Les lanciers du désert

"I Cover the War" is a John Wayne film made when he was making half dozen or more movies every year (72 total in the 1930s). So, that tells one right off the start that this won't be a quality film. It was during this potboiler time that Wayne was being cast in films of various genres - as athletes, warriors, adventurers, and even in mysteries and straight dramas. By the 1940s he would have his niche cut for mostly Westerns and war films.

Here he is a newsreel cameraman who covers an Arab uprising in a middle-Eastern country that is a British territory. The plot is flimsy, with a hint of romance included and some supposed comedy that doesn't work at all. Universal wasn't among the major Hollywood studios at the time, and the film's production quality and cast show it to be a low-budget product.

Wayne's acting is fair to good, but that of most of the cast is wooden or lifeless. Except for Wayne, this film doesn't have another known actor even in that day. My relatively high rating of 5 stars is because the film has some historical note in its portrayal of the newsreel camera profession of the past. For movie and history buffs, that might be of some interest. Otherwise, few people other than John Wayne fans would be likely to sit through this whole film.

An American comedy war drama; A story about a newsreel cameraman sent to photograph a bandit sheik in North Africa but ends up trying to rescue his visiting brother from gun-runners. This low budget B film, heavier on plot than on action, offers glimpses of exotic adventure and romance and some tongue-in-cheek humour. John Wayne is fair in his role but struggles to make an impact because of a busy subplot involving his character's brother which was unfunny and clotted the story. For a short feature it feels a bit experimental but it is without pretension and the action in the final third holds up reasonably well.

Before Stagecoach turned John Wayne into a celebrated wooden actor, he was a an ordinary uncelebrated wooden actor in a series of odd projects. Probably the most interesting of these odd deals is this movie. It doesn't seem to be rentable.

In terms of the actual production, its the standard mess, made a bit worse by the fact that you have to portray war and Arabs. There's lots of fun in it though. Wayne is a dummy and there's less wrapping on that. The setup has to do with Brits and Arabs and has plenty of stuff to chew on: occupation, resistance, duped natives, gunrunning, subterfuge... all things that resonate differently now.

But what interests me is the folding. It was a great adventure of the industry to discover different means to write themselves and the viewers into the film. All sorts of different things: writers in the story, actors, filmmakers, con men. One of the most interesting to me is the newsroom center, something that has energy that we have in no other place today.

A cool slant on that was the newsreel crew. More dangerous, more relevant to the folding notion. Here, Wayne's character is making movies that are fresh and dangerous. There capturing of the images is folded into the drama of the story — no matter that the story is trite.

Its a curiosity that to me is more interesting than any of the celebrated Wayne movies.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

John Wayne and Don Barclay are a couple of daredevil and irreverent newsreel cameramen, as adept at driving their boss crazy as Clark Gable and Walter Pidgeon were in Too Hot To Handle. They've drawn a lovely assignment, cover a war brewing in Iraq. A mysterious Red Shadow like leader named Maffadi is stirring up all kinds of problems with the British puppet government running things in Baghdad. Nobody even knows who this Maffadi character is.

In addition to his newsreel assignment, Wayne's got a romance brewing with Gwen Gaze the daughter of the British colonel Sam Harris. And a younger brother played by James Bush who wants to follow the Duke into the newsreel business.

Bush's eagerness to show up Wayne make him an easy mark for a couple of unscrupulous gunrunners who are arming Maffadi and his tribesmen. It's up to the Duke to straighten all things romantic, political and familial before the 68 minute running time of I Cover The War.

I Cover The War is done in the same tongue in cheek vein as MGM's Too Hard To Handle. It's not as good a film, on the other hand MGM spent a lot of money on their movie, far more than Universal did on I Cover The War.

Charles Brokaw who plays Maffadi is a clever and unscrupulous villain who comes pretty close to winning. It would be interesting what point of view a film like I Cover The War would take today.

I Cover The War is one of six films Wayne did with Universal in 1936-1937, none of them westerns, but all of them action films in an effort to broaden his casting potential. This is neither the best or the worst of them.

Most of John Wayne's roles before he became a big star were mostly as B-movie cowboys. However, he made a few Bs for Universal in the late 30s and early 40s and these roles were far less cowboy and far more adventure films. While none of these were great films, they were enjoyable. However, "I Cover the War!" is one I could never find until now...and it's available through YouTube.

In many ways this is similar to Clark Gable's "Somewhere I'll Find You" as the leading man plays a reporter who is in competition with his brother. In this case, John Wayne plays Bob Adams, a newsreel cinematographer and his brother, Don, is SUPPOSED to be off in college but he quit school to become a newsreel guy like his brother! Both end up in a fictional British colony in North Africa* and Bob does NOT welcome Don...he wants him to have a better and more responsible job. Ultimately, an evil man posing as a newsreel man uses Don for his own ends...and nearly is responsible for wiping out the local British outpost! Can Bob somehow figure all this out, save the day AND get the girl? It's Wayne...so what do you think?!

This is an enjoyable formulaic movie with modest B-movie pretenses. In other words, it's a short film with no stars (apart from Wayne) and represents the sort of productions Wayne was doing in his pre- megastar period. Worth seeing if you love Wayne, otherwise an easy one to skip.