Beau Geste
I first saw this 1939 movie, with much about "honor and doing right," way back in the early 1960s on television. One of the local television stations had a movie on at 4 p.m. each weekday. It made quite an impression on kids my age back then. I can't be certain as to the year, but it most certainly was around the time of the passing of Gary Cooper in 1961. The movie was based on a novel of the same name by English writer Percival Christopher Wren, published in the mid 1920s.
The movie begins in the early 1900s with a column of soldiers of the French Foreign Legion* (French: Légion étrangère) stopping outside a "seemingly" occupied desert fort. Two shots ring out from the fort and the bugler volunteers to go forward to investigate. He scales the wall only to find the fort is "manned" by dead soldiers who have been propped up at their battle stations along the wall. The commander of the column also chooses to scale the wall and enter the fort. He sees no sign of the bugler, but he sees two dead men lying close to one another and not propped up along the wall. One man has an envelope in his hand addressed to Scotland Yard. Inside is a note confessing to the theft of "the great sapphire known as the 'Blue Water.' " The commander opens the gates and then goes to check the two bodies again, but they are missing. Some gunfire is heard, and the commander orders his troops to retreat to a nearby oasis. The commander and his men then see a large fire engulfing the fort.
The scene shifts to England some fifteen years earlier. At one point, four boys (3 orphaned brothers adopted by the estate owner, who is absent, and his wife, Lady Patricia, and the blood nephew of the estate owner) and a girl (the ward of Lady Patricia) conduct a "Viking funeral" by using a model ship and some figurines. One of the boys, Beau, says he wants a Viking funeral when he dies. **
We later learn that the estate also possesses a very valuable sapphire called the "Blue Water." During one of the children's games, Beau hides in a suit of armor inside the estate's mansion and he accidentally sees and hears a brief meeting between Lady Patricia, played by English actress Heather Thatcher, and a man wearing a turban. Lady Thatcher seems to hand something to the man, who then hands her an envelope. They leave the room and Beau says nothing when the other kids help him from the armor.
The scene shifts ahead nearly fifteen years, when the children are all adults: Beau, played by American actor Gary Cooper; John, played by Welsh actor Ray Milland (he later became an American citizen); Digby, played by American actor Robert Preston; Isobel, played by American actress Susan Hayward. Lady Patricia receives a telegram from her husband telling her he is returning home to sell the valuable sapphire. Beau asks that Lady Patricia show the sapphire one more time, before it is sold, and she agrees. During the showing, the lights go out and when they are put on again, the jewel is missing. The next morning Beau is also missing, although he leaves a note for Digby telling him he took the jewel. Digby and John know of their own and Beau's fascination with the Foreign Legion since childhood, so Digby too leaves to join the Foreign Legion and to find his brother. John follows not long after, leaving Isobel behind, as he had fallen in love with her.
The brothers end up with the Foreign Legion in Algeria, then a French colony. They are trained by sadistic Sergeant Markoff, played by American actor (Cleveland-born) Brian Donlevy, a Russian in service with the Legion.*** The brothers also meet another Russian in the Legion, Rasinoff, played by American J. Carrol Naish. Rasinoff, a thief, hears the brothers talking about the stolen sapphire, and each brags about having stolen it. Later, Rasinoff tells Markoff of the jewel and that he believes Beau actually is in possession of it. Markoff now schemes along with Rasinoff to get the sapphire. When the troops are to set off, Digby is sent to another fort, while Beau and John go with the troops to Fort Zinderneuf, along with Markoff, who makes the fort a living hell for the men, only made worse when the unit commander dies from fever, giving Markoff total control.
The men are so angry at their mistreatment by Markoff, they plan a mutiny, but Beau and John refuse to participate to maintain the honor of the Legion. Another one or two soldiers also want no part of the mutiny. Things all come apart when one of the men who sided with the mutineers ends up changing his mind and going to Markoff and telling him of the mutiny. As Markoff prepares to have men executed, the call comes that Tuaregs**** are preparing to attack the fort. Markoff now must give in and rearm the men to defend the fort. The Tuareg attack is repelled, and then a second attack also fails. Markoff takes those of his men who have been killed and props them up at the wall with their rifles, making the fort appear to be fully manned. Markoff says, "Everybody does his duty... dead or alive... The rest of the bullets you stop won't hurt as much as that first one." The two Geste brothers gain a certain admiration for Markoff's skills at defending the fort.
