March or Die

Plot synopsis:
Soon after the Great War, Major Foster (Hackman), the commander of a detachment of the French Foreign Legion, suffers the haunting memories of leading an army of 8,000, now reduced to 200. He has become an alcoholic as a result, and his only friend is his faithful Sergeant, Triand (Rufus Narcy).
Foster arrives in Paris to assume a new command: to return to the Rif (Morocco) to re-establish French authority, as Bedouin and Berber tribes have begun to revolt against French rule. Foster is also ordered to escort archaeologists from the Louvre, who are uncovering an ancient city near Erfoud buried by a sand storm 3,000 years ago. The site is the final resting place of a Berber saint, "The Angel of the Desert". Foster was chosen for the assignment, as he is the only French officer alive who served in Morocco before the war. He had helped to develop diplomatic ties with the tribes, especially with El Krim, the de facto leader of the scattered Rif tribes. Foster had vowed to El Krim that there would be no further archeological excavations.
Foster’s force is assembled. Among those who volunteer, willingly or unwillingly, is "the Gypsy" Marco Segrain (Terence Hill), a charming jewel thief famous for a three-year crime spree on the Riviera until French authorities managed to apprehend him. Gypsy befriends three other recruits: the Russian giant Ivan (Jack O'Halloran), formerly a member of the elite bodyguard of the deposed Russian Imperial family; "Top Hat" Gilbert Francis (André Penvern), a fashionable man and musician who lacks the physical traits needed in a soldier; and Fredrick Hastings (Paul Sherman), a romantic young English aristocrat who missed the Great War.
The four friends are soon disillusioned by the harsh realities of life in the Legion. A fatal fight breaks out among the men while traveling to Morocco over a homophobic insult to Maj. Foster's honor, to which Sgt. Triand takes exception. Foster does not hesitate to harshly discipline his men, especially Marco, who frequently disobeys orders, though he does care for his men. During the voyage, Marco charms Mme. Picard (Catherine Deneuve), daughter of a murdered archaeologist.
During their land journey to the Legion fortress, the train carrying the Legionnaires and the archaeological team is stopped by El Krim (Ian Holm) and his men. El Krim greets his old friend Foster but also declares that he is determined to unite the Berber tribes to drive the French out of Morocco. El Krim gives a "gift" to Foster to take back to the Premier of France: the archeologists of an earlier dig, who have been blinded and whose tongues have been cut out. He warns Foster not continue the excavation.
Training in the desert is so harsh, it pushes Top Hat to commit suicide. Later, at the digging site, Hastings is kidnapped while on guard duty and tortured to death by one of El Krim’s men, whom El Krim excuses as being merely over-zealous. Marco retaliates. Instead of disciplining him, Foster merely defends him, using El Krim’s previous excuse for the actions of his own man.
Eventually, the tomb of the Angel of the Desert is found, and her golden sarcophagus is excavated. Foster offers it to El Krim as a token of peace, but El Krim rallies the warriors of all Bedouin tribes to fight a climactic battle. With the Legionnaires being heavily outnumbered, the digging site is eventually overrun. Ivan is killed, but Marco fights on, single-handedly fending off a flank attack. When Foster is killed, El Krim immediately calls off the fight, sending the surviving Legionnaires "to tell the world what happened" and out of respect for his dead friend.
There are two endings: the TV version ends with Marco taking up Mme Picard's offer to desert. The theatrical ending shows Marco (after having been promoted for his bravery in battle) staying behind and training more Legionnaire recruits, welcoming them by reiterating Foster's warning: "If the Legion doesn't get you, the desert will. If the desert doesn't, the Arabs will. And if the Arabs don't, then I will. I don't know which is worse."

Tags: violence, cruelty

Review:
It's just that I get this nagging feeling, that "March or Die," with a little extra input on production values, wider desert shots, more background flashbacks, etc., *could* have been a much more memorable, larger-than-life sort of picture.But what "March or Die" lacks in the sheer epic expanse of other big-name war movies, it more than makes up for with carefully measured performances by the principal characters, not the least of which is that turned in by Gene Hackman, who plays a certain Major Foster - a cynical but nonetheless highly disciplined former American officer, booted from the "vaunted" army of America, who has found his military niche in the austere, almost mysterious world of the French Foreign Legion.How exactly a Yank ends up in command of a Foreign Legion battalion leaves a little to the imagination - or at least prompts the viewer to make the necessary allowances for artistic license.
