I did a review of the fantastic Foreign Legion film WE'RE IN THE LEGION NOW (HERE) a while back,  and it was so fun that I thought I'd do another one.  Today being Ronald Colman's birthday,  it seemed like a good 'two-bird + stone' choice to take a look at the incredibly fun and well-cast UNDER TWO FLAGS,  where Colman shares the screen with the burly Victor McLaglen and the two lovely actresses, Claudette Colbert and Rosalind Russell.  I'm (like most thinking people) a huge fan of Ronald,  a fan of Foreign Legion stories (also of Colman's silent legion masterpiece BEAU GESTE) and it's his birthday,  thus, is a great excuse to write!

UNDER TWO FLAGS is a 1936 production,  based on the novel of the same name by English writer Maria Ramé,  known by her nom de plume Ouida.  Ouida was a great writer of adventure novels,  many of them Orientalist swashbucklers,  and UNDER TWO FLAGS is quite that.  It shares it's fame with her wonderful 1872 novel,  A DOG OF FLANDERS.  UNDER TWO FLAGS is without a doubt her most famous novel,  having been produced as a stage play,  and four film adaptations, in 1912, 1916 (featuring the smouldering 'vamp' Theda Bara), 1922, and this Colman version.  I've read the novel in one of my several Ouida bursts,  and it's a wonderfully written and colourful taste of pre-pulp pulp fiction.

In the film Victor (in the novel Bertie Cecil) honourably takes the rap for a crime actually committed by his brother.  He takes off in a dash,  joining up and becoming a sergeant in the French Foreign Legion.   Dapper and handsome,  Victor attracts the attentions and affections of the pixie-like French barmaid "Cigarette" played with almost punky spunk by Colbert.  Sadly for Cigarette,  Victor only has eyes for the luminous aristocrat Lady Venetia,  played by Rosalind Russell.  Well,  this doesn't sit well with Sgt. Victor's commander, Victor McLaglen's Major J.C. Doyle.  The gruff Doyle is unrequitedly smitten with the impish Cigarette,  and this puts him and our debonair Sergeant on the opposite sides of a potentially dangerous divide.

Will this love triangle doom the Legion in the face of an onslaught of fierce Arab tribesmen?!?

This was an amazingly pleasurable experience.  Colman (looking quite a bit like Michael Kitchen at times) was at his best here,  with a glint in his eye and exuding charm in every frame.  Colbert was lovely,  and though she came across as mildly irritating initially,   I had the  appropriate fondness for Cigarette by the end of the film.  Victor McLaglen was both 'charging-bullish' and charming,  looking quite the big brute in this one,  and Rosalind Russell was every bit the beautiful lady.  Also in the cast was Fritz Leiber Sr. (father of the sci fi writer),   Thomas Beck (from a number of Charlie Chan and Mr. Moto films),  Nigel Bruce, Gregory Ratoff (director of the 1960 OSCAR WILDE), Herbert Mundin ('Much' from Errol Flynn's THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD), and John Carradine.  With a  crisp script and a great cast,  and with solid  direction by Frank Lloyd (THE LAST COMMAND and BLOOD ON THE SUN),  it's a rollickin' good time.  The 1930's had so many of this kind of exuberant adventure,  and the more I see, the more I love this wonderful decade.  Also,  I'm a fan of this sort of Orientalist adventure,  and this is another in my effort to document these 'wild, wild East'-type movies.

It's a perfect thing to celebrate Ronald Colman's birthday!

I'm on a roll this week with great pulpy adventure pictures!  I just had the pleasure of watching the 1936 French Foreign Legion film,  We're In the Legion Now, and what amazing fun it was!  I was coming off the little buzz that I had from the 1936 William Boyd romp, Go-get-'em, Haines (reviewed HERE); I really enjoyed Eleanor Hunt's impish charm in that one,  so I went digging for another movie with her in it, and voila', here she was.  It also works out in another way,  as I was already prepping a review of a Foreign Legion film, yet another 1936 screen burner, Under Two Flags...said review coming along soon.  I've hit a Legion-type hot spot.

Based on a 1934 story by prolific pulp author J.D. Newsom called The Rest Cure (which was also apparently the American name for the film),  We're in the Legion Now stars the ubiquitous character actor Reginald Denny, sidekicked by veteran comedian Vince Barnett. In lighthearted fashion, they play Dan Linton and Spike Conover (Isadore Simonski in the original story), two former New York racketeers on the run from a former "business associate";  apparently this mobster, Al Perelli, had a penchant for murder and kidnappings, and our decent duo wanted no part of that sort of thing.  The guys were basically just good guys looking to get fashionably intoxicated during the prohibition, in the process got mixed up with the wrong crowd. Having had enough, they escape to France,  where they begin to freely imbibe on an epic scale.

During their liquor-fueled fun,  they find out that Al Perelli has come after them, which gets them to reconsider their options.  During a public drinking session they meet two English sisters,  one of whom is married to a British officer in the French Foreign Legion.  The guys express a desire to move on to greener pastures,  and the gals suggest Morocco...but the catch is, they would have to join up for a five-year stint in the Legion!  Not their first choice, of course, but fate steps in, Al Perelli shows up (with a Tommy-gun in a violin case),  and the boys set off for Morocco as Legionnaires!  There they encounter wild Arabs,  beautiful ladies,  brutal hardships, and mutiny!

It's great fun from beginning to end.

I really loved the cast.  I've always enjoyed Reginald Denny;  in spite of his being cast as a token Brit,  he always delivers the goods with class and style (If you get a chance, see him in the classic Canadian Mountie movie Fort Vengeance).  I was a bit confused by his character in this movie though, as he was ostensibly an American, but his accent vacillated between his usual classic British r.p. clip and a gobbly American-ish drawl.  Otherwise he was completely charming and appropriately stalwart.  Denny's sidekick, played by comedic character actor Vince Barnett,  was as hilarious as a wisecracking, bottle-tossing, Brooklyn drunkard should be.  He was apparently best known from the Andy Griffith Show and it's spinoff, Mayberry R. F. D..  Eleanor Hunt, as the stunning American Expat songstress Honey Evans, sizzles on an entirely new level from her role in Go-Get-'Em Haines...the gams alone definitely made the search worthwhile!

From the cultural perspective, while I don't generally judge these low-budget action frolics by their accuracy,  it's worth noting that the bit of the Islamic call to prayer was accurate,  and the music was also at least actual Arabic music,  with an Oud being played correctly (as opposed to a Hollywood orchestra playing faux-Arabic slop), and what sounded like a Raita, which is a type of shawm.  From there things go fairly wonky;  badly imitated Arabic writing on the walls (for local flavour, I assume, but there were letters from Persian that aren't found in the Arabic script),  women in Hejab wearing pantaloons, and one surreal scene in which a Berber drum & hand-clapping music party was overlaid with the Arabic Oud from the earlier scene, along with the end-blown Nai flute...a mix that would never happen.  Oh well,  a little is better than nothing, wot?  In any case, one has to set aside quite a bit in these Imperialist-type pictures (westerns, British Empire, Foreign Legion, etc.),  and the fun generally makes the hits on one's pedantry worthwhile!

I thoroughly recommend We're in the Legion Now;  it's top-flight b-reel action,  with a rakish edge and a cheery demeanor.  Any weekend afternoon would be perfect for it;  it's completely entertaining!

Finally, here's a taste of the kinds of Moroccan music hinted at in the film.  Enjoy!