CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE Movie Review
1936 Michael Curtiz
Hollywood has seldom taken more liberties with history than it does with this depiction of the most famous battle of the Crimean War. Since it's based on Alfred Lord Tennyson's patriotic poem, that artistic license is to be expected. But who could have guessed that the writers would set virtually all of the action in India?
That's probably a smart move. Most movie audiences probably don't know what, or even where, the Crimea is anyway. India has elephants, leopards, evil potentates, and scenic mountains, and all those find their way into this gorgeous bit of heroics. The film was made during the studios' “Golden Age,” and so has all of the polish and glamour of a big-budget Hollywood production. The cruel, grotesque side of the studio system is also evident—far too evident.
The story begins in the fictitious Indian province of Suristan, ruled by the shrewd Surat Khan (C. Henry Gordon, who gives his villain a dry sense of humor). Early on, Surat Khan's life is saved by Maj. Geoffrey Vickers (Errol Flynn) of the 27th Lancers, but Vickers and his commanding officer, Sir Benjamin Warrenton (Nigel Bruce) fear that the Indian ruler is ready to ally his forces with the Russians. Before much can be done with that plotline, we learn that Geoffrey's fiancee Elsa Campbell (Olivia de Havilland) is in love with his younger brother Perry Vickers (Patric Knowles). It takes the better part of the film's first 90 minutes to sort out the romantic triangle, and that sorting-out is slow. Several supporting characters, most notably Lady Warrenton (Spring Byington) take center stage then. The romantic angle is also needlessly drawn-out and passionless, with considerable doing-the-right-thing self-sacrifice on all sides. Geoffrey is far too noble to be believed, and there's a peculiar lack of “screen chemistry” between him and Ms. de Havilland.
If co-star David Niven is to be believed, the anti-romance between the two was the same off-camera. Niven plays the best friend, Capt. Randall, and the camaraderie between the two saves the first part of the film. The famous cavalry charge at Balaklava is the point, however, and when, at length, the scene finally shifts to the Crimea, it is an incredible sequence. In purely visual terms, the conclusion rates comparison to the battle on the frozen lake in Alexander Nevsky. Credit for it goes to second-unit director B. Reeves “Breezy” Eason, not director Michael Curtiz. Eason specialized in such big action scenes. He was also responsible for the chariot race in the silent version of Ben-Hur and the burning of Atlanta in Gone with the Wind.
In this beautifully edited sequence—which gains nothing with the addition of superimposed lines of Tennyson's poetry—wide-angle shots establish the dimensions of the battlefield, the famous “valley of death,” while mobile cameras follow the advancing horsemen, hundreds of them. It begins slowly, with the ranks of riders moving at a walk. Then the speed increases along with the cannon fire. Unfortunately, the intensity came at a high price. In his fine book, Bring On the Empty Horses, David Niven says that one man was killed during the filming of the scene, and countless horses had to be destroyed because stunt-men used the infamous “running W” tripwire to make the animals fall at the right spot before the cameras. “Flynn led the campaign to have this cruelty stopped,” Niven writes, “but the studio circumvented his efforts and completed the carnage by sending a second unit down to Mexico, where laws against maltreating animals were minimal, to say the most.”
As for the “truth” behind the giving of the orders for the Light Brigade's charge, the film presents a complete whitewash. In this version, it was all done intentionally, for the most courageous and heroic of reasons. But to criticize the film on historical grounds misses the point. Remember that it was made in 1936. Hitler had been in power for three years and threats of war were growing daily. Though the film contains no overt propaganda, the one Russian character, Count Igor Volonoff (Robert Barrat) bears an unmistakable resemblance to Stalin. In short, the filmmakers did not want to question authority; they wanted to celebrate gallantry, whether it existed or not, and that's precisely what they did.
Cast: Errol Flynn (Maj. Geoffrey Vickers), Olivia de Havilland (Elsa Campbell), David Niven (Capt. James Randall), Nigel Bruce (Sir Benjamin Warrenton), Patric Knowles (Capt. Perry Vickers), Donald Crisp (Col. Campbell), C. Henry Gordon (Surat Khan), J. Carrol Naish (Subahdar-Major Puran Singh), Henry Stephenson (Sir Charles Macefield), E.E. Clive (Sir Humphrey Harcourt), Scotty Beckett (Prema Singh), G.P. Huntley Jr. (Maj. John Jowett), Robert Barrat (Count Igor Volonoff), Spring Byington (Lady Octavia Warrenton), George Regas (Wazir); Written by: Michael Jacoby, Rowland Leigh; Cinematography by: Sol Polito; Music by: Max Steiner; Technical Advisor: B. Reeves Eason, Maj. Sam Harris, Capt. E. Rochfort John. Producer: Hal B. Wallis, Samuel Bischoff, Warner Bros. Awards: Nominations: Academy Awards '36: Best Sound, Best Score. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running Time: 115 minutes. Format: VHS, Beta, LV, Closed Caption.