In fact one of his more memorable lines in the movie is when he reminds a group of unruly recruits, on their way to joining up with the Legion, that "the Legion is the most disciplined army in the world." The movie itself is a fairly engrossing mixture of military action and political intrigue - namely, certain powers in France saw fit to use Major Foster's Legion battalion as a sort of "protection squad" to help protect a vital archaeological dig in the Moroccan desert, on lands traditionally inhabited by various Arab tribes.
But Major Foster, ever the military man in spite of creeping cynicism, does what he is told, or, as he coldly explains to El Krim, the leader of one of the militant tribes (nicely played, oddly enough, by British actor Ian Holm): "A soldier goes where he is sent." A very interesting host of characters comes into play throughout the movie, including Max Von Sydow as the archaeologist intent on digging up the treasure in the desert - not only for the glory and coffers of France, but, we can assume, for his own personal aggrandizement.
The Legionnaires themselves are an odd and, at times, colorful lot, much as you'd expect from a disparate group of desperate lads, all seeking anonymity, adventure, escape, redemption, or whatever else it is they expect to find in the Foreign Legion: there is Marco, a slippery jewel thief who seems to con his way in and out of everyone's life, but nevertheless has a heart of gold (though, at times, you wonder if he didn't steal that gold in a heist); there is a tragically inept soldier known only as Top Hat, a former musician whose background and reasons for being in the Legion are never really explained; there is a hard-as-nails battalion officer, a certain Lt. Fontaine, who gives no mercy to the troops, and expects none in return - only discipline.
There are assorted other nationalities represented in this odd mix of Legion troops, including a young British lad who meets a particularly unpleasant fate at the hands of the Arabs; a handful of ex-German soldiers, joining up after Germany's defeat in the recently-ended Great War; and also an expatriate Russian, named Ivan, who seems to represent some of the human global spillage caused by the Russian Revolution, just then occurring in his homeland.
The Legion seems to be not only the best, but perhaps the only, place for him, and the rest of them, to call home.Last but not least is beautiful Catherine Deneuve, in a minor role, playing a war-weary French widow, thrown into this Moroccan mix due to circumstances beyond her control.
More Like March and Die. This is THE French Foreign Legion movie, mainly because there aren't very many of them.
Mostly, the story revolves around the hardship involved, accompanied by a required sadism on the part of commanders, to get by day to day in the Legion.It all points to a thrilling battle in the final act, when the Arab leader sends his hordes against the vastly outnumbered legionnaires, who seem stuck in a 'fight to the last man' scenario.
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).
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.
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.
MARCH OR DIE has one impressive cast:  Gene Hackman, Terence Hill (in one of his rare movie that you can take seriously), Catherine Deneuve, Max von Sydow, Ian Holm...Great script that has everything well balanced: humor, action, suspense, drama.
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.
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.
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" is a commendably sprawling old-fashion action adventure with plenty of spirit and a touch of romance (where Hill would do some striking carriage jumping to encounter the lovely Deneuve), which is crisply directed by Dick Richards.
At the end of World War One, a division of the French foreign legion led by Major Foster is ordered to protect an archaeological dig, as the last expedition was slaughtered by the Arabs.
Immediately after the Great War 1914-18 Major Foster an American born officer in the French Foreign Legion .
A disillusioned man who has seen more than enough of the horrors of war , Foster looks forward to more peaceful times only to hear of a spreading insurrection led by El Krim , a Beeber warlord who wants to liberate Morroco from French rule and Foster is sent to put down the insurrection This is an early production from Jerry Bruckheimer who in the 1980s went on to be the most successful commercial film producer in Hollywood .
You have to admit Bruckheimer was always excellent at whta he did MARCH OR DIE shows early signs at what the producer was trying to achieve - make a film that would appeal to the action adventure market while still appealing to critics .
and FAREWELL MY LOVELY both directed by Dick Richards are two very impressive films from The New Hollywood period and you can see in this film a mix of character exploration and big battle action sequences The problem is that it doesn't quite come off .
You can see Gene Hackman, Major Foster as a tortured man with ghosts from the past realising the only way to lay his demons to rest is via Catherine Deneuve's Mme Picard but the film concentrate too much on Terence Hill's Marco to make this possible .
Dick Richards's 'March or Die' is an interesting film set in Morocco during the French colonization.
There is one thing that sets this film apart from every other movie out there, it has one of the all time great battles.
a great movie about the French Foreign Legion in the desert.
Gene Hackman is the leader of this group of men in the French foreign legion assigned to protect men that are digging up artifacts in Morocco.
