Lost Command

Lost Command (aka Les Centurions) is a 1966 American war film directed and produced by Mark Robson and starring Anthony Quinn, Alain Delon, George Segal, Michèle Morgan, Maurice Ronet and Claudia Cardinale. It is based on the best-selling 1960 novel The Centurions by Jean Lartéguy. The film focuses on the story of French paratroopers battling in French Indochina and French Algeria. Plot In the final moments of the 1954 Battle of Dien Bien Phu, a weakened French battalion awaits a last assault by communist Việt Minh troops. The battalion commander, Basque Lt. Col. Pierre-Noël Raspéguy (Anthony Quinn), has called central headquarters for reinforcements. Headquarters sends only a single plane load of French paratroopers, under the command of Major de Clairefons. Despite Raspéguy's attempts to provide covering fire, the paratroopers are slaughtered as they land. Major de Clairefons is killed when his parachute drags him into a minefield. Raspéguy is enraged that General Melies (Jean Servais) sent only one plane, and further believes that Melies intends to make him responsible for the entire debacle at Dien Bien Phu. The Việt Minh overrun the French, with the survivors captured and imprisoned. Among Raspéguy's friends are military historian Captain Phillipe Esclavier (Alain Delon), Indochina-born Captain Boisfeures (Maurice Ronet), surgeon Captain Dia (Gordon Heath) and Lt. Ben Mahidi (George Segal), an Algerian-born paratrooper who turns down a Việt Minh leader's (Burt Kwouk) offer for preferential treatment because he is an Arab. Raspéguy's leadership keeps the men together in their captivity. When released after a treaty between the Việt Minh and France, Raspéguy leads his men in demolishing a delousing station that they see as a humiliation.