The best known version of the most famous French Foreign Legion tale of them all. The scriptwriters have culled the best of Wren's tale - the opening image of the fort guarded by corpses, the mystery of the missing jewel, the brothers having a naval battle, the brotherly love, the complex sadistic sergeant (mean, greedy, but smart and not without sympathy), the final attack, the brothers' funeral.
Gary Cooper is awkwardly cast as an Englishman - they should have just made the brothers American. Robert Preston is touching as the devoted Digby and Ray Milland is well cast as John. All three men seem to genuinely like each other even though Beau is never that brave and the characters never that individual. Susan Hayward adds prettiness and there are some colourful legion types such as Sam Jaffe, but the film is stolen - as inevitably happens in every version of this tale - by Brian Donlevy as the sergeant.
Some pretty vistas of the desert, faceless Arabs. Best scene is Preston giving Cooper a viking funeral. His death always seems tacked on.
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