Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Aug 1926)

94 In the Desert with "Beau Geste" Continued from page 22 real or only in the movies, and those stirring scenes took their toll of scarred and ripped flesh, of bones that cracked under frenzied, tramping beasts. You have seen Ronald Colman and Bill Powell and those others act before. But you have nut seen them as they act in "Beau Geste." Herbert Brenon, a dominant man, drives his people and makes 'em like it — because he works harder than he asks them to, because he is considerate. One day, sixteen hundred mounted riders, attired as Arab warriors, were assembled about the camera platform. "Some of you men take falls," Brenon yelled through his megaphone. The signal to start was given. Several hundred Arabs took nose dives from their horses and were sprawled -on the sand under the kicking hoofs. This enthusiasm had its beginnings in the unusual film values offered by "Beau Geste," the colorful P. C. Wren novel. It might have been written directly for the screen, so chockful of thrilling action is it, with such continuity do its sequences develop to a smashing climax. It has Iramatic motion and pictorial scope, with scenes shifting from the peace of rural England, the calm of Brandon Abbey, to the Sahara. The story concerns the heroism of the brave members of the French Foreign Legion, comrades whose pasts are sealed, loved for their courage in facing death, for their gay, rough humor, for their sportsmanship. The plot, embracing mystery, romance, action, and self-sacrifice, has an international appeal, and a poignant tenderness in the devotion to each other of the three brothers who are the main characters. "Brenon's insistence upon the greatness of the story of 'Beau Geste' started the whole thing." Bill Powell told me. after the company had returned to civilization and Athletic Club luncheons. "I met him one day at the Lambs' Club in New York, soon after the book had first appeared— a best setter of last year. He raved so that I read it and became equally interested. Then he persuaded Paramount to buy it. Later, his enthusiasm rippled like a wave through the cast that was chosen and all those who were connected with the production, carrying us on to the verge of hysteria — that determination to make it a wow of a picture." The location was found by Frank Blount, production superintendent, who sought one identical to that in the African desert sketched by Julian Fleming, art director, as the original locale of the "Beau Geste" story. Brenon and his aides inspected the spot, having of necessity left their horses miles behind and plowed through the wastes of sand. Stretching below a plateau, between gigantic dunes, lay a sandy valley. Ideal ! Studio Aladdins converted the wastes into a temporary city, four miles square, to quarter two thousand men and eighteen hundred animals. The first problem was how to haul in material. Jutting off from the plank road from Yuma, several miles of board track were laid, painstakingly. Caterpillar tractors and sand sledges, inch by inch, furrowed through the sand, bringing loads of lumber. Squads of men next erected an eight-ton rig and dug a well one hundred and fifty-three feet deep, down to the water beneath the sand. The drilling completed, pumps were installed to bring up fifty thousand gallons daily. After the plank track had been laid to the brink of the valley, a board chute was constructed, with an eightthousand-pound total capacity. LTpon occasion, traffic jams occurred on this one-way highway. One day, seventeen'truckloads of lumber got stalled in the runway for seven hours. Two hundred workmen, sweating under the broiling sun, put up what was known as Camp Paramount, fitted with floored tents. This magic city embraced, besides sleeping quarters, the huge mess tent, a hospital with a physician-surgeon and a nurse in attendance, four post offices, a barber shop, a laundry agency, a drug store with twentyfour-hour service, wardrobe and property tents, a carpenter department, harness and blacksmith shops, a veterinary tent, and supply depots. Nor were recreational needs overlooked. The morale of two thousand men was kept up, with quarreling and irritation avoided, until the last, most trying weeks. The camp orchestra, a movie show, and radio concerts entertained them even* evening. Military police were constantly on duty. Army rule prevailed. At five thirty in the morning reveille sounded. At six, came the summons to breakfast. The seven o'clock bugle meant mounting and awaiting orders. At eight, work commenced. Goggles protected the eyes of the players during preparations and rehearsals, but at the camera call, these had to be discarded, of course. The men had to squint against the glaring white light of the sun and the pricking sand which beat into their faces. Neil Hamilton wrote from the rami), to a friend in Hollywood, the following : We've been through such agony, that time has ceased to matter. Our day consists of food — work — wind — sand — heat. The sand dunes rise in cliffs on all four sides. On the highest peak is the fort. When you have laboriously climbed up and into the lookout tower, you see a perfectly beautiful panorama of the whole works. You are literally in the middle of a sea of sand. But in the daytime — sand in your eyes, nose, ears, hair, in your clothes and, worst of all, in your food and drinking water. Hot — oh, man, I mean hot! Evenings are delightful. Nights — brrr, cold! However, if we live through this, we know we shall have a rip-roaring picture. First, it's a pip of a story. Secondly, Herbert Brenon, who could inspire a snail to win a marathon, is directing. Then, there's beautiful photography by Roy Hunt. And a cast pep full of enthusiasm. They're all good sports, particularly Ronald Colman. I have no brothers, but had I one, I should want him to be like Ronnie. I am crazy about him. He deserves all the good things that have come his way and lots, lots more, as he is one hundred per cent, through and through. Taps — to bed — perhaps to sleep, though the camp has that ominous "calm before the storm" feeling in the air. In the battle scenes, wild, swarthy Arabs, Tuaregs in their flowing, picturesque robes, and dirt-begrimed, laughing-eyed Legionnaires, were directed by radio and semaphore signals from a central tower. The .climax was the destruction by fire and powder explosions of the fort constructed on the crest of a dune. The sand valley lay under a welter of red, its undulations cut by the crimson tongues licking outward. With the blasting of powder kegs, embers flared into torches, and the flames, fanned to a pitch by the howling wind, reached out hungrily in spears and shafts of fire. A great glare, in which sky and the rolling carpet of sand mingled into one vast wash of red, overspread the valley. In the suffocating heat, coughing, sucking in the smoke, fought the Legionnaires from Hollywood. When the last scene had been shot among the ashes, the)* struck camp. From two thousand throats there rose again that exultant song: "AUons, Brenon, void ta Legion!" Swinging to the beat of the words, the companv wearily climbed the ninety-eight steps to the plateau above the dunes and. with one last look at the scene of travail, of labor and anger and hilarity, turned toward home. With their faces gaunt and burnedfaces like battlefields after the sorties are over — with eyes reddened, and lips compressed, they at last relaxed again, with sighs, into the comforts of Hollywood home life. And so, "Beau Geste" is completed.