with Michael Caine to star and René Clément to direct. Caine later said he made the film because of his relationship with producer Harry Saltzman and the fact he wanted to work with Clément. The film was also known as Deadly Patrol. In February 1968 Richard Harris and Nigel Davenport signed to co-star, by which time the film had been re-named Play Dirty. However Richard Harris ultimately did not appear in the film. According to Andre DeToth, Lotte Colin did hardly any of the screenplay despite being credited. She was Saltzman's mother-in-law. Filming The film was originally planned by Saltzman to be filmed in Israel. Saltzman asked Andre DeToth to scout the country for locations. De Toth said Clément wanted to film in Morocco or Algeria, but Saltzman refused to go to North Africa, and Clément refused to go to Israel. The film ended up being shot on location in the Tabernas Desert near Tabernas in Almería, Spain. Richard Harris left his home in London for Spain on 16 February 1968. He said he was handed a script which was different from the one he had agreed to do when he signed on. He quit the film and sued the producers for payment of his salary, which was a reported £150,000. After Nigel Davenport replaced Harris, and Nigel Green replaced Davenport, René Clément resigned as director, and executive producer André DeToth took over directing the film. DeToth said Clément "wanted to make a 'poetry of war'" while Saltzman "wanted blazing guns and roaring tanks". Several other films were shooting in Almería at the same time, including Shalako. Caine later said, "There are six sand dunes in Almeria... We'd all come round the hill chasing Rommel's tanks - and there's horse shit all over the desert and a stagecoach in the other directions being chased by Indians. The other film units were forever wiping out tank tracks to get their westerns and we were forever shovelling up horse shit and wiping out hoof prints to get our El Alamein." Caine later said he had a clause in his contracts that any film on which he worked could not be made in Almería. "It was that bad". DeToth later said that in making the film, "I wanted to rub our noses in the mess we have created and how we shy away from our ability to clean it up... I wanted to