MARCH OR DIE

 

MARCH OR DIE is a 1977 movie about the French Foreign Legion, with a big-name international cast, including Gene Hackman, Terence Hill, Catherine Deneuve, and Max von Sydow. It has just been released on Blu-ray by Shout Factory as part of a double feature with ESCAPE TO ATHENA, another late Seventies action-adventure film. Both movies were produced by Lew Grade's ITC company. (I wrote a blog post on the weird & wacky ESCAPE TO ATHENA in 2020.) 

MARCH OR DIE begins at the end of World War One, when a Major Foster (Gene Hackman) of the French Foreign Legion returns to Paris with what remains of his regiment. The Major is then ordered to go to Morocco to help protect a group of archaeologists from native tribes. Foster, disillusioned by the horrors of WWI, doesn't agree with his assignment, while various dregs of society are "recruited" to fill out the ranks in his regiment. It all leads to a showdown between the Foreign Legion and the tribes at the archaeological digging site. 

One expects MARCH OR DIE to be jam-packed with action, but it's more of a drama about men in difficult circumstances than a adventure story. The movie takes a while to get going, and the characters are not very appealing. Gene Hackman's Major Foster is sarcastic and cynical, and he isn't very happy about what he is doing (which means the viewer won't be all that excited about what he's doing either). Hackman seems out of sorts here, but it must be pointed out that he suffered an injury during the shooting, and he is playing a man who appears to be suffering from what we now call PTSD. (Hackman shows Foster's inner torment by drumming on something from time to time.) Foster is a hard character for any actor to portray--on the one hand he's angry about the way his men are used by the French government, but at the same time, he belongs to a military organization that treats soldiers like disposable trash, and he himself isn't exactly the most sensitive guy in the world. (He also doesn't seem too anxious to take up a new profession.) 

Euro Western superstar Terence Hill plays new Legionnaire Marco, who joins up to avoid going to jail as a jewel thief. Hill spends most of his time wearing the same goofy grin he constantly sported in his spaghetti westerns--one wonders if he thought he was making TRINITY GOES TO THE DESERT. But Hill's antics don't fit in very well with the movie's heavy dramatics. Catherine Deneuve plays the daughter of an archaeologist who was tortured by the natives, and of course nearly every male character in the film is attracted to her. Max von Sydow is the lead archaeologist, while Ian Holm makes the biggest impression as the charismatic leader of the native tribes. 

Among the supporting cast are cult faces such as Jack O'Halloran (SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE), Wolf Kahler (RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK), Walter Gotell (General Gogol in the James Bond series), and Hammer veteran Marne Maitland. MARCH OR DIE was directed by Dick Richards, who provided the story, with the screenplay by David Z. Goodman. 

MARCH OR DIE has plenty of fine technical aspects, including moody photography by John Alcott, and a music score by Maurice Jarre, which will immediately remind you of another more famous movie set in the desert that Jarre worked on. The production design is impressive, and the desert scenes are atmospheric enough (most of the film was actually shot in Spain). The final battle is very well done, with exciting stunts and effective editing. If the main characters had been more interesting or memorable, MARCH OR DIE could have been one of the better war/action films of the 1970s. 

Shout Factory's presentation of MARCH OR DIE on Region A Blu-ray is very good, although the movie does look a bit soft in some spots. It is shown in 1.85:1 widescreen, and the only extra is a trailer. 

I had never seen MARCH OR DIE. It's a decent film, but it's the type of story that would have been better handled in 1930s or 40s Hollywood. The cast & crew involved in it makes it of interest alone. If you're a reader of CINEMA RETRO magazine, you'll probably want to see this picture.