Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

This film is one of the masterpieces of movie-making. It is the prototypical French Foreign Legion film. It has been redone and copied numerous times. Start with the cast. Gary Cooper, Ray Milland, and Robert Preston are the principle characters. Then we have a who's who of character actors who fill the spaces. Then we take a mystery that spans decades, where everyone is implicated in some way. Where is that missing jewel and why was it taken? Put that aside and simply create the great dangers of the Sahara and all its challenges as the the three brothers cast their fates to the wind. The scene at the fortress where dead bodies are used as props and the oasis scene are some of the best that Hollywood has ever created. There is nothing pat or simple about the way all this plays out, but I won't ruin it for anyone. See this film if you never have. See it again if you have.

Opening scene. Turn of the century Sahara. A long line of French troops approach one of their isolated fortresses. The tricolor still flies, though the bugle calls get no answer. The French captain enters and finds the embrasures manned with armed dead men. Not a soul is left alive.Lots of excitement in this story of three upper-class English brothers -- Cooper, Milland, and Preston -- two of whom die heroic deaths in the French Foreign Legion in the African desert. There was a time when everyone talked about joining the Foreign Legion to forget. The film makes clear that there must be far easier ways to forget than joining an army of stumble bums commanded by sadists.The three brothers grow up happily together. (Donald O'Connor is the young Gary Cooper.) Not a care in the world until some tomfoolery about a stolen emerald leads them to take off for exotic climes.They're stationed at a remote fort that is surrounded by hostile Tuareg tribesmen. The lieutenant in charge is stern but fair. But he dies and the sergeant takes over. In a nicely directed scene, by William Wellman, the lieutenant gasps out his last breath in the presence of the sergeant, Brian Donlevy. Donlevy, like Captain Bligh, is a splendid soldier but has a hellish disposition. He stares at the recently expired body, leans over it, presses his ear to the lieutenant's chest, and in a close up, a fiendish grin of satisfaction informs his features.And what a bastard he is. He calls his men "scum," "pigs", and "my children," which must be mes enfants in his language. He relishes dealing out punishment, always operating more or less within the rules but pushing the envelope. He lives only for the army and for promotion. His goal? To become an officer and be awarded the Legion of Honor. He doesn't quite make it.The three happy brothers are just that -- playing jokes on one another, clapping each other on the back, waving and smiling even as they're about to be swept away on the very stream of time. Sort of dull.But Brian Donlevy's sergeant is a much more complex and interesting character. The actor himself was quite a guy, pursuing Pancho Villa into Mexico under General Pershing, then the army in France, the Lafayette Escadrille, and a couple of years at Annapolis, before becoming an actor. He was usually a restrained mid-executive type. But here he reaches for the stars and turns in a very spirited performance.Make up helped a lot. His bullish neck is encase in a tight uniform collar so it bulges over the edges. His haircut is abominable. And he has a discrete but nifty scar all the way down his cheek, suggestive of a combative past. In fact, make up is good all the way around. It's turned the curly haired, Italianate J. Carrol Naish into a whiny little Russian babushka.It's slow getting started. We know how playful and loyal the brothers are, long before they run off to join the Foreign Legion. But once it achieves flight speed, it's highly enjoyable.

At the beginning, the title of "Beau Geste" appears for a brief moment elusively in dunes of wind and dust. After this the viewer follows a French platoon discovering a deserted fortress all of whose guards are armed but dead. The incomprehensible mindlessness of war is drawn with simple crude strokes, leaving the audience gasp of astonishment. Taking a few steps back to shed light on the beginning, the film tells the story of three brothers who join the foreign league. During their service they come across with a cruel general, Arabic rebels and moral that is highly questionable. "Beau Geste" is really a basic classic of adventure film but also one of William A. Wellman's highest achievements. In the film, Wellman draws grand yet personal -- both individual and social -- lines of war and misery in a reduced fashion. After WWII he continued such depiction in "Story of G.I. Joe" which immersed deeper into the inhumane world of war. Although "Beau Geste" is very clear in means of narrative, it also features profoundly intense emotional depth. It has a severe tragic undertone but, at the same, it's filled with romantic and even comic moments. There is one gentle scene between two brothers, who rest for a while under attack in the zone between life and death, which particularly gave me the impression of this being an utterly moving film. I must confess that I wasn't expecting much of "Beau Geste" on the account of unfair factors that normally don't affect me when it comes to my viewing habits. Therefore, I apologize and recommend this film even to those who aren't interested. All in all, "Beau Geste" grows out to be a beautiful tale of brotherly love, enhancing the importance of fraternity. It is truly a film to remember.

Told many times, this version of "Beau Geste" stars Gary Cooper in the title role, and Ray Milland and Robert Preston as his brothers. The three boys live in the home of Lady Brandon, who has adopted them. Lady Brandon is the owner of the famous "Blue Water" sapphire. Because of tight money, however, it has to be sold. Lady Brandon brings out the sapphire for a final look by the family, the lights go off, and when they go back on, the sapphire is gone. Beau admits to stealing it to his brothers, and in turn, Digby and John confess, leaving us not knowing what the story is. The three brothers join the Foreign Legion and are under the command of the cruel, sadistic Sgr. Markoff (Brian Donlevy). Eventually John (Robert Preston) is separated from the other two. The film starts with John and the troop he is in coming upon Fort Zinderneuf, where everyone is dead. It then flashes back to 15 years earlier, and we learn about the boys' camaraderie, Digby's (Ray Milland) love for Lady Brandon's ward Isobel (Susan Hayward), and the battle games they played as children.Briskly directed by William Wellman, "Beau Geste" is a great adventure, a neat mystery, and a heartwarming story filled with wonderful performances. Gary Cooper is at the peak of his handsomeness and brings humor to the brave Beau, and Ray Milland does well as the one with the romance. Robert Preston in those days was not a great movie star, though he is excellent as John. His major coups would be on the stage, and it was in his role as Henry Hill in the Music Man, which he brought to film, that would much later make him a true star. Here he doesn't have a chance to shine until the end of the film. Susan Hayward is very sweet in what would prove to be an unusual type of role for her - just a few years later, she would be playing the other woman, and later than that, the tough, emotional one.Beautifully done, with some amazing desert shots, "Beau Geste" is a film that again demonstrates the "magic" of 1939.