Monday, February 22, 2021

Beau Ideal (1931)

A tale of the French Foreign Legion and fighting dervishes in the desert, often key ingredients for a good film though this isn't one of them. This is a sequel to the earlier film Beau Geste, in it Otis (Lester Vail) heads off to the African desert to tell his boyhood friend John Geste (Ralph Forbes) that Isobel (Loretta Young) is the one she loves. Alas, John is in disgrace and is now a prisoner in Morocco, and Otis ends up in the same deep pit. However, it is ages before John and Otis realise this. John and Otis manage to get out of prison with the help of the Arabian princess Zuleika (Leni Strengel) and then have to fight an evil Emir (George Regas) to clear their names...


So, a tale of deep friendship amid betrayal. Unfortunately the film has very stilted and awkward dialogue as with many early talkies. It also gets off to a rather slow start with a seemingly endless and heavily overacted scene in a prison pit before the story gets going. The plot at times is hard to take seriously, Otis heading off to Africa to find a man whom he has not seen for years and doesn't even know what name he now uses, and yet they end up in the same prison! The desert scenes are suitably magnificent, the fighting scenes are fine but the film really isn't very good.