Baroud

Off in French Morocco, two warring tribes are about to arrive at peace. Part of the exchange that will seal it is Rosita Garcia, the daughter of one of the chieftains. However, she has already begun a chaste affair with the man she loves, Rex Ingram a cadet of the Spahis, whose best friend, Pierre Bacheff.

Ingram's only talkie and his last as director is a pretty standard affair, with its forbidden love and a rousing defense against the hostile Berber forces trying to break into the fort; will the mounted troops get there in time? Where it far exceeds the usual P. C. Wren product is that it was actually shot in Morocco. As a result, there is a documentary air to the beginning that lingers throughout, and the sets are not nice, neat, and clean, but the actual places, worn and battered by time, wind, and man. Ingram's wife, Alice Terry is credited as co-director and has a small role. It's impossible to say what she actually did behind the camera judging by the results. But it's definitely worth watching if you get the opportunity.

Apparently this Rex Ingram talkie was released as LOVE IN MOROCCO in 1933,an English version of the French BAROUD.

The English version stars Ingram as a Frenchman who falls for Zinah (Rosita Garcia) but this mismatch (for religious reasons) is frowned upon by her brother (Pierre Batcheff) who has fallen for a French chanteuse (Laura Salerni). There's also a tribal war (baroud) which thins out the population.

The Moroccan visuals are solid but the sound is weak, with lots of silent segments. Ingram is handsome but he can't act. Batcheff is quite striking and is a better actor than Ingram. Batcheff apparently died soon after this film was completed. Garcia is OK, and there's also a slave who acts as comic relief (Arabella Fields) who has her moments.

The film is historic as Ingram's only talkie and his final film. Add to this his co-director was silent star Alice Terry. She apparently directed scenes in which Ingram appeared. Terry is listed on IMDb as a cast member but I sure never saw her.

As the IMDb review mentions, there's a very moving scene at the film's finale where Ingram (on horseback) turns and waves to the camera (and the city) and then rides off into the desert sands. Rex's farewell to filmmaking.

When I asked Kevin Brownlow about this film, his comment was something like "Oy vey, what a mess." Yes, I guess. The parts were greater than the whole.

This was the final film, and only talkie, of one of the great visual stylists of the silent era. It is a flawed work, but its virtues far outweigh its short-comings. Like Pasolini many years later with ARABIAN NIGHTS, Ingram chose to film on real Arabian locations and with a largely unprofessional cast. Both of these things were virtually unheard of in film-making at this time. Both give the film a greater authenticity than a studio bound Hollywood fantasy like MOROCCO. The location photography is sublime, and the real scenery extraordinary in its beauty. If the non-professional actors are sometimes a little self-conscious, the magnificence of their faces makes up for it.

But it is the overly ambitious nature of the work that is its major short-coming. While Hollywood was making its early talkies safely indoors, where the primitive sound recording equipment could cope more easily, Ingram wanted to give his first talkie the grandeur of a silent epic. In the spectacular climactic battle sequence literally hundreds of extras fill the screen, but the sound recording does not match the images. The sound effects are weak and ineffectual - crowd noise, gun-fire etc are all unconvincing. As a result the scene is totally unbelievable and even unintentionally funny. You really wish he had just shot it silent and added only music later.

The professional members of the cast are all terrific. ROSITA GARCIA has real presence and an unusual beauty, and PIERRE BATCHEFF is really splendid as the young sheik. His striking resemblance to Ingram's favorite leading man RAMON NOVARRO is hard to miss. Batcheff apparently committed suicide shortly after this film was completed - I would like to know more about this truly charismatic actor. REX INGRAM himself plays the second lead, and he is very good. Perhaps less appealing is ARABELLA FIELDS as the "mammy" style black nanny. As this was her only film I suspect she was a non-professional. Her attempts at comic relief often fall flat.

As a final film of a master of cinema this is essential viewing. It should be mentioned too that Ingram's wife and artistic collaborator ALICE TERRY is credited as co-director, and that this was also her final film. One can only speculate what new ground Ingram and Terry may have broken had ill health, and a refusal to work in the Hollywood system, not prevented them from working again. In the last moments of the film Ingram is seen waving toward the camera - it adds a sad poignancy to BAROUD.