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The Charge of Light Brigade [1936] (REGION 1) (NTSC)


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hollywood hokum and historical holocausts with hellboys
Review date: 2008-08-27 Rating: 6 out of 10

errol flynn was the first superstar hollywood produced in its veritable stable of stud horses and here he leads the famed charge against the crimeans which is celebrated here as highest valour without question .

the historical blunder and misconsctruction aside ,curtiz did not even get the geography of india right with elephants and tigers in the frontier province,and names like lohara and chukoti mixed with delhi and calcutta ,

this is the romantic nonsense that was to engulf popular mainstream cinema because a leading man was able to fulfill the audience fantasies despite total incompetence in both reel and real life,

flynn was flamboyant ,charming and he made olivia de haviland a star alongside as they were the golden couple of hollywood ,

here he played the sacrificial lamb to perfection in a sentimental hokum for brotherly love ,patriotic revenge and a gentleman officer in a dashing gold braided uniform ,

he and gable after him both had a moustache and created box-office mayhem but the fact that lahore becomes lohara and he emarks on a stallion buying mission as a picnic which takes him from india through persia to turkey to the black sea and back in one long ride is so absurd you cannot even laugh at it ,

add to it the clowns playing the indian natives and it becomes a parody like carry on up the khyber -except that spoof is more accurate in details ,

olivia is strictly there to kiss flynn from time to time and for two ballroom dances ,

but one thing is for sure flynn gives a magnificent performance and the production is lavish with every set grander than india itself,

the tiger hunt on elephants is spectacular though the tigers are so tame they look like felix the cat,

the excursion to bokatum in turkey from calcutta is made to follow the route which annihilated alexanders army on its march back home ,

paric knowles plays his younger brother who is in love with the same woman and the 2 brothers exchange some very stiff brit upper lip effronteries and affections ,

the colonial life in india is shown as a paredise as everyone except the evil surat khan is flourishing and content,

but the fact that errol carries the day with his acting ,looks and the charge of the cavaliers and lancers might make you overlook all the blunders as hollywood sets off to offset a huge military massacre blunder from the historical sheets ,

the fact this became the formula to sucess and still is the key to both awards and riches is really just as pathetic as the historical and geographical adventures of this misadventure ,


- jbz7879
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Reviews


A stunning travesty
Review date: 2007-09-22 Rating: 6 out of 10

A thrilling action film starring two of the most romantic film actors before or since with the added bonus of the inclusion of David Niven in a magnificent cast. I thought this film amazing - when I was 14 (46 years ago!) After that I became aware of history and the tragic consequences of the 19th century British army's system of purchased commissions and its incompetent commissariat. Wonderful though Michael Curtiz's direction, the acting and camerawork are, this film is not about the historic, vainglorious and noble charge but an entirely fictitious event taking place on a different continent! I take issue with 'isandlwana' in his/her review on two counts. Tony Richardson's 1968 film is (a) a justified critique on the senselessness in waging war (the Crimean War in particular) and (b) a vastly superior product; not because it is more polished than the 1936 film (a debatable point) but because it is vastly entertaining, superbly cast and acted and, above all, historically honest.

Entertaining, but murder on the horses
Review date: 2007-06-08 Rating: 8 out of 10

Warner Bros. and Michael Curtiz faced a real challenge with their 1936 epic The Charge of the Light Brigade: how to solve the problem of turning the biggest fiasco in British military history into a heroic adventure? Why, ignore history entirely and make it all up instead, of course! Unfortunately, it doesn't quite pull it off, because no matter how entertaining the first hundred minutes are, there's no getting around the stupidity of Donald Crisp's commanding officer or the criminal irresponsibility of Errol Flynn's actions in the last reel, no matter how `noble' his intentions. Nor is it easy to accept the truly vicious horsefalls in the final charge, no matter how spectacular the sequence, although at least the huge number of horses killed in the sequences (along with one stuntman) led to laws being passed to protect animals in films.

Despite the title, the film takes its lead from the previous year's The Lives of a Bengal Lancer and is more interested in revolting natives on the Indian frontier than it is in the Crimean War, with Flynn's dashing cavalry officer surprisingly losing Olivia De Havilland's hand to his brother Patric Knowles while failing to avert a massacre masterminded by C. Henry Gordon's treacherous Surat Khan. The Charge itself is here an act of revenge rather than a ghastly blunder, and is portrayed as the turning point in the war rather than a wasted heroic gesture. But then, when Tony Richardson offered a more historically accurate version in 1968, audiences stayed at home in droves, so the studio clearly knew what they were doing by going for romantic hokum, and darn entertaining hokum at that.

(Incidentally, the theme of animal cruelty is continued in the 1936 Porky Pig cartoon Boom Boom included on the DVD, a bizarre, tasteless - but in an unfunny way - spoof of WW1 that delights in killing animals with high explosives for the first half of its running time!)

The extras on Warners' Region 1 NTSC DVD are good but a little unsatisfying compared to other Errol Flynn titles: this is one film where a documentary would have been particularly useful, but aside from the Warners Night at the Movies selected shorts and an audio commentary, the only extra relating to the film itself is a reissue trailer - a pity since even the original four-minute theatrical trailer included a lot of behind-the-scenes footage.

A CLASSIC EMPIRE MAKING
Review date: 2006-01-08 Rating: 10 out of 10

A classic British Empire film set in the backdrop of India and the Crimea. The story begins with a brutal massacre of soldiers in a British garrison in Colonial India. Then the story drifts into the Crimea and in the beautifully shot, Light Brigade charge!
This film is one of the last remaining that makes the British Empire look heroic. The battles are superb and are shot in the way like old western film shootouts!

Action and Romance
Review date: 2003-09-10 Rating: 8 out of 10

THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE is an excellent movie with a star-studded cast and plenty of action. There is also Olivia de Haviland and enough romance to lend balance to the story. The fact that it is not historically accurate does not bother me very much. It is still a great yarn. What upsets me most is the report that two hundred horses and one stunt man died as a result of the filming of the famous charge.

The motion picture received an Academy Award for Best Assistant Director (Jack Sullivan) and Oscar nominations for Best Score and Sound. The main competition for Oscars in 1936 came from THE GREAT ZIEGFELD, MR. DEEDS GOES TO TOWN and THE STORY OF LOUIS PASTEUR.

Product Details/Specifications


Actor(s):
Errol Flynn
Henry Stephenson
Patric Knowles
Nigel Bruce
Olivia de Havilland

Creators:
Errol Flynn (Primary Contributor)
Olivia de Havilland (Primary Contributor)
Alfred Lord Tennyson (Writer)

Director(s):

Recording label: Warner Home Video
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
EAN: 0012569796263
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 1
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD-Video, Subtitled, NTSC,
Release date: 2007-03-27
Universal product code (UPC): 012569796263
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
Region code: 1
Running time: 115 minutes
Theatrical release date: 1936-10-20
Language: English (Original Language)
Language: English (Subtitled)

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