A final attack seems near, and during a pause in the fighting, Beau tells John that if he (John) survives, that he (Beau) has two envelopes on him, one of which goes to Lady Patricia, and the other is to stay with him. Beau asks what he can do if he survives John, and John tells him to say "something" to Isobel. Then Markoff tells the handful of survivors to laugh loudly to make the enemy believe the fort still has a large garrison. As the men laugh, the Tuaregs attack again. Markoff has the men move along the wall to fire to make it look as if there are still many Legionnaires alive. The attack falters and only John and Markoff remain, as Beau has been badly wounded, but presumed to be dead. Markoff feels he'll be commissioned as an officer after this battle. While the Tuaregs seem to have given up the attacks, Markoff goes about propping up the newly dead men to the wall. When he approaches Beau, John tells him not to touch his brother's body or he will kill him. Markoff sends John to get him some food and while John is away, Markoff searches Beau for the sapphire and finds it along with the envelopes Beau had mentioned to John a little earlier. John comes back and sees Markoff at Beau's body and he draws his bayonet, prompting Markoff to draw his pistol and tell John he's going to execute him for threatening him in the face of the enemy. Beau is barely alive, but he rolls over to hit Markoff behind his knees, giving John the chance to plunge his bayonet into Markoff, killing him. As the bugle of Legion reinforcements sounds in the distance, Beau tells John to give the one envelope to Lady Patricia and to put the other in the hand of Markoff. Beau dies and John does as told. He takes the other envelope, fires two shots toward the Legion column to give him a chance to escape, which he does by going over the back wall.
As seen in the opening scenes of the film, the bugler, who we now know is Digby, scales the wall into the fort and finds Beau's body, but not John's. When the commander scales the wall, Digby stands at the wall like a dead soldier. The commander finds the letter in Markoff's hand and he sees Beau's body nearby. While the commander goes off to search the rest of the fort, Digby carries Beau's body down to the fort's barracks to give Beau the Viking funeral he had wanted as a child. He goes back and gets Markoff to place him at Beau's feet as the "dog" part of the ritual. He sets the barracks on fire and escapes over the back wall, only to find John, who had fired the shots that made the Legion's column believe the Tuaregs were attacking. The commander sends two men on horseback to bring back more Legionnaires, but they meet John and Digby and off they all go together. At an oasis, they see a group of Tuareg tribesmen, and Digby sounds the trumpet while the others fire their guns making the Tuaregs believe they are under attack by a substantial force from the Foreign Legion. As the Tuaregs flee, one turns and fires, killing Digby.
The scene goes to John's return home in England. He is back to Isobel and he gives Lady Patricia the envelope from Beau. She reads the letter which explains what Beau had witnessed all those years before while hiding in the suit of armor; that Lady Patricia had sold the sapphire to keep the family and the estate together, but she had not told her husband. When her husband wanted to sell the sapphire, Beau took it to protect Lady Patricia from the embarrassment and shame of having to explain why the jewel was a fake. So Beau had taken the fake jewel to protect Lady Patricia and as his way of repaying her for all of her kindness to him and his brothers. Lady Patricia says, "Beau Geste... we didn't name him wrongly, did we?" ("Beau Geste" is French for "beautiful or gallant gesture.")
* The French Foreign Legion was a military formation with various subordinate units formed by France in the first half of the 1800s for volunteers from other countries, although French officers commanded most of the units, and French recruits also served. While the Foreign Legion is depicted in "Beau Geste" as being composed of criminals of various types, that was, and is, not really the case, although "Beau Geste" likely helped spread and reinforce that idea in the public mind.
** In the film, the Viking funeral done by the children is shown as the body of the dead man (a figurine) laid to rest on a ship (a model ship they've built), with a dog at his feet (also a figurine). The ship is then set afire and set adrift on the pond, while the kids stand at attention. Historically, whether this is at all accurate, I don't know, as my studies of the Germanic tribes and their descendants never came across this exact ritualistic funeral.
*** Brian Donlevy was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Markoff.
**** While the film makes mention of "Arabs" several times, the Tuaregs are a Berber people, primarily of the Sahara Desert in western and northwestern Africa. The Tuareg language is part of the Afro-Asiatic language family, which makes it related to the Semitic languages, to which Arabic belongs, but they are not mutually intelligible. Just for example, English and Greek are both part of the Indo European language family, but people speaking these languages cannot understand one another. When this movie was made, it seems many Europeans and North Americans mistakenly thought of most people from the Middle East and northern Africa as being "Arabs."
WORD HISTORY:
Legion-This word, distantly related to "legal" and to "legacy" (both are of Latin derivation and were borrowed into English from Latin, but with definite French influence), goes back to Indo European "leg," which meant, "to pick, to gather, to collect." This gave Latin "legare," which meant, "to gather, to select;" thus also, "to choose." This produced the noun "legio," meaning, "a collection of troops in a military unit, a Roman legion (an organized military unit of the Roman army)." Old French, a Latin-based language, took the word as "legion" ("apparently" from the ablative form in Latin, "legione"). English borrowed the word circa 1200.
