Beau Geste

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.

If you're a fan of the 1939 William Wellman version of Beau Geste, then do yourself a BIG favor and rent the 1926 film starring Ronald Colman. I was shocked by the similarities in style and composition between both films; it almost seems as if Wellman was making an homage to the earlier film which, by the way, he was up for but didn't get the job to direct. In any case, there are some different twists to the story which make it very enjoyable to watch even if you're already familiar with the story. Fantastic locations and set designs.

After a fabulous gem is reported stolen from his adoptive Aunt's care, Michael "Beau" Geste (Ronald Colman) takes the blame and leaves England, enlisting in the French Foreign Legion and getting stationed in North Africa. His two brothers, Digby (Neil Hamilton) and John (Ralph Forbes), also enlist in an effort to get Beau to return home. They fall under the command of the sadistic Sgt. Lejaune (Noah Beery Sr.), and the troops can't decide if they'd rather kill him or the approaching hostile Arab army. Also featuring William Powell, Victor McLaglen, Alice Joyce, Mary Brian, Norman Trevor, George Regas,Donald Stuart, and Bernard Siegel.

I've seen, and enjoyed, the 1939 version starring Gary Cooper, and now I know that that later version closely followed this original. Director and screenwriter Herbert Brenon does a tremendous job with the Legion sections of the film, and it's surprisingly violent. The sections showing the Gestes as kids goes on a bit long, though. The opening segment of the film is revisited later, with the events shown from a different angle. I wonder how often that narrative device had been used by this point, if at all. The cast stand out for me was William Powell as Boldini, a shifty thief and scoundrel (someone calls him a "jibbering jackal" at one point) who is also in the Legion.

Not a dull moment awaits the viewer in Beau Geste. Quite honestly, it's never boring. The great action scenes, great story telling, superb acting, fabulous art direction and amazing camerawork hold it up just as well today as in 1926.

Now, I'm not a fan of sweeping epics. I, for one, hate David Lean's work with a passion. But in the silent days, many a great epic film was made, and this in one of them.

Probably the most incredible thing is the sheer size of this movie. The opening scenes of the french troops advancing toward the fort, or later with the arabs doing the same thing, are astounding. Unlike in Lean's work, where crowds of chattering background players rush about in every direction, director Herbert Brennon skillfully weaves his literal army of extras over the sand dunes, obviously going to great lengths to ensure that he gets a breathtaking shot. And cinematographer Roy Hunt captures it impeccably, only as an artist would. I'd like to see more of his.

I saw this movie last night in a restored silent movie theater with live organ accompaniment. The organist, the incredible Dennis James, mentioned that some audience members might feel that they had seen this film before, only that they thought that it was with Gar Cooper. I haven't seen that version, but apparently it's almost a shot-for-shot remake. I'd love to see it if it's even half as good as this one.

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.