Der Mann ohne Gesicht

1948 and US agent Whit Corbett is given a mission to track down Nazi war criminal Martin Brunner . It is believed Brunner has fled to French Indo-China to join the French Foreign Legion . The French meanwhile have a problem in the country where the Viet Mink are waging a war of national liberation

In order to get the best out of this film it's necessary to suspend all disbelief . We're given a short history lesson on the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial where 30 Nazis were found guilty of crimes against humanity - all except one Martin Brunner who has disappeared from the surface of the planet and the entire resources of American , British and French intelligence have no luck in finding . Their task isn't helped by the fact he hasn't been photographed since 1935 and as agent Corbett finds out there's a good reason : " After Hitler and Himmler Reicher was the third highest ranking Nazi . All this leads to a couple of serious questions

1 ) Have the allies tried looking in South America where all the real life Nazis like Josef Mengele and Adolph Eichmann were hiding

2 ) Hitler and Himmler or indeed any other Nazi didn't mind being photographed so why is Brunner different ? No doubt he looked in to a crystal ball and saw he'd be a fugitive so decided to forsake any photo opportunities . Either that or the film wouldn't have worked but you do get the impression the producers could have come up with a better way round this plot point

As it stands the film plays out almost as much as you expect it with the American good guy and a Nazi bad guy who conveniently has met Brunner joining the Legion at exactly the same time . It does play up to the myth that erstwhile Nazis joined the Legion to escape from war crimes . There is some truth in this but the truth of this myth in painfully over stated such as in novels The Devil's Guard by George Robert Elford which purports to be a true story but was very quickly debunked . Perhaps ROGUES REGIMENT is the one piece of fiction that started off the myth ?

An uneasy mix of war movie and film noir with a political slant it's not a very good film in its own right but one thing that is fascinating is the politics . The French are fighting the native population and they're portrayed as being communist stooges . There's also a scene where a French officer studies a wall chart on Viet Minh tactics but later on there's a scene where a Viet Minh leader states that " My friends ? Huh The Viet Minh are not such easily fooled , we may free our selves from [ our French masters ] only to be devoured by the red ones " and this astonishing and prescient line could have changed the whole course of history where Vietnam would 25 years later would have been an obscure exotic country rather than a metonym of bloody folly followed by inglorious defeat

To be fair to this, it does inject a little twist into the usual French Foreign Legion story. This time the Americans implant an agent "Corbett" (Dick Powell) into the platoon in the hope that he can track down a senior Nazi who is trying to get himself (and some loot) to safety after WWII. It's set in French Indo-China rather than North Africa, so there is some scope for a bit of jungle antics as the two men play a bit of cat and mouse. The mystery is helped along by Vincent Price and his dodgy accent as "Van Patten", a travelling art dealer and by the glorified pub singer Lili" (Märta Torén) whom, to be fair, can actually hold a note for her two numbers. It doesn't take us long to work out who is who but the method of smuggling the spoils is quite innovative and though the production is pretty run of the mill, the decent pace keeps it quite entertaining for ninety minutes.

The film follows undercover agent Dick Powell (Whit) as he tracks down fictitious Nazi Martin Brunner as portrayed by Stephen McNally (Reicher) in the French Foreign Legion in Indo-China. I assume that McNally's character is based on real life high ranking Nazi Alois Brunner and the story is a fictionalized interpretation of where real life Brunner may have gone. Incidentally, the real Brunner never got caught. Can Dick Powell track down and capture McNally, or does this story foretell the actual truth of how Brunner may have evaded his searchers?

The film begins in a documentary style with clips from the Nazi war trials before it turns its attention to the plight of one particular high-ranking Nazi who has evaded capture. We follow the leads that place him in Indo-China, and that's where we meet our cast, all of whom give good performances. My favourites are McNally and Carol Thurston, who plays devious Vincent Price's (Van Ratten) servant girl, Li-Ho-Kay. Oh yeah, she's handy with a knife.

The film seems to tie itself up rather too neatly but it is an interesting journey - there is suitable tension throughout the film as well as intrigue as to what will happen. We are taken into the world of the Vietnamese freedom fighters, who, as a separate issue, win a victory in the end, a few years later.

Robert Florey directed à lot of B movies and some very fine titles like "Murder in the rue Morgue", "the Beast with five fingers" (with a fantastic Peter Lorre) , "the Man behind the mask" (very original fantastic movie with again Peter Lorre, but completely forgotten) before shooting a lot of TV episodes.

This "Rogue's regiment" is perhaps not a classic but remains in the inventive visual style of Robert Florey. The introduction about the last nazis chieves is surprising. Then begins the chase of the very last unknown nazi chief by Dick Powell in Indochina in the Legion Étrangère. The cinematography is chiaroscuro with most of the sequences happening at night, very creepy atmosphere close to film noir. The casting is great with Stephen McNally frightening as the fleeing nazi and of course Vincent Price, charismatic as ever. From a story by Robert Florey, "Rogue's regiment" was written by Robert Buckner who also wrote great titles for Errol Flynn.

"Rogue's regiment" is a fine surpise.

The Nuremburg trials are nearing their end, with some Nazis being hanged and others sentenced to life imprisonment, but one criinal remains untouched. No one knows what he looks like. So they send Dick Powell after him. Since this evil man has joined the French Foreign Legion, Powell does likewise, and is sent to French Indo-China to catch what turns out to be Stephen McNally and make love to Märta Torén.

It's a capable programmer. There are battle scenes. There's Vincent Price in villain mode, expediting McNally, and the shadows grow darker and longer gradually, under the camera of the under-rated Maury Gertsman. Director Robert Florey fills the time ably; although the movie times in at 85 minutes, it never grows dull.