The movie begins in the early 1900s with a column of soldiers of the French Foreign Legion* (French: Légion étrangère) stopping outside a "seemingly" occupied desert fort. Two shots ring out from the fort and the bugler volunteers to go forward to investigate. He scales the wall only to find the fort is "manned" by dead soldiers who have been propped up at their battle stations along the wall. The commander of the column also chooses to scale the wall and enter the fort. He sees no sign of the bugler, but he sees two dead men lying close to one another and not propped up along the wall. One man has an envelope in his hand addressed to Scotland Yard. Inside is a note confessing to the theft of "the great sapphire known as the 'Blue Water.' " The commander opens the gates and then goes to check the two bodies again, but they are missing. Some gunfire is heard, and the commander orders his troops to retreat to a nearby oasis. The commander and his men then see a large fire engulfing the fort.
The scene shifts to England some fifteen years earlier. At one point, four boys (3 orphaned brothers adopted by the estate owner, who is absent, and his wife, Lady Patricia, and the blood nephew of the estate owner) and a girl (the ward of Lady Patricia) conduct a "Viking funeral" by using a model ship and some figurines. One of the boys, Beau, says he wants a Viking funeral when he dies. **
We later learn that the estate also possesses a very valuable sapphire called the "Blue Water." During one of the children's games, Beau hides in a suit of armor inside the estate's mansion and he accidentally sees and hears a brief meeting between Lady Patricia, played by English actress Heather Thatcher, and a man wearing a turban. Lady Thatcher seems to hand something to the man, who then hands her an envelope. They leave the room and Beau says nothing when the other kids help him from the armor.
The scene shifts ahead nearly fifteen years, when the children are all adults: Beau, played by American actor Gary Cooper; John, played by Welsh actor Ray Milland (he later became an American citizen); Digby, played by American actor Robert Preston; Isobel, played by American actress Susan Hayward. Lady Patricia receives a telegram from her husband telling her he is returning home to sell the valuable sapphire. Beau asks that Lady Patricia show the sapphire one more time, before it is sold, and she agrees. During the showing, the lights go out and when they are put on again, the jewel is missing. The next morning Beau is also missing, although he leaves a note for Digby telling him he took the jewel. Digby and John know of their own and Beau's fascination with the Foreign Legion since childhood, so Digby too leaves to join the Foreign Legion and to find his brother. John follows not long after, leaving Isobel behind, as he had fallen in love with her.
The brothers end up with the Foreign Legion in Algeria, then a French colony. They are trained by sadistic Sergeant Markoff, played by American actor (Cleveland-born) Brian Donlevy, a Russian in service with the Legion.*** The brothers also meet another Russian in the Legion, Rasinoff, played by American J. Carrol Naish. Rasinoff, a thief, hears the brothers talking about the stolen sapphire, and each brags about having stolen it. Later, Rasinoff tells Markoff of the jewel and that he believes Beau actually is in possession of it. Markoff now schemes along with Rasinoff to get the sapphire. When the troops are to set off, Digby is sent to another fort, while Beau and John go with the troops to Fort Zinderneuf, along with Markoff, who makes the fort a living hell for the men, only made worse when the unit commander dies from fever, giving Markoff total control.
The men are so angry at their mistreatment by Markoff, they plan a mutiny, but Beau and John refuse to participate to maintain the honor of the Legion. Another one or two soldiers also want no part of the mutiny. Things all come apart when one of the men who sided with the mutineers ends up changing his mind and going to Markoff and telling him of the mutiny. As Markoff prepares to have men executed, the call comes that Tuaregs**** are preparing to attack the fort. Markoff now must give in and rearm the men to defend the fort. The Tuareg attack is repelled, and then a second attack also fails. Markoff takes those of his men who have been killed and props them up at the wall with their rifles, making the fort appear to be fully manned. Markoff says, "Everybody does his duty... dead or alive... The rest of the bullets you stop won't hurt as much as that first one." The two Geste brothers gain a certain admiration for Markoff's skills at defending the fort.
