March or Die (1977)

Best movie of this year hands down!

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

March Or Die, the grim slogan of the French Foreign Legion is the title of this film starring Gene Hackman as an American with the Legion in World War I. The time is post the first World War and the Legion is now returning to colonial policing duty in the various French colonies of North Africa.Where during their absence the natives of Islamic persuasion have become quite restless and they've found themselves a leader in Ian Holm playing the real Abdel Krim. Krim is looking for something to unite the various tribes under his banner and he's found a cause in an archaeological expedition headed by Max Von Sydow that is being accompanied by Hackman and his troops on their return to Morocco.In real life Krim was quite the charismatic leader and a warrior as opposed to a terrorist. His exploits were front page news around the world and a caricature of him is the basis for the operetta The Desert Song by Sigmund Romberg. Von Sydow wants to dig up some precious relics and the gold contained therein for the French treasury. That's why he's getting Legion protection. Hackman is of mixed feelings as he's seen too much of war recently on the western front.March Or Die is a fine film and a fitting tribute to the Legion who though made of the riffraff of the world has a combat record second to none. These guys know they're society's dregs and there's plenty more where they came from. So straggling is not encouraged.Hackman, Von Sydow and Holm fill their roles out well. And there are two other principal parts, Catherine Deneuve as a widow financing the Von Sydow expedition and Terrence Hill taking a break from spaghetti westerns playing a jewel thief who gets kind of hammerlocked into joining the Legion in Paris.The battle scenes and other scenes depicting life in the Legion weren't staged any better in the many incarnations of Beau Geste. March Or Die will be the ultimate Foreign Legion film.

My first viewing of this one came via a local TV screening back in the early 1980s when we still only had a black-and-white TV set and the film has virtually vanished without a trace from TV screens since then. I had originally intended to revisit it over the Christmas period – along with other exotic adventure films I've seen at the time like CHU-CHIN-CHOW (1934), ABDUL THE DAMNED (1935) and FORT ALGIERS (1953) – but I had to postpone those plans; now that I've watched the "Carry On" spoof of Foreign Legion films, FOLLOW THAT CAMEL (1967), it seemed an appropriate time to give it another look. Obviously, I don't usually go for pan-and-scan transfers of widescreen films but, as I said, this film has become such a rarity that I leapt at the chance to watch this one again on the R2 DVD I found at a local rental store.Anyway, during the 1970s it became fashionable to revive old Hollywood genres and the master at this game was Peter Bogdanovich but, equally successful, was Dick Richards with his Philip Marlowe adaptation FAREWELL, MY LOVELY (1975); unfortunately, both directors would soon have a dud on their hands – Bogdanovich with the musical pastiche AT LONG LAST LOVE (1975) and Richards with MARCH OR DIE! Rewatching it now, it's hardly as disastrous as its reputation would have you believe: in fact, I thought that, shot by shot, it was quite well directed. What it clearly needed was a more exciting plot, a less predictable narrative and, most importantly perhaps, a more suitable leading man. While personally I got a kick out of seeing childhood favorite Terence Hill (i.e. Italian Spaghetti Western/action-comedy film star Mario Girotti) share the screen with such acting heavyweights as Gene Hackman, Catherine Deneuve, Max Von Sydow and Ian Holm, his light touch was clearly inadequate for the role of the thief-turned-soldier who falls foul of his misanthropic Captain (Hackman) but is soon consoled by a French belle (Deneuve).Deneuve made one of her infrequent appearances in an English-speaking film and, while her character is not exactly given much to do, she is more "troubled" than she at first appears: she is fascinated by the old lady in the whorehouse (shades of BELLE DE JOUR [1967] perhaps?) and sacrifices herself to Hackman in order to save Hill from dooming himself for her love (as others had done before him); Von Sydow also antagonizes Hackman in his quest to unearth the priceless archaeological relics found in the desert – which, to the latter, belong to the Arabs (who are more than welcome to them) and, being a renegade American, sees no point in increasing the glory of France through the loss of the lives of his men (most of which are also foreigners); Ian Holm plays the cultured but ruthless Arab leader and, it was also nice to see Hackman share the screen once more with Marcel Bozzuffi (whom he had famously dispatched in THE FRENCH CONNECTION [1971]) and Jack O' Halloran (who would go on to play Non, one of the villainous Kryptonian trio in the first two SUPERMAN films); the latter was also in Richards' FAREWELL, MY LOVELY and I recently had the pleasure to talk to him on this very Forum about the film under review itself! As usual, the film-makers' heart was set in the right place given their employment of, not just the star-studded international cast, but also cinematographer John Alcott and composer Maurice Jarre but, as I said earlier, their good intentions were let down by a fairly routine plot which, despite the occasional, valiant interjections of existentialism a' la the previous year's THE DESERT OF THE TARTARS (which also featured Max Von Sydow and an unusually strong role for Italian heart-throb Giuliano Gemma!), fails to coalesce into a memorable or entire successful whole. Gene Hackman once said about MARCH OR DIE that the audience marched in and the film died: maybe they just couldn't take it seriously after seeing the whole Foreign Legion genre being sent up (yet again) on the screen just a few months earlier in British comic Marty Feldman's directorial debut, THE LAST REMAKE OF BEAU GESTE (1977)...

