BEAU GESTE: Blu-ray (Paramount, 1939) Kino Lorber

William A. Wellman’s Beau Geste (1939) is widely regarded as the finest cinematic incarnation of P.C. Wren’s classic yarn. And indeed, its spirit of adventure remains beyond reproach; the tale of a triumvirate of valiant brothers, locked in a harrowing expedition within the French Foreign Legion, gave prominent roles to three of Hollywood’s rapidly rising stars: Gary Cooper, Ray Milland and Robert Preston. In years yet to follow, both Milland and Preston’s prestige would continue to rival, and arguably, eventually surpass Coop’s supremacy at the box office. But in 1939, Gary Cooper was still very much ‘the star’ of Beau Geste, despite Robert Carson’s screenplay, very much incorporating him into this ensemble piece. Beau Geste would also mark a first for Cooper, whose character dies before the final fade out. And Beau Geste also rounded out Coop’s final commitment to Paramount, the studio he had called home since 1925.

Cooper had first come to the attention of Famous Players-Lasky and Fox Film Corporation as a highly-skilled horseman and stunt double. Hoping for more, the aspiring actor – born Frank Cooper – paid for his own ‘screen test’, hiring casting director, Nan Collins to promote him. It was, in fact, Collins who provided her new find with his namesake, borrowing ‘Gary’ from her hometown of Gary, Indiana. Within a few short years, Cooper was appearing in extra work, his lanky good looks, landing him more prominent parts, culminating in a contract with Samuel Goldwyn at $50 a week. But Cooper, billed as a ‘dynamic new personality’ would not remain with Goldwyn for long, accepting a 5-year contract with Jesse L. Lasky at Paramount for $175 a week, or approximately, $2,750 per film. However, at the height of his popularity, Cooper suddenly grew bored with fame, departing Hollywood for Algiers and then Italy, living obscurely with the Countess Dorothy di Frasso at the Villa Madama in Rome for more than a year. Newly rejuvenated and racked with culture, Coop returned to Paramount, negotiating a 2-picture a year deal for a reported $4,000 a week. This also gave him director and script approval – a level of creative control, then, unheard of. And from here, Cooper steadily continued to garner praise for his work. Even when the movies were not especially well-received, his performances withstood criticism, and, more often, were singled out for their versatility and accomplishment. In hindsight, Cooper’s screen presence typifies a certain, noble incorruptibility – the good guy who refuses to bow to circumstance or pressure.

In Wellman's Beau Geste, Cooper again played the most virtuous and self-sacrificing of three brothers, born to prominence, but joining the French Foreign Legion in the Sahara. As with the 1926 silent movie, Wellman chose to shoot most of his remake in the Mojave Desert. Our story opens on an ominous note: advancing Legionnaires discover an outpost flying the French flag.  At first, the fort appears to be heavily fortified. However, upon closer inspection it is revealed the guards, strategically staged with rifles drawn from every parapet are, in fact, corpses that have been propped up. As a single shot echoes from inside the fort, the bugler, Digby Geste (Robert Preston) sounds the call, then volunteers to scale the fort and investigate further. After several pensive moments, Major Henri de Beaujolais (Henry Stephenson), commander of this relief column, enters the barricaded fortress, discovering two bodies not staged like the rest, with a note grasped in the hand of one of the men, confessing to the theft of a valuable sapphire called the Blue Water. Alas, after this brief inspection, Beaujolais becomes unnerved when, upon returning to his regiment, he witnesses the fort, seeming to spontaneously combust and be consumed by fire.  

From this thoroughly haunted and spooky introduction, we retreat back in time some fifteen years. Lady Patricia Brandon (Heather Thatcher), wife of Sir Hector (whom we never meet), an inattentive prodigal, is rearing the Geste brothers, Beau (Donald O’Connor as a boy, Gary Cooper as a young man), Digby (Martin Spellman as a boy, Robert Preston as a man) and John (Billy Cook as a boy, Ray Milland as a man) on her luxurious estate. As children, the Gestes played games in which they celebrated the daring do of days of yore, Beau affording John a Viking’s funeral by torching the toy tall ship in their man-made lake near the Brandon estate, to have previously wounded John with its misfiring musket. The children are also accompanied by Lady Brandon’s ward, Isobel Rivers (Ann Gillis as a child, Susan Hayward as a young woman), who favors John, and, Brandon’s son, the prissy upstart, Augustus (David Holt as a boy, G.P. Huntley as a young man) who is despised by all. The children are aware the Brandon estate precariously rests on the edge of financial ruin, despite Lady Brandon being in possession of the Blue Water – a fabulous jewel she absolutely refuses to hock.  Years pass and the children, now grown into adulthood, are determined the Blue Water should not be sold to settle the estate. Learning Sir Hector intends to do just that, Beau asks his Aunt Patricia to show everyone the gem one last time. However, during its exhibition the lights suddenly go out and the priceless jewel goes missing. Lady Brandon is saddened by the theft, despite the fact no one admits to it. Later, Beau and Digby vanish from the estate, each leaving behind a cryptic confession, having stolen the jewel for their own profit. Unable to discern who is telling the truth, John – who has already developed an attachment to Isobel, departs in search of his brothers, certain they have gone off to join the foreign legion.