A final attack seems near, and during a pause in the fighting, Beau tells John that if he (John) survives, that he (Beau) has two envelopes on him, one of which goes to Lady Patricia, and the other is to stay with him. Beau asks what he can do if he survives John, and John tells him to say "something" to Isobel. Then Markoff tells the handful of survivors to laugh loudly to make the enemy believe the fort still has a large garrison. As the men laugh, the Tuaregs attack again. Markoff has the men move along the wall to fire to make it look as if there are still many Legionnaires alive. The attack falters and only John and Markoff remain, as Beau has been badly wounded, but presumed to be dead. Markoff feels he'll be commissioned as an officer after this battle. While the Tuaregs seem to have given up the attacks, Markoff goes about propping up the newly dead men to the wall. When he approaches Beau, John tells him not to touch his brother's body or he will kill him. Markoff sends John to get him some food and while John is away, Markoff searches Beau for the sapphire and finds it along with the envelopes Beau had mentioned to John a little earlier. John comes back and sees Markoff at Beau's body and he draws his bayonet, prompting Markoff to draw his pistol and tell John he's going to execute him for threatening him in the face of the enemy. Beau is barely alive, but he rolls over to hit Markoff behind his knees, giving John the chance to plunge his bayonet into Markoff, killing him. As the bugle of Legion reinforcements sounds in the distance, Beau tells John to give the one envelope to Lady Patricia and to put the other in the hand of Markoff. Beau dies and John does as told. He takes the other envelope, fires two shots toward the Legion column to give him a chance to escape, which he does by going over the back wall.
As seen in the opening scenes of the film, the bugler, who we now know is Digby, scales the wall into the fort and finds Beau's body, but not John's. When the commander scales the wall, Digby stands at the wall like a dead soldier. The commander finds the letter in Markoff's hand and he sees Beau's body nearby. While the commander goes off to search the rest of the fort, Digby carries Beau's body down to the fort's barracks to give Beau the Viking funeral he had wanted as a child. He goes back and gets Markoff to place him at Beau's feet as the "dog" part of the ritual. He sets the barracks on fire and escapes over the back wall, only to find John, who had fired the shots that made the Legion's column believe the Tuaregs were attacking. The commander sends two men on horseback to bring back more Legionnaires, but they meet John and Digby and off they all go together. At an oasis, they see a group of Tuareg tribesmen, and Digby sounds the trumpet while the others fire their guns making the Tuaregs believe they are under attack by a substantial force from the Foreign Legion. As the Tuaregs flee, one turns and fires, killing Digby.
The scene goes to John's return home in England. He is back to Isobel and he gives Lady Patricia the envelope from Beau. She reads the letter which explains what Beau had witnessed all those years before while hiding in the suit of armor; that Lady Patricia had sold the sapphire to keep the family and the estate together, but she had not told her husband. When her husband wanted to sell the sapphire, Beau took it to protect Lady Patricia from the embarrassment and shame of having to explain why the jewel was a fake. So Beau had taken the fake jewel to protect Lady Patricia and as his way of repaying her for all of her kindness to him and his brothers. Lady Patricia says, "Beau Geste... we didn't name him wrongly, did we?" ("Beau Geste" is French for "beautiful or gallant gesture.")
* The French Foreign Legion was a military formation with various subordinate units formed by France in the first half of the 1800s for volunteers from other countries, although French officers commanded most of the units, and French recruits also served. While the Foreign Legion is depicted in "Beau Geste" as being composed of criminals of various types, that was, and is, not really the case, although "Beau Geste" likely helped spread and reinforce that idea in the public mind.
** In the film, the Viking funeral done by the children is shown as the body of the dead man (a figurine) laid to rest on a ship (a model ship they've built), with a dog at his feet (also a figurine). The ship is then set afire and set adrift on the pond, while the kids stand at attention. Historically, whether this is at all accurate, I don't know, as my studies of the Germanic tribes and their descendants never came across this exact ritualistic funeral.
*** Brian Donlevy was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Markoff.
**** While the film makes mention of "Arabs" several times, the Tuaregs are a Berber people, primarily of the Sahara Desert in western and northwestern Africa. The Tuareg language is part of the Afro-Asiatic language family, which makes it related to the Semitic languages, to which Arabic belongs, but they are not mutually intelligible. Just for example, English and Greek are both part of the Indo European language family, but people speaking these languages cannot understand one another. When this movie was made, it seems many Europeans and North Americans mistakenly thought of most people from the Middle East and northern Africa as being "Arabs."
Legion-This word, distantly related to "legal" and to "legacy" (both are of Latin derivation and were borrowed into English from Latin, but with definite French influence), goes back to Indo European "leg," which meant, "to pick, to gather, to collect." This gave Latin "legare," which meant, "to gather, to select;" thus also, "to choose." This produced the noun "legio," meaning, "a collection of troops in a military unit, a Roman legion (an organized military unit of the Roman army)." Old French, a Latin-based language, took the word as "legion" ("apparently" from the ablative form in Latin, "legione"). English borrowed the word circa 1200.
Labels: Beau Geste, Brian Donlevy, English, etymology, films, French, French Foreign Legion, Gary Cooper, honor, Latin, movies, Percival Christopher Wren, Ray Milland, Robert Preston, Tuaregs
posted by Randy at 10:02 PM
3 Comments:
wow i havent seen this movie in years but u r right it is a good one. highly recommended
I thought telly savalas played the sergeant?
Telly Savalas was in another version from the mid 1960s.
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