My favourite adventure book from all time... 8 November, 2003
Let's be fair, I am very biased in favor of it, so you are in for a very one-sided opinion... If you have seen the film (wathever the one, either the one with Ronald Colman (seems is good but very hard to find), the one with Gary Cooper&Ray Milland is I think the best known... and do not miss the excellent miniseries by the BBC...)OK, enough about films!
The films are good but tend to miss the point completly, I acknowledge is very difficult to adapt a novel to film, but in this special case (even if it has been done brilliantly) THEY DO NOT DO JUSTICE TO THE BOOK...
So, I must recommend to you to read the book and judge for yourself... if delighted follow on with "Beau sabreur", "Beau Ideal", "Good Gestes" and "Spanish Maine"...
Actually the prejudice shown by P.C.Wren to italians, spaniards and specially germans HAS TO BE READ IN CONTEXT, it has not in the least provoked the book to be a flop in those countries (but sure it has not help it to be a success either...).
P.C.Wren did not like very much other races (see his works set in India and you'll understand the comment...) and his prose tends to be a little "British race superior" infected, well if you are british probably THAT will no bother you at all mind... but even if not british at all YOU WILL DELIGHT IN THE DEFENSE OF THE VALUES OF BROTHERLY LOVE; HONOR, DUTY, FRIENDSHIP ETC, wich are quite international do not forget...
I am against revealing plots, there are a lot of other reviewer who do, I am just satisfied to tell you I have read this book countless times and still remains in my top one for all times...
A huge P.C.Wren fan since childhood (I think I read "Beau Geste" for the first time when I was nine years old... if not sooner, I can recall...), I have chased in secondhand bookshops and specialized dealers for the rest of his production, and happy to say I've read them all!, probably the novels set in India and his tales about the merchant navy aren't as good (or SO MUCH good) as the one's dealing with the french foreign legion but still above average.
A part from the books mentioned I found "Soldiers of misfortune" and "The Uniform of Glory" the best from the rest.
Enjoy.

Well, I guess it's OK, now Sir Paul can rest, he finally get his point (just because John and George are not here there but everywhere...), probably the result is as collectable as the rest of their production (and I think "Beatles for Sale" is even worse...wich is far above nothing they do nowadays anyway...).
So, all right Spector did'nt do a great job, Martin washed his hands of it and the original album was "strange"... nevertheless I still prefer "Hey Jude" to "Let it Be" and "The Long and Winding Road", I have those in the Anthology in Paul's live concerts records (excuse me CD's) etc.
I think the low point is the marketing and production (wich did'nt stop us buying the thing in the first place...), a CD can hold up to 75 min. of music, why "they" whoever was did not include "Dig It", "Maggie Mae", alternate takes from "Get Back" and "Let it Be" etc. Even the sarcastic comments from John are missed... (even if you hear them on your head as a Paulovian dog!).
Enough said, at this moment is number one in amazon.com... should we let it at that?, guess so, let it be then.

What's wrong with WHITE HUMOUR?, I mean it's OK to have a film to enjoy with your children, even if afterwards you consider it won't deserve an Oscar...
I think it's not so bad at all (as some reviewers put it), it's not genius but definitly does not merit one star... And no I am not Kim Bassinger...
I can think of a lot of movies I rather not want to see again on a Sunday afternoon. So here you have it. A NICE FILM TO SEE WITH YOUR FAMILY HAVE A GOOD LAUGH AND FORGET ABOUT IT.

Very much in the tradition of Boy's Own literature, espiced a la Indiana Jones, with touches of Buchan's Hannay, and a lot of influence from comics like CORTO MALTESE or TINTIN...
Really a must of entertainment (a la Ian Fleming and if you really think it over the hero is a very well placed candidate as prospective father (legitim or not) for James Bond...
Enough said, if you like an uncomplicated very good action&adventure novel get this one...

