Beau Geste

The lesser known silent original Beau Geste footprint is a near match of its 39 carbon copy save for a few changes. Not exactly a shot for shot reproduction but filmed on the same locale (Yuma, AZ) with an outstanding cast conveying both high desert adventure along with a sense of desperation within the walls of Fort Zindernuff where a sadistic sergeant fends off a massive Arab assault.

Even without his sonorous voice Colman as Beau exudes a dashing nobility while Noah Beery as the sergeant holding down the fort is the silent equal of the magnificent Donlevy performance in the 39. William Powell as the craven Boldini is surprising effective playing against his usual urbane self.

As silent epic Beau Geste succeeds in nearly every facet with immense production values and fine performances in the key roles. But with a pristine print non-existent and the specter of the more popular sound version where Alfred Newman's score gives even more voice to the desert.

Beau Geste begins at the end when a group from the French Foreign Legion find a post in the desert guarded by dead bodies which soon go up in smoke mysteriously. Flash to the childhood of some of the soldiers. Three little boys and one girl stage a viking funeral while playing war with toy boats. We see them grow up into fine young men (Ronald Colman, Neil Hamilon, and Ralph Forbes) and women (Mary Brian) who are as close as can be. Then, crisis when a family jewel is stolen and one of the boys is guilty of the crime. To avoid shame, they all enlist in the Foreign Legion, a childhood dream realized. There, they find that service is filled with tough sergeants (Noah Beery) and criminals (William Powell).

None of the characters have quite enough time to become quite endearing as individuals, but the mysteriousness of the opener makes the film enjoyable to watch. However, audiences are greeted with many familiar and competent actors. Don't worry though; the ending is very satisfying.

I'm guessing that if you mention Beau Geste to film fans the 1939 version with Gary Cooper, Robert Preston, and Ray Milland is the one that comes to mind most readily. But this version with Ronald Colman in the title role and Ralph Forbes and Neil Hamilton as the other Geste brothers is the first, the original, and has a whole lot going for it. It holds up well even as a silent film for today's audience. One of the things I liked about it was some of the dialog on screen attributed to Colman's character. As Ronald Colman had one of the great voices in the English speaking world the words he was given fit his heroic English character so well that we came to know when the talkies arrived.

With only minor variations the story from the 1939 version is what you see here so if you've seen that you know what to expect. The Geste boys are all suspected of stealing a precious family jewel and all enlist in the Foreign Legion to cover up the disgrace of the one they think might have stolen the gem.

Once there the brothers fall afoul of the sadistic Sergeant Lejaune played by perennial villain Noah Beery. William Powell who was one of Ronald Colman's best friends in Hollywood plays the sneak informer Boldini who learns of the purloined jewel and inflames Beery with the tale. Powell who also had impeccable diction was playing mostly villains due to his swarthy complexion. His career like Colman's was enhanced when talkies came in.

The film is every bit as exciting as when it was first released in 1926 and holds up very well for today's audiences. All it lacks are the great speaking voices of Colman and Powell.

A well-directed melodrama with a near-flawless cast. Director Herbert Brenon (or his editor) lets the story unfold at a steady but never slow pace, nicely managing the suspense, but giving you perhaps too much time to ponder some of the oddities that crop up in the plot. Why, for instance, when everyone is standing in a room from which a valuable jewel has just been stolen by a culprit who is clearly still present, do they not simply search the room? Why do the three brothers, each separately on the run, condemn themselves to joining the French Foreign Legion (simultaneously, no less!) if all of them know they're not guilty of any great crime and thus consciously ignore their family's desperate financial straits? They could have at least sent some of their Legion pay back home to mother.

Those Legionnaires got paid a wad of dough because -- in real life, anyhow -- they were brutal, mercenary killers employed by an imperialist power to wipe out Arabs and anybody else who got in its way. Not that the Arabs were such nice guys either but, of course, the film presents all this with the complexity of a cowboys-and-Indians B western. Having your hero join the Legion with no qualms is sort of like having your hero join the Ku Klux Klan, except that the Klan wasn't as efficient a group of racist mass-murderers.

Absurdities and implausiblities aside, the film holds its grip pretty well, not because of epic elements like mobs of attacking Arabs, shots of marvelously oppressive desert vistas, etc., but because of the unstressed acting amidst all the mayhem and intrigue. I tend to agree with the critic who wrote that, in the 1939 version, Gary Cooper merely played Gary Cooper but that, in the '26 version, Ronald Colman embodied Beau Geste. Everyone else is fine and if the villain is over-the-top, it's certainly forgivable on this occasion.

There's a lot of bugling in these French Foreign Legion pictures and whoever accompanies this long silent will have to struggle to stay in perfect sync with all the various fanfares, especially a necessary rendition of "Taps" near the climax.

Beau Geste (BG) is a Classic of the Silent Screen honored in its own time as a movie great. It was remade successfully in one particular sound version that also resulted in similar acclaim. Most (but not all) such silent films involved epic stories that benefitted in their re-telling because of Hollywood's technological advances in better cameras, improvements in the use of color and modern achievements in sound fidelity. In the case of BG, the subsequent sound remake directed by William A. Wellman in 1939 is fondly remembered today by many people. However, it closely follows BG in its unique narrative presentation, and does not surpass the acting and set design accomplishments of the original version.

The list is long of such silent movie classics that were followed by acclaimed remakes. It includes, among others, Ben-Hur (original 1925, remake 1959); Stella Dallas (original also with Ronald Colman 1925, remake 1937); The Ten Commandments (original 1923, remake 1956); The Prisoner of Zenda (original 1913 and 1922, remake also with Ronald Colman 1937); The Man in the Iron Mask (originally titled The Iron Mask 1929, remake 1939); The Thief of Bagdad (original 1924, remake 1940); The Three Musketeers (original 1921, remake 1948); and Disraeli (original 1921 and remake 1929 both with George Arliss). There were other remake versions of these silent film classics, but the ones cited here are the most famous.

As for BG, it was an achievement then praised by the novel's author, Percival Christopher Wren, when he said that "it couldn't have been cast better." The film cost over one million dollars to make in 1926, which was a phenomenal amount of money at that time. Oscars were not first given out until the following year, but BG did win a Photoplay Gold Medal----then Hollywood's most honored competitive award. Shot on location in the Arizona desert outside Yuma (exactly like the 1939 remake), the filming presented a difficult and challenging experience for all concerned. But the final result produced a bona fide timeless classic that thrills us to this very day. It is one of the greatest action films of all time.

BG was also a seminal event in the career of Ronald Colman. In it, he perfected his image of the decent, brave and honorable man of valor, whose code of personal behavior allowed him to reach heights of greatness and nobility of character. He would go on to hone this image in numerous subsequent movies, and do so with considerable charm and charisma. While Leslie Howard also developed somewhat similar qualities in many of his own screen roles, Colman could project more physicality in his performances and therefore was probably the more versatile actor of the two.

Audiences watching BG cannot help but be moved by the power of this film and its rousing narrative. It is not to be missed.