The Four Feathers (1939)

1939 was Hollywood's greatest year, producing an endless number of classics: Gone With the Wind, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Wizard of Oz, Stagecoach, Gunga Din. Alexander and Zoltan Korda (The Private Life of Henry VIII), the dons of the British film industry, apparently saw all this commotion across the pond and decided to trump the colonials. The result is The Four Feathers (1939), one of the all-time great adventure films.

Harry Faversham (John Clements) is the son of a British army hero, who reluctantly obliges his father's wishes and joins up. When the British send an expeditionary force to crush a Muslim uprising in Sudan, Harry resigns his commission - ostensibly for the sake of his fiancee Ethne (June Duprez). But Harry's action is perceived as cowardice, and his three army colleagues (Ralph Richardson, Jack Allen, Donald Gray) send him a parcel of white feathers to shame him. Chastened, Harry embarks on a mad quest to redeem his reputation, disguising himself as a native and rescuing his friends - and the British army - from the Khalifa (John Laurie) and his rapacious army.

I'll avoid the PC hand-wringing that plagued my Charge of the Light Brigade review, and just point out that The Four Feathers is a blast. Its absurd plot and plethora of unlikely coincidences are perfectly pulled off, mixing well with the serious character drama and sweeping battle scenes. This is a film that knows what it is and doesn't waste time explaining why we should take it seriously: it's enough that our noble, stiff-upper-lipped heroes are doing battle with heathen savages, and there's an end to it.

The movie does seem conflicted in its message about heroism. The old fuddy duddies, particularly Ethne's father (C. Aubrey Smith), are ridiculed as pompous dopes obsessed with military glory. Harry's refusal to serve, done with the best intentions, seems noble and understandable. It's hard to reconcile this lightly satirical material with the main thrust of the story, however: if there's nothing wrong with Harry's cowardice, why ought he go through such an ordeal to redeem himself? Still, the satisfaction wrought by Harry's achievements - particularly his deflating the old man's tales of Crimean glory - makes up for the garbled message, and why take this material seriously anyway?

Filming in color on location in Egypt and Sudan, Zoltan Korda and cinematographers Osmond Borradaile and Georges Perinal provide a truly epic production. By any standards, the scale is remarkable: the Technicolor images of the green English countryside, the arid Egyptian desert, casts of thousands and flocking birds and camels, are some of the most beautiful ever depicted. The movie's rousing battle scenes, with thousands of "dervishes and fuzzy-wuzzies" charging across the desert on camel-back, dodging bullets and explosions, set the standard for seven decades of movie action. Miklos Rosza provides a suitably rousing, dramatic score. In 1939, the film must have been a revelation, particularly from the chronically cash-strapped British film industry.

John Clements (Things to Come) is fine: handsome, dashingly heroic and conflicted, he makes a perfect protagonist. Ralph Richardson (Khartoum) gives the standout performance as Jack Durrance, the very proper gentleman who fights a campaign blind and graciously gives up the girl. June Duprez's love interest is pretty but doesn't have much to do, a common failing of this genre. C. Aubrey Smith (Rebecca) and Frederick Culley (The Private Life of Henry VIII) are fine as the bluff old men who get marvellously put in their place.

The Four Feathers remains among the best of the imperial adventure genre. I haven't seen the Heath Ledger remake, but I can't imagine it has a patch on this one.