L'avamposto

War movies were not really the long suit of Cary Grant. He was much more comfortable in lighter roles which displayed his formidable wit and humor. He is featured in this rather common triangle formula with Claude Rains, who occasionally goes over the top, ala Vincent Price and others, but still gives a believable performance. I know if I were a woman, Rains would not have a chance against Grant in a triangle. For soap lovers only.

Paramount studios was a specialist for such adventure movies, and this from even the twenties. This one is a good example, though not on the same level as THE LIVES OF A BENGAL LANCER or BEAU GESTE. And it is not that well known, despite Cary Grant and Claude Rains presence. I guess one othe earliest films to denounce Armenian people living conditions under the Turkish despotic rule. Maybe the only American film to evoke this too, and I repeat, so early. I am not sure there were so many later. I don't know actually. I don't mind the footage reels, unlike some audiences. If you dig enough to find this gem, I advise you to watch it.

"The Last Outpost" is billed as an adventure film but it mostly resembles a sword and sandal picture, with a segment in the middle that provides for development of a romance. The film is based on a novel by British author F. Britten Austin, "The Drum." The time is World War I, and the story centers around two British officers and their "adventures." Cary Grant plays Captain Michael Andrews who commands an armored unit, and Claude Rains plays Captain John Stevenson, whom Grant knows only as Smith, because Stevenson is in the British intelligence service. He works undercover to infiltrate enemy forces and maintain liaisons with friendly tribes and cultures.

The setting moves between three locations. The first is in what the movie identifies as Kurdistan, but was actually a larger area then identified as the Kurdish State where that tribal culture dominated others and warred against other cultures that were friendly toward the West. This Western Asia area encompasses large portions of Turkey, Syria, and the countries of the South Caucasus near the Caspian Sea and Black Sea.

The second setting is in Cairo where Andrews is treated for a broken leg in the British hospital, and where he meets and falls in love with his nurse, Rosemary Haydon. The third setting is In the Sudan of North Africa, including the endless sand dunes and then the bordering jungle.

There's a little mystery and intrigue in this - between the two male leads, that also involves nurse Haydon. Besides the fighting in the last part between British soldiers and hostile African desert tribes, the first segment especially has some excellent filming of a mass migration. The friendly tribes are fleeing an advancing Kurd attack, and cross a swollen river with people, sheep, carts and goods being swept downstream. In the last segment of the Sudan, Africans set fire to the jungle to flush out Stevenson and Andrews, and it shows panicking and stampeding animals - monkeys, hippos, various cats, and more.

The story of the characters seems to be woven into the bigger picture of a world war that involves peoples, tribes, and cultures across a vast area. But it doesn't do that very well. This wasn't the trench-warfare of France that WW I has been mostly identified with; but may be a better picture of the overall worldwide dimension of the war.

This doesn't give away the gist of the romance and relationship of the two men, but it shouldn't be too hard to guess the details. While Rains and Grant were stars and leading men of cinema by 1935, Gertrude Michael had been mostly in supporting roles. She was an up-and-coming actress at Paramount who didn't reach stardom. She made lots of movies, some with very good supporting roles into the early 1950s. That decade was spent mostly working for television. She never married, but had a long affair as an alcoholic and died in Los Angeles in 1964, at age 53.

An underrated little film about the efforts of the British Army to protect the British Empire in Kurdistan, THE LAST OUTPOST depicts the friendship that is formed between two soldiers (Cary Grant and Claude Rains) as they help native refugees to safety. Their bond soon comes under the ultimate test as they vie for the love of the same woman (Gertrude Michael). This film is extremely predictable, but Grant and Rains develop a unique and genuine on-screen chemistry that infuses much of the picture with a invaluable sense urgency and interest. The film is marred somewhat by the sloppy incorporation of woefully inconsistent stock footage (which looks to be of a completely different stock and shot at a different speed) into various moments, which is often distracting, but fortunately does not undermine the picture as a whole.

The best parts of the film are actually footage from the great Merriam Cooper's documentaries, Mideast and east and north African tribal peoples on the move and in wartime. These are before his part making King Kong.

The film was written around that footage, with Cooper and Rains as soldiers. But the film also included, for obvious box office reasons and to draw in a romance audience that was largely female, a predictable love triangle. This is dull, dull, dull. The female lead is not what many would call attractive, very awkward looking, though tastes certainly change.

Fast forward past the dull romance in the hospital..