Joining up with the regiment, John is reunited with Beau and Digby. However, the camp is managed by a very sadistic Siberian sergeant, Markoff (Brian Donlevy). Meanwhile, fellow Legionnaire and known thief, Rasinoff (J. Carrol Naish) overhears joking remarks made by all three brothers, leading him to erroneously deduce they are possession of the Blue Water.  Intercepting this news from Rasinoff, Markoff elects to test the fidelity of this theory by separating the brothers.  Beau and John are assigned to the isolated outpost, Fort Zinderneuf. When the fort’s stern, but fair commander, Lieutenant Martin (Harry Stephens) dies of fever, Markoff assumes command and unleashes his reign of tyranny. Fearing his unbridled viciousness, fellow Legionnaire, Schwartz (Albert Dekker) rouses the others to mutiny. Alas, Beau, John, and Maris (Stanley Andrews) refuse to partake of this ambush. Meanwhile, Markoff is tipped off of the pending anarchy by Voisin (Harold Huber) who helps to disarm the sleeping mutineers as Markoff orders Beau and John to execute Schwartz and his cohorts. This, however, they absolutely refuse to do. Before Markoff can retaliate, the fort comes under siege from Arab forces.  

Even as the initial assault is beaten back, the Arab armies are relentless, and, with each subsequent strike, casualties mount. To lend the impression that the fortress is impregnable, Markoff props up the corpses already accrued. In the final assault, Markoff manages to hold back the Arab revolt. Alas, Beau is mortally wounded, leaving only Markoff and John as the sole survivors. Markoff sends John to fetch some bread and wine while he searches Beau’s pockets, discovering a small pouch with two letters. When John discovers this, he draws his bayonet. Alas, Markoff still has his gun. However, Beau is not yet dead. Spoiling Markoff’s aim, Beau allows his brother just enough time to defend himself to the death. Now, Beau and John hear Digby’s bugle call announcing the arrival of reinforcements. Instructing John to return one of the letters to Lady Brandon, while placing the other in Markoff’s hand, thereby implicating him in the theft of the Blue Water, Beau dies in his brother's arms. John does as Beau asks and escapes the fort unseen. Remembering their childhood pledge, Digby, first assigned to scale the fortress walls and explore it from the inside, discovers Beau’s body, hides it within the barracks and sets fire to the fort, thereby, affording Beau his ‘Viking funeral’ as promised when they were children. Now, Digby deserts, discovering John hiding in the dunes just beyond. The brothers also encounter their comrades, Hank Miller (Broderick Crawford) and Buddy McMonigal (Charles Barton), desperate for water and lumbering towards an oasis occupied by the Arab armies. Digby stages a daring ambush, conning the Arabs into a retreat with the sound of his bugle. Regrettably, he is fatally shot. Time passes. John, the sole survivor, delivers Beau’s letter to Lady Brandon. This reveals Beau knew all along that the fabulous gem in her possession was actually a fake; she, having sold the original years earlier to sustain the family’s fortunes and pay for their education.  A grateful Lady Brandon weeps for Beau as John and Isobel are reunited, presumably to marry sometime into the future.

