“A GALLANT GESTURE”

By Raymond Benson

The novel Beau Geste by Percival Christopher Wren was published in 1924 and has been adapted to film no less than four times and parodied a few instances as well. It’s a classic story of the French Foreign Legionnaires set in the years between the turn of the 20th Century and the First World War, and for nearly a hundred years it has been deemed one of the great adventure tales.

The 1939 adaptation, directed by William A. Wellman, was the second filmed version and is generally considered the best and certainly most well-known variation (the first was a silent picture made in 1926 and starring Ronald Colman). With an outstanding cast that includes Gary Cooper, Ray Milland, Robert Preston, Brian Donlevy, Susan Hayward, J. Carrol Naish, Broderick Crawford, Albert Dekker, and even a young Donald O’Connor, Beau Geste is indeed a rousing “Arabian” action flick, but it’s also an intimate tale of the bond between three brothers.

Cooper is Beau Geste, the oldest of the three siblings who were adopted by the wealthy Brandon family in England. His brothers are John (Milland) and Digby (Preston), but there’s also Isobel (Hayward), Lady Brandon’s ward (with whom John is madly in love), and Augustus (George P. Huntley), the Brandons’ nephew and heir to the family fortune. Sir Brandon has abandoned the family for reasons not entirely clear, so it’s up to Lady Brandon (Heather Thatcher) to head the household and keep safe the MacGuffin of the story—a valuable sapphire called the Blue Water. One day, Beau seemingly steals the gem and runs away to join the Foreign Legionnaires. He is quickly joined by his two brothers, hoping to get to the bottom of the theft.

The commanding officer, Sergeant Markoff (Donlevy), is the heavy—cruel and overly demanding of his men. There are a few subplots and action sequences such as an attempted mutiny and skirmishes with the Arabs in the desert around the Legionnaires’ fort, but ultimately the story comes down to what really happened to the Blue Water. Without giving too much away, Beau’s name, in French, means “a gallant gesture.”

Beau Geste was one of the year’s most popular films. It’s well-shot by Theodor Sparkuhl and Archie Stout, and Wellman’s direction—especially of the battle scenes—is superb. Wellman was a consummate studio craftsman who worked in many genres, but he was at his best with action pictures (his 1927 Wings won the first Academy Award for Best Picture). Oddly, though, Beau Geste received only one Oscar nomination—Supporting Actor for Donlevy (who is indeed marvelous as the baddie).

Kino Lorber’s new high definition Blu-ray looks great for most of the 112-minute runtime, but there are a handful of sequences in which artifacts and scratches are still apparent. There are English subtitles for the hearing impaired, and a very interesting audio commentary by William Wellman Jr. and historian Frank Thompson. The only supplements are the theatrical trailers for this and other recent Kino Lorber releases.

Many film scholars cite 1939 as one of the great years in cinema history, and Beau Geste is definitely a component of this acclaim. Highly recommended.

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