Beau Geste (1939)

User Rating:

7.9/10   

Director:

William A. Wellman

Writers:

Robert Carson (writer)
Percival Christopher Wren (novel)

Release Date:

15 September 1939 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Adventure | Drama | War

Tagline:

AGAIN...the three Gestes face a thousand dangers of the Sahara for each other...and love!

Plot:

Beau, John, and Digby Geste are three inseparable, adventurous brothers who haven been adopted into the wealthy household of Lady Brandon...

Plot Keywords:

Brother | Foreign Legion | Desert | Jewel Theft | Punishment

Awards:

Nominated for 2 Oscars.

Cast

Gary Cooper	...	Michael 'Beau' Geste
Ray Milland	...	John Geste
Robert Preston	...	Digby Geste
Brian Donlevy	...	Sgt. Markoff
Susan Hayward	...	Isobel Rivers
J. Carrol Naish	...	Rasinoff
Albert Dekker	...	Legionnaire Schwartz
Broderick Crawford	...	Hank Miller
Charles Barton	...	Buddy McMonigal
James Stephenson	...	Maj. Henri de Beaujolais
Heather Thatcher	...	Lady Patricia Brandon
James Burke	...	Lt. Dufour
G.P. Huntley	...	Augustus Brandon (as George P. Huntley)
Harold Huber	...	Legionnaire Voisin
Donald O'Connor	...	Beau at age 12

Runtime:

112 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Arabic

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Mirrophonic Recording)

Certification:

Finland:K-16

Filming Locations:

Buttercup Dunes, Imperial County, California, USA

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Trivia:

One of over 700 Paramount Productions, filmed between 1929 and 1949, which were sold to MCA/Universal in 1958 for television distribution, and have been owned and controlled by Universal ever since.

Goofs:

Continuity: It is night when Markoff and the others go into the barracks to stop the mutiny, but it is midmorning when they come out.

Quotes:

Michael 'Beau' Geste: There'll be a flag flying out there in the morning that I swore to uphold. Armies of good men have died for it gladly. It's a battle flag and it's a flag of victory. I'm rather proud to be under it. And I wouldn't want to go out in the morning like you and know that I was going to be a traitor to it!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Hope Island: Batten Down the Hatches (#1.12)" (1999)

Wonderful, just blooming wonderful.

Gary Cooper, Ray Milland and Robert Preston play three orphaned brothers who are raised at Brandon Abbas by their aunt Lady Patricia Brandon. When money troubles hit the household attention focuses on the Blue Water Sapphire, the last remaining wealth in the Brandon estate. The sapphire disappears and is thought to have been stolen, fleeing the scandal, the brothers follow each other into the Foreign Legion, where at Fort Zinderneuf they encounter sadistic Sgt. Markoff and face a test of their respective courage, honour and loyalty.

Beau Geste is a truly classic picture, directed by the highly talented William A Wellman, it combines all the elements needed to entertain across the board. Heroes and villains, battles ahoy, potential mutiny and a mystery at its heart, all combine here to flesh out a ripper of an adventure picture. The actors all perform excellently, with a special mention for Brian Donlevy as the nasty Markoff, it's a truly frightening and bully like characterisation, whilst a nod of approval goes to Susan Hayward appearing in one of her first pictures. The art direction from Hans Dreier & Robert Odell was rightly nominated for an academy award and Alfred Newman's score flows seamlessly within the films fluctuating story.

So many wonderful scenes to enjoy here, watching the boys {and girl} as children playing Admirals is just wonderful, and sets us up a treat for the films wonderful emotive last reel, it's a masterstroke of story telling observing the innocence of youth surrounded by staunch loyalty. Then there are all the sequences at Fort Zinderneuf, where the boys are now men of stature, but they have that mystery in their past to carry around with them, it makes for a truly great watch as the tests are thrown at them. As this is 1939 the film fails to give us any insight as to why the enemy is the enemy, the Tuaregs are merely the aggressors of the piece, but it really would be churlish to do the film down in a negative light because of this, because to me Beau Geste is something of a genre leading light, it's a Beautiful Gesture indeed, 9/10.