Desperate Times Call For Desperate Actions-Gary Cooper’s “Beau Geste” (1939)-A Film Review  

DVD Review

By Fritz Taylor

Beau Geste, starring Gary Cooper, Ray Milland, Robert Preston, Susan Hayward, 1939

As a kid I never wanted to be a French Foreign Legionnaire. Period. Never liked the idea of being out in the freaking hot desert with a bunch of dead-end guys whose only common trait is that they had to hightail it from some place-usually fast. In my neighborhood there were dead-beat guys hanging on the lamp posts in every street and I knew most of them, had been on a few capers which are better left unspoken about at this time since I have been clean for many years but some silly relative might this and putting two and two together try to blackmail me.

Okay, I wanted to be at times a cowboy defeating Indians (now Native Americans or indigenous peoples), a knight around King Arthur’s Roundtable, a swashbuckling pirate a la cinema’s Errol Flynn or a Three Musketeer but unlike the older boy Beau Geste character in the film under review of the same name never a Legionnaire. And not from any scruples like I developed later when I got political and would have seen this cohort of desperadoes as front-line agents of French imperialism, colonialism against the native peoples of the various colonies they lorded it over. If I had watched the film as a youth I would have been put off by those dry endless desert expanses and that was that. Now I would be put off more by the fact that the Arabs massed armies had no speaking parts, that the whole thinking beyond the plot-line was strictly from the Western and French perspectives.

That said the Foreign Legion exploits and desires just kind of an adventure backdrop to the front-end story which is what happened to an expensive piece of jewelry which went missing from its location in a box in the house, manor house really, of Lord and Lady Brandon in Merry Olde England. Problem: none of the three young charges, the Geste boys will own up to the theft, will claim responsibility. These three are had been orphans in the charge of Lady B. Lord B was some kind of spendthrift who would have sold the jewel to pay for his profligate ways leaving nothing except debt and craziness for Lady B. Next morning Beau, played by High Noon sheriff Gary Cooper, split for parts unknown. So did Digby, played by Music Man Robert Preston and subsequently the third pseudo-musketeer John, played by lost weekend Ray Milland. The former two had left confessions so who the hell knows who stole the freaking jewel.           

This is where the French Foreign Legion part makes a certain among of sense, at least for the guy who committed the heist. Get far away from manor houses, from England, from civilization. Wrong move though one late arriving John joins up and the three are in for a dime, in for a dollar. Enter a Sergeant Markov one hell of a bitch of lifer who has dreams of going up the food chain to officer land and medals by keeping his foot on the heads of all his underlings. Not a nice guy, no way. His idea of discipline, fun, was to send two guys who had deserted, and were captured back out into the desert without water to die. Even my sergeants in Vietnam would have been hard-pressed to top that for guys who were on the same side, tough as those latter guys were. Since all the Legionnaires were desperados and not out in the freaking desert  for the waters one guy started mutiny talk once they find out Sarge is going to be in charge.

Sarge was able to put down that mutiny with the help if you can believe this of Beau and John. Digby is in some other hell-hole fort miles away. Before this some stoolie told Sarge that one of the guys, Beau had a valuable jewel so he was dead meat if Sarge had his way. So no love lost between them and no love lost either when Beau and John refused to be the execution squad to murder the mutineers. Save by the bell any way since the restless “natives” started an attack just as all hell was breaking loose in the fort. The massed attacks came in waves and ultimately most of the soldiers in the fort were killed. This is the kind of guy Markov was though to create a feign for the enemy he had dead soldiers looking out on the attackers making it look like there were more guys than there were. Before the end of the attacks though Beau was killed.

This gave Sarge an opportunity to grab the jewel and use Beau as massed enemy rifle practice. John disagreed and Sarge went down for the count. John blew town, or rather hit the desert -with water in hand. Digby showed up with a troop of reinforcements from the other fort, finds the dead Beau, gives him a warrior’s send off and as he blows town, or rather hits the desert he runs into John and they are ready to head off except those pesky natives launch another attack and Digby falls on his sword. John is the only one left to go back to Brandon Manor and sad news Lady B. and with the jewel. Except there is no jewel, nothing but a fake jewel since Lady B. to keep the household running sold the damn thing years before. Beau had witnessed the transaction and to protect Lady B. from hubby and/or the law staged this schoolboy theft.  Strange film about strange guys turning into strange soldiers. Watch it though as the three amigo brothers go through their paces.