The Shores of Tripoli

In 1805, during the war with the Barbary pirates, a tiny unit of U.S. Marines arrived in Alexandra, Egypt and recruited a mercenary army of about 400 Arabs, Turks and Greeks, then proceeded to march across 600 miles of desert to attack the port of Derna as part of a campaign to eventually capture Tripoli.

It is a real-life incident full of enough action and intrigue to easily fill a movie. I would recommend the book Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates, by Brian Kilmeade, for an excellent summary of this campaign and the war as a whole.

It is, by the way, the incident that puts "the shores of Tripoli" line in the Marine Corps hymn.

Anyway, in 1950, the campaign was indeed made into a movie simply titled Tripoli. As we would expect in a Hollywood film, it departs from actual history in a lot of ways. But if we take it for what it is--an entertaining adventure story with sharp and funny dialogue--we will find ourselves spending a very enjoyable 95 minutes.

John Payne (an actor who should be better remembered than he is) stars as the real-life Lt. Presley O'Bannon, who is given seven marines, a naval officer and a surgeon's mate as his core unit when he's set ashore to raise the army. His main source for troops is exiled prince Hamet Karmanly, whose brother is the current ruler of Tripoli. This eventually causes tension: O'Bannon has military command, but Hamet has political control of his men. Hamet is in this purely for himself and is, in fact, willing to betray the Americans if he can eventually cut a better deal with his brother. So tension between the two men is inevitable and generates much of the suspense in the movie.

Hamet also has an exiled French Countess tagging along with him. Maureen O'Hara plays her standard fiery redhead role as Sheila D'Arneau, who plans to marry Hamet for his money and would much rather just talk him into enjoying a leisurely life in exile than risk everything in a war. This puts her at odds with O'Bannon as well, since she at first works to drive a wedge between him and Hamet.

Naturally, though, Sheila and O'Bannon start to fall for each other. This is completely predictable and could be considered a weak point of the movie if O'Hara weren't simply so good at playing the fiery redheads while always looking drop-dead gorgeous. Even a trip across the trackless Sahara doesn't leave her with a Bad Hair Day.

The bulk of the movie is that trek across the desert, with lack of water and sandstorms delaying them and enemy agents seeding discord among Hamet's men. But they do get to Derna, where several Navy ships are waiting to give them support during the attack. But by now, Hamet has switch sides and O'Bannon has to improvise a dangerous plan--one that essentially consists of him calling in a naval bombardment on his own position--to give them a chance of still capturing the city.

The trek across the desert is sincerely suspenseful and the final battle is exciting. With the exception of a few rear projection shots that don't quite work, the production values are excellent.

On top of this, the movie's dialogue is sharp and often very funny. In particular, Howard Da Silva, as the leader of a Greek mercenary unit and Grant Withers as a Marine sergeant both get some great lines. The clip below gives some good examples of this. Below that, I've embedded the full movie.