Beau Geste

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Beau Geste is a 1924 novel by P. C. Wren, which has been adapted to film several times.

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Although minor plot points separate the versions, all of the versions share a common element of a stolen gem, which one of the Geste brothers, Michael "Beau" Geste, is thought to have stolen from his adoptive family. He subsequently runs away to join the French Foreign Legion; in some adaptations, more than one of the Geste brothers joins him or goes to find him.

The original novel, on which the various films are more or less loosely based, is written in a dated style in which English upper class values and attitudes are dominant. It does however provide a detailed and fairly authentic description of life in the pre-1914 Foreign Legion, which has led to (unproven) suggestions that P. C. Wren himself served with this regiment. The climax, in which one of the Geste brothers is the only survivor of the garrison of a desert fort is however melodramatic and has no historical basis.