I must confess I have rated it five stars because the novel is very good, and even if the film can't give justice to the scope or deepness of the plot for lack of film time (actually the end of the novel is far more interesting and less abrupt) it is a fair transcript of it, the direction is very good and Gabin shows what will make him an icon of french "cinematographie".
A "Bandera" was'nt a flag (but you still call a flag "bandera" too!), it's the name used to refer a battalion in "Tercio" organisation (originally two companies of fusiliers/grenadiers and one of machine-guns at first, and quite fast another company of fusiliers/grenadiers was added...), the Tercio expanded from Three Banderas to eventually Eight up to 1927.
I do not know who influenced who either William Wellman was influenced by it or the oposite as some scenes of his "Beau Geste" are quite similar in "cadre" (as when the troops are formed inside the fort before going to be split in "Beau Geste" causing the forced separation of the brothers, and in "La Bandera" it's the asking for "voluntarios" to go to certain death in a quasi suicidal mission, probably inspired in true fact as per "el blocao de la muerte"... see the excellent work "The Betrothed of Death" in english to know details about it...).
Now, Spain was well past his Might and Glory in the XXth century (having lost his remainig overseas possessions Cuba and the Phillipinnes to the USA in 1898), and was/is a poorer country than France, so his Foreign Legion, the true embrio of a professional army (really the name never catched and has always been known as the "Tercio" or the "Legion", and quite properly as his composition has never been so full of foreigners as his french model...) has'nt received the publicity or even their fare share of recognition as military values go, and undoubtedly hampered by their use in a cruel civil war ...
Rating the film lower will be not very just if you have in mind the time of shooting (1939),and it's more fair to compare it with "Morocco" that to "Beau Geste" due to the difference in budget and technical suport.
The REAL TROOPS used in the film are an unexpected bonus in it, and lovers of military history and uniformology will love it just for that (as I did). The military record of the Legion and his reputation is second to none and is particularly heroic in it's beginnings, Millan-Astray was the founder and true spirit behind it (and not a fascist at all, see his biography...) and Franco the soldier (not the dictator) was the brains behind him.
I was born in Barcelona and the scenes filmed in location are really nostalgic.
If you are able to watch it without prejudice, and concentrate in the Legion virtues forged by Milan-Astray, wich inspires the antics of the captain of Gabin/Gillieth company... then you'll watch a warriors film, and probably quite "true" for his time and not at all Hollywoodesque , (and forget the Spanish Civil War for two hours or less, after all wich country has'nt got a civil war at one time or another... time uses to put things in perspective... Nationalistic repression was rude after the war but if you think life was easy in Spain before and during the war in the "democratic" republican side and excesses were not commited too, then you've read too much Hemingway or Orwell...)
War isn't fair, but the men who must fight them sometimes achieve glory.
Romantic but realistic too, and really vintage (and for once I do not miss Dietrich or Cooper...).
The transfer is probably the best they could do about it, and I agree it's absolutly idiot to not be able to hide the subtitles but the world isn't perfect...
So, have a feel of what was a bitter colonial war 1920-1927 and see in action "the best infantry in the world" (as novelist/journalist Perez Reverte has brilliantly said: "it was the only remaining option..." the poor translation is mine.
Then, "legionarios a luchar, legionarios a morir" it is.

Rent, buy or whatever (borrow not steal I mean...) but A MUST SEE COMEDY...
If you do not laugh senseless at it better check level sense of humour with due urgency.
TO BE ENJOYED and probably a classic in due time...

Only four stars because one tends to compare it with "A FISH CALLED WANDA" (wich is perfect slapstick), but if it was'nt for that could have rated five stars.
Anyway a good laugh without been overtly offensive or gross (qite a trick nowadays mind...)

Not five stars because it lacks rhytm in the end, but still a very good/funny work from Cleese. (Not as good as his Fawlty Towers TV series or A Fish called Wanda film ...thought), but then the script must be good to get the best from him.
If a Clesse fan well worth seeing.

Caine's class is as if Niven was still with us... and Martin functions at his best when in contrast with it.
I am against revealing the plot but as comedy goes there do not come any better then this.
ENJOY (at least once every two years...).

Life is full of paradox, the king of tecnothrillers, and in some aspects as profetic as Jules Verne in his works (but things happen faster now...and he could see them becaming reality in his life), will be probably justly remembered for an "historicall fictional work", less techno and more thriller, (well I guess the end of the Vietnam War is far enough when writing on the early nineties about it).
I have read all the truly Clancy's and the saga of Ryan/Clark has it's ups and downs but are mostly page turners, good reads, entertaining, and well researched stuff (or at least it semms so wich is about equal), other minor series as Powerplay and Network pale in comparaison (but are good on their own, mind, if poorly researched, the one dealing with Spain is so far of the point to be sci-fi...).
The "ifs", "could haves" etc in WITHOT REMORSE and the interconecting plots are at his best in this novel, and `probably it's more easy to be "technical" about the past then about the future, and once this is put aside you have a poweful story, crude and simple about men&women fighting evil ways (not so far from a good western but isn't he a late cowboy anyway?).
A MUST READ AND PROBABLY HIS BEST WORK SO FAR. (I've read it three times at least and keeps the test of time quite well...)