Beau Geste

I was delighted to see Ronald Colman in the first silent that I've had the pleasure to watch him in! The cast is excellent, and the plot device of starting the movie at almost the end of the story, and going back in time to solve the mystery is unusual for the time and well conceived.

The plot revolves around three brothers, their love for each other, and a missing family jewel called "The Blue Water." The jewel is taken at the beginning of the movie, and Colman's character, the eldest Geste brother, Michael (Beau), is believed to be the culprit. The mystery of who took the priceless jewel and why, is solved as the story slowly unfolds with each brother joining the French Foreign Legion.

The desert shooting in this film is supposed to be some of the best ever photographed and the director, Herbert Brenon manages the Legionaries and Arabs treks across the desert splendidly! A fine cast with Neil Hamilton (Digby Geste), Ralph Forbes (John Geste), Alice Joyce (Lady Patricia Brandon), Noah Berry (Sgt. Lejaune), and William Powell (Boldini) go all out! This film is silent film making at it's best and rarely misses a beat! It will keep your attention from start to finish and is one of those films that must be watched closely in order not to miss out on the plot development and fine nuances of the characters.

I haven't yet viewed the remake with Gary Cooper, but it apparently follows almost verbatim with the original, which is the greatest of compliments!

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.

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.

Both this original and the Wellman remake are marvellous Golden Age films - it's difficult to compare silents with talkies, or either to the book. In the book you use your imagination, this 1926 original had a cast of thousands, '39 was a populist version with identical screenplay, full orchestra and name changes, '66 only had 2 brothers and muzak, whilst if made today would probably have nothing real in it at all.

Three English brothers - Ronald Colman, Ralph Forbes and Neil Hamilton - join the French Foreign Legion to escape one of them being accused of stealing a large diamond. They find a hard life awaiting them, coming from the hordes of seething Arabs but more especially their own intense Sergeant Lejaune (Noah Beery). The greasy rat Boldini as played by William Powell jarred a little, but only because you know how urbane he really was in retrospect, while you can almost hear Colman uttering his lines in his own inimitable way. The acting was believable, the direction appeared faultless and generally production values were Paramount-high.

Although I've seen the '39 film many more times I'm finding every time I watch this one (definitely unremastered too) it grows on me more and more, so heartily recommend it as the next best thing to Wren's novel.