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)...
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)...