Beau Geste (1926 ) with original Hugo Riesenfeld score (HD)

Released in 1926, "Beau Geste" is based on the 1924 novel written by P. C. Wren. It starred English born actor Ronald Colman and Irish born actor Herbert Brenon (who also directed the film). The movie tells the story of three brothers who leave their life of wealth and join the French Foreign Legion after a family treasure mysteriously disappears.

Silent movies were never really silent, they were almost always shown with live music which helped set the mood for the various scenes. For the New York premier of "Beau Geste" at The Criterion Theatre composer/conductor Hugo Resienfeld prepared a music score that consisted mainly of previously published music with just 3 original compositions.

My recreation of this score is based on my original copy of the piano/conductor score. It consists of 109 individual cues with 63 different pieces of music used. To create the score as performed by a theatre orchestra I tracked down copies of each piece of music (or least as many as I could locate). This was made a little easier by the fact that the original score listed these by title and publisher on the last page (although there were many spelling and other errors in the listing!) Riesenfeld’s compositions were published by Robbins-Engel ("Selections from Beau Geste”) and provided the music for the “Boots” theme, the “Legion March” and two different versions of the very important “Brother Theme”. Robbins-Engel also published “The Crusaders” which is used as the “Lejaune Theme”. None of the composers were listed in the piano score which did make some challenges tracking some of the music down. Cues 28-32 were missing in every version of movie that I watched, they were possibly edited out of the film after the New York release. If you turn on the closed captioning you will see the name of each piece of music briefly at the start of each cue.

This score is typical of what a person might of heard in a very large theatre in 1926. Instrument parts include Flute, Oboe, 2 Clarinets, Bassoon, 2 French Horns, 2 Trumpets, 2 Trombones, Tympani & Percussion and a full string section. Smaller theatres probably would have arranged their own score based on the capabilities and size of their house orchestras. Other theatres might have presented the film with the accompaniment provided by a theatre organist, perhaps using the published piano/conductor score.

Public domain note: All motion pictures made and exhibited before 1928 are indisputably in the public domain in the United States. This public domain status also applies to the music used for this film. My performance of this music, however, is copyright and may not be used without my permission.