We're in the Legion Now

Dan Linton and Spike Connover are two bootleggers on the run from New York's top mob boss. With every thug in the city looking to kill them, the petty crooks decide to get away from it all by joining the French Foreign Legion. But what they thought would be a "rest cure" turns out to be hard work, and Dan and Spike decide to relax by wining and dining their commanding officers' wives. When their recreational activities are discovered, the pair is sentenced to a hard labor camp in the desert. Dan and Spike will need all their street smarts when an Arab uprising targets them and their fellow prisoners. Winning a street fight in New York is one thing, it's another to win a war!

Also known as The Rest Cure, We're in the Legion Now is a superb comedic vehicle for the charismatic talents of expatriate English actor Reginald Denny. The suave Britisher was an always-dependable supporting presence in scores of films including The Little Minister (1934), Anna Karenina (1935), and Rebecca (1940). Co-star Vince Barnett provided welcome comic relief in dozens of films in the 1930s and 1940s. His highest-profile role during that era was as Tony Camonte's inept "secretary" in Howard Hawks' Scarface (1932). Director Crane Wilbur had originally been an actor during the silent era, co-starring alongside Pearl White in The Perils of Pauline (1914). He later directed the remake of another silent classic, The Bat (1959) and wrote the screenplay for House of Wax (1953), both starring Vincent Price.

• comedy