The Ending *spoiler*

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She can't help herself. Logically, she should have stayed with Adolphe Menjou, but she couldn't get over Gary Cooper. That was the whole point: Passion is not logical.

A few points to add, perhaps. She made a deliberate choice: she could easily have taken Adolphe and his money and "civilization", but she went after Coop and his heat and passion (and, by the way, if Marlene looks HOTTT in this film, so does Coop). It's symoblic as much as anything. You don't kick off your shoes (even they are completely impractical high heels) when you march off into the desert: that sand is boiling. So I'm not sure we're supposed to take it absolutely naturalistically.

I also like the point about the boat captain calling them "suicide passengers". The start of this film is very rich in imagery (above and beyond Adolphe and Marlene arriving from what can be seen as the alien, cold north). The first scene shows a mule being beaten until it finally gets out of the way of the legionnaires coming through (not even Marlene can stand in Coop's way in the end); the second shows a prostitute standing under a skull (sex and money and death being the three abiding motifs of the picture). At the end, whether Coop loves her or not (and I choose to believe that he does), she has to follow him, even if it means her death.

And one last little snippet. A cousin of mine (English) joined the Foreign Legion two years ago, and is now stationed in Djibouti (right on the Horn of Africa), where, he reports, there is always a small outpost of "camp followers" right outside the barracks. So I guess it still goes on.

The high-heels in the sand, the drum beat, the sound of the wind... What a great final scene / shot! Campy, but in the best meaning of the word.

I think what makes me unhappy about the ending is that love doesn't always make you happy. Love is usually, in the current times, presented in the end as "happily ever after," and this movie doesn't. To choose love is a difficult path to take, and this movie showed that brilliantly in the ending. The unhappy feeling in the end is just there to enhance this theme. That is, however, what I think, and you don't have to agree with it ^_^.

I know this is a 3 years old topic, but I think that Gary Cooper's character DID love Amy. When he's waiting for her in her dressing room, he's totally sure of going with her, leaving the army and starting a new life. He said that he finally met the right woman, etc. BUT then he sees the bracelet that the rich man had given her, and he tries on the gentleman's top hat and looks at the mirror: he would never be a that kind of guy, and he thinks Amy would be better with the rich man. He puts on his soldier hat again, and decides to leave Amy...in better hands. That's why then he says "I'm decent now, I'm in love". He made a sacrifice and then he had to be cold with her (this doesn't work because she finds her name written by him on the table).


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http://www.youtube.com/user/0Ancla0

Cooper doesn't mess around in this film, when he get tired of a woman its a simple "scram sister"! Sometimes a shove too!