The French Foreign Legion is the most romanticised of all military units in the world. Its long history, which featured various wars on different continents and many famous and infamous personalities that have gone through its ranks, might be part of the reason, but the Legion owes most of its position in the world’s popular culture to 1920s and 1930s Hollywood films, which provided audiences with a unique mix of exotic adventure, action and melodrama. Decades later, a similar approach was tried in March or Die, a 1977 British film directed by Dick Richards.
The plot begins after the end of the First World War, in which the Legion took part and paid more than its share of the butcher's bill. Major Foster (played by Gene Hackman), an American commanding one of its detachments, is still coming to terms with the fact that only a handful of his men survived the slaughter in the trenches, while the French government sends him to his old post in Morocco. There he is tasked with protecting the team of archaeologists led by François Marneu (played by Max von Sydow), whose expedition to the resting place of ancient Berber saints infuriates local tribes, recently united under the leadership of charismatic revolutionary El Krim (played by Ian Holm). In the meantime, Foster’s unit gets a new batch of recruits, which includes Marco “Gypsy” (played by Terence Hill), an accomplished jewel thief who took the Legion’s uniform in order to evade a long prison sentence. Marco and his misfit friends are soon subjected to brutal training designed to bring them the discipline and skills necessary to survive the unforgiving desert and an even less forgiving enemy.
The character of El Krim is based on the real historical figure of Abd el-Krim, a revolutionary who led Moroccan rebels against French and Spanish rule in the 1920s Rif War. But this is as close as March or Die comes to real history or to the anti-colonialist sentiment and revisionist approach characteristic of 1970s cinema. The script by David Zelag Goodman is more oriented towards old-fashioned values like honour, duty and camaraderie, and the Legion is portrayed as an institution that could give redemption and a sense of purpose to many characters unwilling or unable to function in “normal” society. This approach works, but it can’t compensate for the problems with the cast, which include Hackman, who was badly injured during the production and whose problems with back pain were reflected in his performance. Hackman is easily overshadowed by Terence Hill, the star of 1970s Italian action comedies, whose roguish charm and athletic abilities give this film most of its necessary genre credentials. That, on the other hand, can’t be said of Catherine Deneuve, who serves only to fill the necessary female quota and who is completely forgettable despite having an obligatory romantic subplot with Hill’s character.
March or Die is most disappointing at the very end, when the scriptwriters use Custer’s Last Stand as the template for the final showdown or, to be precise, the way Custer’s Last Stand was portrayed in American mythology and popular culture, including John Ford’s classic 1948 western Fort Apache. This results in a finale with almost parodic amounts of melodrama, but the general impression is mostly positive, and March or Die looks even better after comparisons with the 1998 film Legionnaire, a less fortunate film with the same subject and approach.
RATING: 5/10 (++)
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