title: Desert Legion
text: # Desert Legion
  
  Desert Legion is a 1953 American adventure film directed by Joseph Pevney and starring Alan Ladd.
  
  ## Plot
  
  Ladd stars as a soldier in the French Foreign Legion who stumbles across a lost city in the desert mountains of Algeria in North Africa.
  
  ## Cast
  
  * Alan Ladd as Paul Lartal
  * Richard Conte as Crito
  * Arlene Dahl as Morjana
  * Akim Tamiroff as Pvt. Plevko
  * Oscar Beregi as Khalil (as Oscar Berefi)
  * Leon Askin as Major Vasil
  * Anthony Caruso as Lt. Messaoud
  * George J. Lewis as Lt. Lopez
  * Sujata Rubener as Dancer (as Sujata)
  * Asoka Rubener as Dancer (as Asoka)
  
  ## Production
  
  The film was made by Universal Pictures, and based on a 1927 novel The Demon Caravan by Georges Arthur Surdez.
  
  It was Alan Ladd's first film for Universal since becoming a star. It was a one-picture deal and gave Ladd a percentage of the profits, a relatively novel thing at the time. (He split profits with the studio 50–50.) Joseph Pevney was assigned to direct.
  
  Ladd had broken his hand during a fight scene towards the end of his most recent film The Iron Mistress, but recovered to begin work on Desert Legion on 7 July 1952.
  
  Akim Tamiroff joined the support cast. It was his first Hollywood film in three years.
  
  