Adventures with the French Foreign Legion in Sahara desert starred by the great Gene Hackman and Terence Hill.
This is a nice story of courageous men who have every gone out to face death ; dealing with an American Major named Foster (Gene Hackman) , recently finished WWI , he joined the French foreign Legion , and is assigned (by Max Von Sidow) to guard an archaeological expedition in Morocco desert .
Catherine Deneuve at her best, at the very pinnacle of herbeauty; Max Von Sydow as an archeologist who convinces the French gov't to resume digging in ruins in morocco, in an area containing unruly and savage Berber tribes that have slaughtered all comers; Gene Hackman as the legionnaire captain who has to break his promise to those very tribes that they would never venture into the area again; the guy who played Jaws in James Bond as a Russian 'volunteer' to the legion, sporting a beard that any Taliban would be envious of; some unknown as Marco, a riviera jewel thief, also 'volunteered' into the legion and a cast of doomed conscripts.The whole film plays out like a funeral procession.
He keeps raving in fact even as the Arab tribes are massing and charging toward them.As in any classic French foreign legion film, the doomed legionnaires are holed up in the ruins of an old castle, hopelessly outnumbered with no escape.
Anyhow, those who have only seen the short version may wonder why Marco starts out in the movie in a different uniform (I believe he and his brother, which you never see, were in the Italian army, or something like that) and why you sort of see the the French Lt.
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)....
MARCH OR DIE, a film Sheldon Lettich evidently watched many times while writing the script for Jean-Claude Van Damme's tighter but similarly disappointing LEGIONNAIRE, follows Gene Hackman as an American Major in charge of a French Foreign Legion company comprised mainly of raw recruits, sent to guard an archaeological site in Morocco amid a Berber uprising.Performance-wise, you could hardly do much better with Hackman, Max von Sydow, and Terence Hill all delivering career-highlight performances and constantly in direct conflict with each other.
Was Hackman's disrespectful character just completely insane up until the end, and if so, why does nobody (save lovable rogue Terence Hill) ever waiver in loyalty-to or confidence-in him?The film calls a lot of French tactical decision-making and military tradition into question, and also takes on a decidedly anti-intellectual stance, especially in terms of our Westernized view of the value of art preservation and archaeology.
This international cast also stand out Max Von Sydow as apparently forced context archaeologist but that ends up integrating the climate of war, and Ian Holm, very well chosen for the role of the Arab leader.
I found this film underrated both by critics and specially audience.I mean,its the only film where you get the chance of seeing Gene Hackman and Terence Hill sharing the screen,not to mention Catherine Deneuve as lovely as always.Hackman's role is interesting and he never once fails in bringing it to life.Its touching,specially in the end where he dies.Hill does his best part ever without a doubt.I was surprised to see him pull off such a good role.A fine supporting cast includes Max Von Sydow and Ian Holm,as well as giant Jack O'Halloran in a memorable role as the Russian soldier Ivan.Anyway,i think the audience failed to see the real value here,as it often happens.It is a story of the Legion and its soldiers,but not just that.It includes strong issues such as imperialism,religious fanatism and the harsh army discipline,with a good love story thrown in.I dont know what else can you possibly want?A solid 8..
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.
The conflicts continue to increase between the desert army's and the Foreign Legion soldiers and their leaders, and the finale is a tremendous battle sequence that will have you visited to the screen.Produced by Sir Lew Grade, the filmmaker behind "Voyage of the Damned" and "The Cassandra Crossing", this is an elegant and handsome adventure film that grabs the audience immediately.
Max von Sydow is present in a major role as one of the leading archaeologist who travels with the group to meet up with those whom Hackman later kills.Outstanding photography and an excellent musical score add to the quality of this a great film which has somehow slipped through the cracks over the years.
For me however, the best performance was by Terence Hill as a scoundrel of a soldier who first get Deneuve's attention by stealing a pearl necklace from a passenger aboard the ship they are traveling on, and is disciplined by Hackman by forfeit liquor which make him lose his balance and fall down a flight of stairs in order to humiliate him in front of the other new members of the Foreign Legion.
Dry. Recap: After sustaining heavy losses in the recently ended First World War, Major Foster of the French Foreign Legion, is sent with some new recruits to protect an archaeological dig.
In enemy territory, in a hostile environment on a suicide mission Foster and his men must march on, or die.Comments: A pretty average action/war movie.
There are quite a few known actors in this movie, most notably Hackman, Deneuve, von Sydow and Holm.