A group of soldiers in WWI get stranded in a deserted desert outpost and must fend off enemies both from without and within.
Victor McLaglen leads the ensemble cast which also includes the excellent Reginald Denny, the hopelessly histrionic Boris Karloff (as a religious nut), and the hunk of beefcake Sammy Stein, who spends much of his time with his shirt off. The film becomes an exercise in existential angst as the stress of the situation begins to erode the psyches of the men and they start getting picked off one by one. John Ford makes some solid directorial choices (like never allowing us to see the Arabs who have the men pinned down, letting us experience the dread of the unseen that unravels the soldiers), even if the movie overall is a little thin to be as profoundly memorable as some of Ford's later pictures.
Max Steiner was nominated for Best Scoring in the very first year of that category's existence at the Academy Awards. Whatever else you may have to say about the score, you can't deny that there is certainly a LOT of it. The music never stops, and it's easy to understand how the film got nominated at a time when it was still common for movies not to have much of a music score at all.
Grade: B+
Victor McLaglen leads the ensemble cast which also includes the excellent Reginald Denny, the hopelessly histrionic Boris Karloff (as a religious nut), and the hunk of beefcake Sammy Stein, who spends much of his time with his shirt off. The film becomes an exercise in existential angst as the stress of the situation begins to erode the psyches of the men and they start getting picked off one by one. John Ford makes some solid directorial choices (like never allowing us to see the Arabs who have the men pinned down, letting us experience the dread of the unseen that unravels the soldiers), even if the movie overall is a little thin to be as profoundly memorable as some of Ford's later pictures.
Max Steiner was nominated for Best Scoring in the very first year of that category's existence at the Academy Awards. Whatever else you may have to say about the score, you can't deny that there is certainly a LOT of it. The music never stops, and it's easy to understand how the film got nominated at a time when it was still common for movies not to have much of a music score at all.
Grade: B+