Influenced by Alexander Mackendrick's High Wind in Jamaica, John Milius wanted to make a film in which children would play an active part in the making of a myth. Milius mixed fact with fiction to tell the story of Teddy Roosevelt's armed invasion of Morocco in 1904 to rescue a wealthy American citizen named Perdicaris, who is transformed in the film into a woman, held captive, along with her two children, by the Berber chieftain Raisuli. Raisuli's Arab machismo matches the American defiance of international law for some higher value embodied in Roosevelt, whom Milius reveres (though not blindly: he includes lines like "Gentlemen, I'd like to be alone with my bear.").
"The film advances by a series of contrasts, between cultures and between characters.... The past - desert duels, cooking meat killed that day, execution by sword, Berber warriors - is ousted by the future - diplomats and admirals discussing policy, marines with bayonets fixed, a tasteful birthday cake, an anticlimactic fading of characters once seen as strong."