Drums of the Desert (1940)

Director: GEORGE WAGGNER. Screenplay: Dorothy Reid and Joseph West. Based on a story by John T. Neville. Photography: Fred Jackman Jr. Film editor: Jack Ogilvie. Art director: Charles Clague. Set decorator: Dave Milton. Music director: Edward J. Kay. Assistant director: Charles Townsend. Sound recording: William Fox. Producer: Paul Malvern. Copyright 7 October 1940 by Monogram Pictures Corporation. No New York opening. US. release: 7 October 1940. Australian release through Associated-British Empire Films: 2 January 1941. 7 reels. 5,948 feet. 66 minutes. (Available on an Alpha DVD).COMMENT: Not a western but a Foreign Legion outing. Waggner's direction with its extended takes and elaborate tracking shots delivers a considerable clout above the average Monogram effort. And he's also commendably lessened the corniness inherent in the screenplay by having his players rattle off their lines twice as fast as normal. It's also a pleasant surprise by Hollywood standards to find a real Frenchman playing the Foreign Legion commandant. And it's doubly enjoyable to find such a heartening performance as that put across by Albert Morin as a villainous sand diviner. "Technical director" Charles Clague has turned in a very competent job in making over existing sets, whilst Fred Jackman's photography also rates as more than passably pleasing.

****SPOILERS**** Love story that takes place in the North African desert involving French legionaries Paul Dumont and his lifelong friend Captain Jean "Birdbrain" -in that he's too slow to figure things out-Birdaux over pretty Helene Laroche played by actress Lorna Gray, who passed away this April 30 2017 just three months shy of her 100th birthday, who's in fact engaged to marry Jean without his friend Paul's knowledge. Paul who' s training g a group of Senegalese paratroopers who all seem to come from Harlem New York to fight the local rampaging Arabs Bedouins who end up capturing Ben Ali the kid brother of Arab guerrillas leader Hassan. It's Hassan whom despite in him pleading to spare his brother's life Jean ends up executing him via a military fire squad.This has Hassen take revenge by having his men kidnap Paul & Helene and threaten to have them shot before sunrise even before they have a chance to eat their last breakfast. It's Captain Birdaux together with the Senegalese paratroopers lead by Sgt. Blue Williams and his second & third in command BoBo and Meathball who storm Hassen's camp and after a wild fire fight rescue the two lovers with Capt. Birdaux ending up seriously wounded. As he's about to go under the Captain gives both Paul and his former fiancée Helena his blessings knowing, in him dying, that he's in no condition to marry her.The movie has Mantan Moreland as tough as nails Senegalese paratrooper commander, straight from East 125th street and 7th Ave in Manhattan, Sgt. Blue Williams in a very rare dramatic and serious role- yet he's still able to get a few laughs in between the shooting- playing it. As for the paratroopers that Sgt. Blue's in charge of this was the first time that they ever took a jump in training as well as combat in their entire lives. Yet they did it as successful and professionally as any hardened member of of the tough US military's 101th airborne division or 82th airborne brigade.

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.

There's little to be said in favor of this Z-Grade Boots & Bullets flick that depends on degrading stereotypes for its buffoonish black characters and heroic results for its romantic white characters. If this film is an example of how far movies have come in presenting non-whites, then it is of historical value. Mantan Moreland, one of the top black character actors of the 30's and 40's, is presented in a demeaning light while "Dick Tracy's" Ralph Byrd gets to be the superman who saves the day. Monogram films aren't always this bad; In fact, some of them are now classics. The romantic triangle between Byrd, George Lynn and Lorna Gray is never really developed, and the conflict they face in the desert seems forced. The dialog is mainly filler to help reach the movie's 60 minute running time.