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.
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