The Deserter (Italian: La Spina Dorsale Del Diavolo) is a 1970 Italian-Yugoslav American international co-production Western film produced by Dino De Laurentiis. It was directed by Burt Kennedy and written by Clair Huffaker.

Scripted during the Vietnam War in the style of The Dirty Dozen (1967) with a party of professional or misfit soldiers going into an enemy sanctuary, it was designed as a vehicle for Yugoslavian theater and film matinee idol Bekim Fehmiu. The film featured an ensemble cast of well-known American actors. Noted as the boy in Shane (1953), actor Brandon deWilde appears in his last Western film before his death in 1972.