CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE Movie Review
1968 Tony Richardson
Tony Richardson's version of the key events at the battle of Balaklava is very much an answer to the 1936 film. Where director Michael Curtiz and writers Michael Jacoby and Rowland Leigh find high adventure, Richardson and writer Charles Wood see incompetence, petty jealousy, and lies. Though they stick much closer to historical fact (and historical supposition), the “truth” of their story is every bit as suspect as the earlier work.
Richardson uses Richard Williams's animation in the opening credits to set the scene. A cartoon Russian bear attacks a fez-wearing Turkey, and the British lion puts on a policeman's hat and steps in. Part of the reality behind that English threat is Lord Cardigan's (Trevor Howard) 11th Hussars. But when Capt. Nolan (David Hemmings), recently arrived in England from service in India, joins the Hussars, he finds that the outfit is virtually a sham. Despite their handsome uniforms, with the famous tight red trousers, the officers are idiots—empty-headed noblemen who have bought their commissions. Richardson and Wood spend the first three-quarters of the film castigating the British upper-class and military. Though they certainly have some historical basis for their charges, they are so heavy-handed that they undermine their own efforts.
Nolan is presented as caring, thoughtful, patriotic, intelligent, and kind to animals. Cardigan is an ignorant, lecherous, vain, racist bully, and he's no better or worse than his superiors. Lord Lucan (Harry Andrews) petulantly refuses to take part in the war against the Russians until he is guaranteed a higher rank than his brother-in-law Cardigan. Lord Raglan (John Gielgud) is a doddering, one-armed old man who puts forth an early version of the “domino theory” as a reason for fighting the war to begin with.
While the staff officers stumble toward confrontation in the Crimea, Nolan is reunited with his best friend and fellow officer Capt. Morris (Mark Burns) on the eve of Morris's marriage to Clarissa (Vanessa Redgrave). The wedding scene is strongly reminiscent of the gathering for the famous hunt scene in Richardson's masterpiece, Tom Jones. The romantic subplot involving the relationship between Nolan and Clarissa attempts to put a modern spin on the triangle from the 1936 film, but it has an unfinished feel. In any case, it has little to do with the film's main plot and, at the earliest moment, is simply abandoned. At that point, a supporting character, Mrs. Duberly (Jill Bennett), takes center stage. Like Lucan, Cardigan, and Raglan, she was a real figure—she actually wrote a book about her experiences, A Journal Kept During the Russian War, 1856—and she receives the same shabby treatment.
When the filmmakers turn to the famous charge itself, their work is remarkably clear. The carnage is captured in all its bloody horror, sparing neither horse nor man. The credits make special note of the Turkish Presidential Cavalry, and the riders do tremendous work. If the scope of the engagement isn't as sweeping as the 1936 film, the sense of realism is even greater. The conclusion means to leave the viewer with anintense sensation of waste and needless destruction, and it succeeds far too well.
Despite the filmmakers' ham-fisted politics, the acting is excellent, with one exception. Trevor Howard's apoplectic portrayal of Cardigan is one of the best in his varied and underappreciated career. “If they can't fornicate, they can't fight,” he thunders about his men. “And if they don't fight hard, I'll flog their backs raw for all their fine looks.” Though they don't have as much to work with, Gielgud and Andrews are just as good. Hemmings and Vanessa Redgrave never come close to the edgy chemistry that they found in Blow Up. Her simpering performance is easily the worst of the ensemble.
In the end, like the 1936 film, this one is a product of its time, and the conflicts of the late 1960s were essentially generational. As such, it's more concerned with youth vs. age than with history.
Cast: Trevor Howard (Lord Cardigan), John Gielgud (Lord Raglan), David Hemmings (Capt. Nolan), Vanessa Redgrave (Clarissa), Harry Andrews (Lord Lucan), Jill Bennett (Mrs. Duberly), Peter Bowles (Paymaster Duberly), Mark Burns (Capt. Morris), Alan Dobie (Mogg), T.P. McKenna (Russell), Corin Redgrave (Featherstonhaugh), Norman Rossington (Corbett), Rachel Kempson (Mrs. Codrington), Donald Wolfit (“Macbeth”), Howard Marion-Crawford (Sir George Brown), Mark Dignam (Airey), Ben Aris (Maxse), Peter Woodthorpe (Valet), Roger Mutton (Codrington), Joely Richardson; Written by: Charles Wood; Cinematography by: David Watkin; Music by: John Addison. Producer: Neil Hartley, United Artists. British. MPAA Rating: PG. Running Time: 130 minutes. Format: VHS.