''Renegades'' is a 1930 American

pre-Code Pre-Code Hollywood was the brief era in the American film industry between the widespread adoption of sound in film in 1929LaSalle (2002), p. 1. and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorship guidelines, popularly known ...

film directed by Victor Fleming for Fox Film. It stars

Warner Baxter Warner Leroy Baxter (March 29, 1889 – May 7, 1951) was an American film actor from the 1910s to the 1940s. Baxter is known for his role as the Cisco Kid in the 1928 film ''In Old Arizona'', for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor at ...

Myrna Loy Myrna Loy (born Myrna Adele Williams; August 2, 1905 – December 14, 1993) was an American film, television and stage actress. Trained as a dancer, Loy devoted herself fully to an acting career following a few minor roles in silent films. ...

, and

Noah Beery Noah Nicholas Beery (January 17, 1882 – April 1, 1946) was an American actor who appeared in films from 1913 until his death in 1946. He was the older brother of Academy Award-winning actor Wallace Beery as well as the father of prominen ...

. Jules Furthman based his script on André Armandy's novel ''Le Renégat.'' Fleming shot in the Mojave Desert (with immense sets and hundreds of extras) where the extreme heat proved a severe impediment to the production.

Bela Lugosi Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó (; October 20, 1882 – August 16, 1956), known professionally as Bela Lugosi (; ), was a Hungarian and American actor best remembered for portraying Count Dracula in the 1931 horror classic ''Dracula'', Ygor in ''S ...

has a relatively small role as the Marabout, a Rif sheik whom Loy's character manipulates, but his character is important to the story. An uncredited Victor Jory in his film debut plays a Legion officer. Critics mostly acclaimed the film as "a great action picture" and "a box office hit" that had to be held over.Bela Lugosi (Midnight Marquee Actors Series) by Gary Svehla and Susan Svehla (1995); ISBN 1-887664-01-7 (paperback)

Plot

Morocco during the Rif War. Four unruly French Foreign Legionnaires (Warner Baxter, Noah Beery, Gregory Gaye, George Cooper), each with dishonorable pasts, are awarded medals for bravery in recapturing a fort. At the ceremony in Casablanca, one of them, Jean Deucalion (Baxter), recognizes Eleanore (Myrna Loy) in the reviewing stand. When he was a French officer during the Great War, she was Deucalion’s lover, worming military secrets from him to sell to the enemy. He was court-martialed and was about to be executed, when a German shell killed the firing squad, he escapes. Deucalion searched years for Eleanore, finally stumbling on her in Casablanca. The four medal-winners celebrate, drunkenly crashing an officer’s ball. Eleanore happens to be there squired by Captain Mordiconi (C. Henry Gordon), their commandant. Deucalion catches her alone, confronts her, and tries to strangle her. Ball attendees interrupt, Deucalion’s three pals help him escape, and they end up deserting. Deucalion and his pals turn renegade, forming an army of black natives and allying with a Rif sheik, Muhammed Halid (Bela Lugosi). Captain Mordiconi has investigated Eleanore and uncovered her treacherous past. When he confronts her to turn her in, she gets a pistol from her bedroom to kill him, but suddenly Rifs overpower and kidnap her, taking her to Deucalion’s desert headquarters camp. Deucalion orders that she is to be treated as an ordinary camp follower. Scheming for revenge, Eleanore eventually becomes Halid’s mistress and creates bad blood between the sheik and Deucalion. When Deucalion’s native army besieges his old regiment in a desert fort without water, he is unwilling to order a final attack. Eleanore convinces Halid that Deucalion is double-crossing him, and the sheik attacks with his Rifs. Deucalion orders his men to turn their guns on the Rifs, and the legionnaires also counter-attack from the fort. In the battle, Halid and Deucalion’s pals are killed. Eleanore directs machine-gun fire which badly wounds Deucalion, but he fatally wounds Eleanore. She calls to him, and they crawl to each other. Grinning, she shoots and kills him with a pistol.

Cast

as Jean Deucalion *

as Eleanore *

as Thurman Machwurth *

Gregory Gaye Gregory Gaye (born Grigoriy Grigoryevich Ge; October 10, 1900 – August 23, 1993) was a Russian-American character actor. The son of an actor, he was born in St. Petersburg, Russia. He was the uncle of actor George Gaynes. He was a cade ...

as Dmitri Vologuine * George Cooper as Harry A. Biloxi *

as Sheik Muhammed Halid, the Marabout * C. Henry Gordon as Captain Mordiconi * Colin Chase as Sgt. Major Olson *

Victor Jory Victor Jory (November 23, 1902 – February 12, 1982) was a Canadian-American actor of stage, film, and television. He initially played romantic leads, but later was mostly cast in villainous or sinister roles, such as Oberon in ''A Midsummer N ...

as Officer Belonge *Fred Kohler Jr. as young Legionnaire * Noah Beery Jr. as young Legionnaire

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Renegades (1930 Film) 1930 films 1930 adventure films Fox Film films American black-and-white films 1930s English-language films Films based on French novels Films directed by Victor Fleming Films set in Africa Films set in deserts Films about the French Foreign Legion Films with screenplays by Jules Furthman American adventure films 1930s American films