You can tell a Lew Grade production a mile off – distinctly British in style; epic in conception; peopled by international all-star casts; usually set in exotic climes. It's a formula that Grade and his company ITC employed throughout the 70s into the early 80s, resulting in titles like The Eagle Has Landed, Firepower, and Raise The Titanic! In 1977 Grade produced March Or Die, a remarkably old-fashioned Foreign Legion adventure that models all the characteristics mentioned above. Directed by the usually dependable Dick Richards – who helmed the acclaimed Farewell My Lovely just a couple years earlier - March Or Die is an unfortunate disappointment.A company of Foreign Legionnaires led by the harsh disciplinarian General Foster (Gene Hackman) is sent to Morocco shortly after World War 1. Their mission is to protect an archaeological party fronted by the dedicated Francois Marneau (Max Von Sydow). The archaeologists are carrying out an excavation at the ancient city of Erfoud, but fear an attack from Arab tribesmen following the decimation of an earlier archaeological group. Foster is not happy with the assignment – he does not consider historical artifacts worthy of his men risking their lives. This creates ongoing tension between himself and Marneau, who believes that the legionnaires should sacrifice their lives to make the excavation possible. The problems heighten when a beautiful woman named Simone Picard (Catherine Deneuve) tags along with the legionnaires. She is hoping to find out what happened to her father, a historian abducted by the Arabs when they wiped out the first archaeological team. Her presence arouses desires amongst the legionnaires, none more so than gypsy thief Marco Segrain (Terence Hill), a charming and courageous rogue who initially shows indifference towards his legionnaire colleagues but gradually grows in stature. Things climax with a huge battle at Erfoud, with swarms of united Arab tribes charging against the handful of legionnaires as they desperately try to defend their lives.On paper the star duo of Gene Hackman and Terence Hill seem a mismatch – Hackman is the heavyweight Oscar-winning character actor, Hill the handsome but limited Italian heart-throb from numerous low budget spaghetti westerns. One expects Hackman to act his counterpart off the screen. Yet, bizarrely, it is Hackman who gives the weak and uninvolving performance, while Hill raises his game to surprisingly high levels. The film is attractively shot on desert locations, but the pacing is awfully slow and few of the characters are worth caring for. Maurice Jarre's music is uncommonly flat too – very disappointing from the guy who gave us the Lawrence Of Arabia score. It is remarkable that anyone had the nerve to try an old-fashioned adventure of this type in the 70s (it was a genre that peaked in the 30s, and had been all but forgotten during the intervening decades). Sadly, the gamble doesn't really pay off – this homage to the legionnaire flicks of old becomes more of a plod than a march.

I watched this movie today for the first time after stumbling across it on the IMDb a few weeks back.I'm a big Gene Hackman fan and a war film fan so I didn't think I could go wrong purchasing this sight unseen.Without detailing the plot too much, it is fair to say that this is standard Legionnaire in North Africa fare and not a lot different from Films like Beau Geste and the Van Damme Legionnaire film (which would seem to be a vastly inferior remake of this film). The film starts at a slow pace. In some of the early bits the acting is a bit wooden and the film also gives the appearance of being made for TV (it gets much better).Unfortunately the picture was a little bit grainy and I doubt it is a big enough film for any kind or restoration to ever be done on it.Through reading the boards for this film it seems that there have been some cuts made to the Region 2 DVD and this may explain why the film seemed a bit slow to develop. I was particularly impressed with the locations and sets used.Hackman also started slowly but got better as the movie went along and he really hit his straps later in the film. Terence Hill was very good in a sort of role I haven't seen him in before.The film takes the time to highlight the stereotypical harsh living conditions endured by the men in the Legion and also the strict discipline imposed on them, many of whom come from ill-disciplined backgrounds. The injection of a love story into some war films (like Enemy at the Gates or Pearl Harbor) detracts from the overall quality of the film and seems to be done to create a wider audience appeal. In this film that is certainly not the case and the romance between Hill and Catherine Deneuve's characters seems to complement the rest of the film nicely. There is only one real battle scene which comes towards the end of the film but it was worth the wait. Prior to this there are a couple of other tense scenes involving the Legionnaires and the Arabs.The final battle can only be described as epic. It was one of the better large scale battle scenes I have seen in a movie (no CGI when this was made).The film was not without some faults (I may be mistaken but my understanding has always been that while men of many nationalities serve in the Foreign Legion, the officers are all French) but it is certainly underrated.Much better then some recent Hollywood fare we have been served up such as We Were Soldiers (also reviewed by me) and WindtalkersI give it 7 out of 10. Well worth seeing if you like a good war film.