11/10/25

Beau Geste

Directed by Herbert Brenon (1926)

Herbert Brenon’s sweeping adaptation of P. C. Wren’s adventure novel created an enduring template for tales of legionnaire brotherhood and desert warfare. Ronald Colman stars as Michael “Beau” Geste, the eldest of three devoted brothers who join the French Foreign Legion after being falsely suspected of stealing a valuable family sapphire. The film’s most indelible sequence — a desert fort populated entirely by dead soldiers propped up along the parapets — remains one of silent cinema’s most haunting images. Cinematographer J. Roy Hunt captures the expansive Algerian landscape (actually the Arizona desert) with painterly precision, while Brenon balances intimate character drama with spectacular military action. Noah Beery’s sadistic Sergeant Lejaune provides a memorably vicious antagonist whose cruelty tests the bonds of fraternal loyalty and honor at the heart of this classic adventure tale.

Restoration by Robert A. Harris (The Film Preserve, Ltd.) and James T. Mockoski (The Maltese Film Works). The restoration was supervised by the Library of Congress in collaboration with The Museum of Modern Art, Paramount Pictures, UCLA Film and Television Archive, George Eastman Museum, and San Francisco Silent Film Festival.

Courtesy of ArtCraft Pictures