a while in France, with a convincing Delon and an outstanding Tony Quinn. It is splendily told, built, played, one of best Mark Robson's films.

Franz Waxman's magesterial score and Robert Surtees' remarkably clear deep-focus cinematography are the principal assets in service of Mark Robson's direction of this 1966 war film about the battle for Algiers.

Robson had kind of a hit or miss career. His works include the film adaptation of 'Peyton Place' which we may see today as kitchy camp, but one must also recall that it's one of only a handful of films ever nominated for 5 Oscars for performances alone. He also directed the episodic 'Inn of the Sixth Happiness ' with Ingrid Bergman, a far better example of his considerable capabilities.

Here we have individually powerful scenes vaccilating with an overall thrust that's a bit muddled. We never really end up caring about our characters the way we should or the way Robson intends. Robson waited a year for Anthony Quinn to become available and with good reason. Quinn has the gravitas to pull off such a role without having to resort to bluster. Alain Delon is magnetic as the Commander that just wants to know what he's fighting for. But George Segal's casting as an Arab is ridiculous. Segal, an otherwise always likeable actor, is done in by playing his role essentially in blackface. Plus, much of his performance is looped in post production, and I don't think all of it was by him.

All and all, an entertaining and diverting entertainment that wears it's political heart on its sleeve. A first-rate cast and high production value in a film that ultimately only works part of the time.

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The Viet Cong commander spoke Chinese Contonese dialect to his troops and his troops responded in Cantonese too? How come the French commander still had the fun, splashing water to his fellow soldiers when trudging across the river?

The fighting scenes were well arranged, but all the scenes after the French troops became POWs were unbelievably absurd. Then all the scenes with women were simply too Hollywood soapy and disgustingly lame.