Renegades (1930)

1930's "Renegades" was among a number of early talkies depicting adventurers among the French Foreign Legion, in this case four individuals who get in and out of trouble with their superior officer, Captain Mordiconi (C. Henry Gordon). Warner Baxter headlines as Belgian Jean Deucalion, who had been betrayed by his fiancée, Eleanore (Myrna Loy), a spy for the enemy, taking his revenge against her years later from a position of power in French Morocco, set up by The Marabout, Sheik Muhammed Halid (Bela Lugosi), leader of the riffs. Warner Baxter had previously appeared with Lugosi in "Such Men Are Dangerous," and worked with Boris Karloff in 1929's "Behind That Curtain." Lugosi, steadily employed at Fox Studios prior to his groundbreaking "Dracula," enjoys his most flamboyant role that year, sparring effortlessly with Myrna Loy, who has willingly joined his harem: "you very clever, for a woman!" Making his film debut was Victor Jory, who would be back in the Legion (along with Lugosi and C. Henry Gordon) in 1933's "The Devil's in Love," also at Fox. Still typecast as exotic vamps, the young Myrna Loy is as evil as can be, but still irresistibly beautiful (she also worked with Boris Karloff, in 1932's "The Mask of Fu Manchu").