Talk:Beau Geste (1926 film)

Doubtful filming location

The Production section claims that "The production was to be filmed in Algeria, but the Rif War interfered, so instead it was filmed in the desert east of Burlingame, California, and southwest of Yuma, Arizona." Burlingame is just south of the San Francisco Airport. East of Burlingame is the San Francisco Bay and then the southern part of Alameda County, none of which is desert (and presumably was not desert in 1925 or 1926 when the film was shot). The statement is attributed to a movie review in the NY Times by Mordaunt Hall who was the NY Times's first "regularly assigned movie critic" according to his obituary.

It is rather hard to believe anyone would use Burlingame as an anchor to identify the location of a desert area in Northern California. It is possible that some desert filming might have been done near Livermore (the Mitchell Bros. filmed parts of their film Sodom and Gomorrah there) or perhaps in the Central Valley much further east, but there would be far better cities to name that would help identify such a location.

Filming desert scenes in Yuma AZ makes sense. It's in the desert. Burlingame is not and it is not close to desert.

Further evidence (in the review by Hall) is the rather elaborate description of the camp that was set up near Yuma for the filming that describes the large-scale logistics required to feed the crew members. It is hard to believe there would be two desert locations if all of this effort was required.

The review was written in August 1926 by someone who worked for the NY Times. At that time, a lot of people in New York new little to nothing about California geography. One might imagine a movie critic at the NY Times might be one of these people.

What would make sense is that the non-desert scenes might have been filmed near Burlingame (not east of it, which is water, but perhaps west of it or maybe the interior filming and possibly some exterior filming was done at Hacienda del Pozo de Verona, a mansion built for Phoebe Apperson Hearst (William Randolph's mother) near Pleasanton CA. The mansion was sold in 1924 and became the Castlewood Country Club. I have never been inside, but based on photos, I suspect it is a somewhat good match although I do not have access to the 1926 silent version this article describes, but the interiors in the 1939 version and even the exterior scenes (such as the toy sailboats set afire) could conceivably have been shot at the mansion.

A second possibility is the Hearst mansion in Hillsborough CA, which is west (not east) of Burlingame (so Burlingame is east of it). It was built in 1914. The architecture may not be as good a match.

The film was released by Paramount and Alfred Zukor is listed as one of the producers. Hearst (William Randolph) formed Cosmopolitan Productions with Zukor and had a distribution agreement with Paramount. Cosmopolitan moved to Hollywood in 1924 (according to the Wikipedia page). I am a bit doubtful Hearst would have filming in his own mansion, but his mother's former mansion might well have been easy to access even though it had been sold because the new owners might have felt they owed the Hearst family for having sold the property to them. This is of course pure speculation on my part.

The NY Times story stands as it is, but my guess is that somewhere along the line either Hall (the critic) or the copy editors got confused and changed something originally akin to "it was filmed near Burlingame, California, and in the desert southwest of Yuma, Arizona" perhaps after someone put "desert" too early in the sentence and then who knows what got "east" added but maybe someone looked at a map of the SF Peninsula upside down if it was Hillsborough or it was east in Pleasanton and the reference to Burlinggame is because of the Hillsborough mansion even though that was not where it was filmed.

IMDB has no information on locations (at least none I could find), so I have no clue where to look for definitive information.

So my belief is that the current article must almost certainly be incorrect on this point, but we do not know what the correct information is, so there ought to be some sort of qualification indicating that the only evidence for this is the NY Times review (it's really more a notice than a review) and the review does not seem consistent with geography. Ksbooth (talk) 06:26, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

@Ksbooth: I've tagged the location as dubious. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:10, 28 January 2024 (UTC)