Beau Geste

After a fabulous gem is reported stolen from his adoptive Aunt's care, Michael "Beau" Geste (Ronald Colman) takes the blame and leaves England, enlisting in the French Foreign Legion and getting stationed in North Africa. His two brothers, Digby (Neil Hamilton) and John (Ralph Forbes), also enlist in an effort to get Beau to return home. They fall under the command of the sadistic Sgt. Lejaune (Noah Beery Sr.), and the troops can't decide if they'd rather kill him or the approaching hostile Arab army. Also featuring William Powell, Victor McLaglen, Alice Joyce, Mary Brian, Norman Trevor, George Regas,Donald Stuart, and Bernard Siegel.

I've seen, and enjoyed, the 1939 version starring Gary Cooper, and now I know that that later version closely followed this original. Director and screenwriter Herbert Brenon does a tremendous job with the Legion sections of the film, and it's surprisingly violent. The sections showing the Gestes as kids goes on a bit long, though. The opening segment of the film is revisited later, with the events shown from a different angle. I wonder how often that narrative device had been used by this point, if at all. The cast stand out for me was William Powell as Boldini, a shifty thief and scoundrel (someone calls him a "jibbering jackal" at one point) who is also in the Legion.