Beau Geste – literally translated from French as ‘gallant gesture’ is a supremely satisfying actioner of old-school picture-making, its core, fundamentally situated on the emotional poignancy of its devotional bond between these three gallant lads who fight to protect the reputation of Lady Brandon, who brought them forth into the world as men of honor. The picture is immeasurably blessed by its triumvirate of strong male leads: Gary Cooper, Ray Milland and Robert Preston. Indeed, Ray Milland (born, Alfred Reginald Jones) had risen through the ranks of Hollywood alongside Gary Cooper during the mid-silent era. Approached by MGM in early 1930, Milland suffered the slings and arrows of having his talents squandered on meaningless bit parts. Not until Paramount’s Bolero (1934) did he finally get the opportunity to prove his mettle, paving the way for a more lucrative 7-year contract. As it would take another 2-years before Milland would be considered ripe for leading roles, it is perhaps telling of the trajectory in his career, that he was cast as the only surviving brother in Beau Geste – not entirely, the most prominent part, but nevertheless, the one to infer Paramount had much bigger plans for their rising star in the very near future. As for Robert Preston, he was practically the infant of this cast – having appeared in only 4 movies prior to Beau Geste; his dashing good looks somehow never entirely translating into becoming a popular matinee idol. Indeed, after Beau Geste Preston, although steadily working in the movies, would not appear as a full-fledged leading man until 1962, when he was brought to Warner Bros. to reprise the role of Harold Hill, that magnificent con-artist in Meredith Wilson’s The Music Man, he had thus originated on Broadway in 1957 – and played to perfection 1,375 times until 1961.

Beau Geste remains an exemplar in that ancient flowering of Hollywood’s golden epoch, a time when the great literary masterworks had yet to be sufficiently mined for the movies. Indeed, while William Wellman’s remake is nearly a shot-for-shot recreation of the original silent classic starring Ronald Colman, there is something about this first ‘sound’ rendering to distinctly set it apart, and, most certainly, very much to put to shame the abysmal Universal reboot from 1966. The adventure endures because the central focus here is not on the action sequences – as thrilling as they are – but the magnificent male-bonding between these gallant brothers; a nobler riff, perhaps, on the ‘all for one and one for all’ camaraderie depicted in Alexander Dumas’ immortal The Three Musketeers.  Wellman, so described by those who knew him best as ‘one tough hombre,’ would brook no nonsense on the set, but had been a flyer during WWI – incurring a permanent limp after his plane was shot down during the war. And if he continued to carry something of this stern, stalwart solidity into his tenure as one of Hollywood’s most sought after directors, with such mega hits as 1931’s The Public Enemy, 1934’s Viva Villa!, and, 1937’s Nothing Sacred, as well as the original A Star Is Born, Wellman nevertheless, made an art out of depicting men of honor, showing their vulnerability as well as their valor. Beau Geste is not the only picture Wellman made that eloquently illustrates this dichotomy. But decidedly, it remains one of its finest examples, both within and without his pantheon of classic movies.

In the mid-1950’s a shortsighted and panicked sell-off of the studio’s pre-fifties’ catalog to television resulted, in a roundabout way, to Universal becoming the custodians of Paramount’s early works. And while some may argue, Uni has taken ‘competent care’ of their asset management, the reality is too few movies from Paramount’s illustrious history have found their way to home video in the intervening years – far less, in truly restored and remastered editions in which film preservation has remained of…well…‘paramount’ concern in the interests of their current rights holder. Such is the case with Beau Geste, arriving on Blu-ray via third-party distributor, Kino Lorber, regrettably, in a hi-def incarnation advertised as derived from a 4K master. We should pause here, to consider the source – literally – as a 4K master culled from flawed elements will not yield visual perfection any more than spray-painting a penny yellow makes it 24k gold! The source being consulted for this 4K scan is not an original camera negative. It is, in fact, doubtful any such unicorn exists for this deep catalog title. The source therefore is likely a print master, and, not a very well-preserved or properly curated one at that.

The B&W image here is generally soft, and slightly blurry, with film grain toggling between egregiously amplified levels, to homogenized, and practically eradicated nonexistence – possibly, from untoward DNR applied. Contrast is extremely low, resulting in generally dark and non-distinguished visuals with a decided loss of fine details. Vertical scratches persist throughout, and, in one particular love scene between John and Isobel, are extremely distracting. Such damage could have been corrected digitally, albeit at a cost. But honestly, other than from a pure marketing standpoint, I fail to see the logic in advertising any such half-ass efforts as promoting ‘4K’ when clearly, not all of the bells and whistles have been applied to advance the image to its optimal clarity. We have all been deprived the gorgeousness in Theodor Sparkuhl and Archie Stout’s cinematography. Worse, marginal edge enhancement and some minor digital noise intrudes periodically. The 1.0 mono DTS audio is adequate – though just. Kino has ported over an audio commentary from the director’s son and historian, Frank Thompson. We also get trailers for this and other product Kino is peddling on Uni’s behalf. Bottom line: Beau Geste is a gemstone in Hollywood lore. However, you would never guess it from this slapdash effort. The improvements over the tired old DVD from Uni-proper are marginal at best. You can easily pass on this hi-def reissue and be very glad that you did. A grotesque lost opportunity for greatness. For shame!

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

4

VIDEO/AUDIO

2

EXTRAS

1