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DVD The Charge of the Light Brigade
Tony Richardson's film about the colossal Crimean War blunder combines his sociopolitical anger with the splendors of a David Lean epic for a fascinating artifact of that boiling-point protest year, 1968. Like America's contemporaneous Vietnam War, Britain's mid-19th-century conflict with Russia in defense of Turkey made less sense the deeper they sank into it; John Gielgud's Lord Raglan keeps referring absentmindedly to the enemy as "the French"! Aside from a peripheral romantic triangle involving apparently the single sane officer in Her Majesty's army (David Hemmings), his friend (Mark Burns), and the friend's wife (Vanessa Redgrave--Mrs. Richardson), the film is really about the profoundly jingoistic Victorian imagination; transitional animation sequences by Richard Williams seem to plunge us directly into the British national psyche. Somewhat muddled as drama, but irresistibly persuasive in its historical detail and stunning camerawork (David Watkin, Chariots of Fire), The Charge of the Light Brigade is a prime candidate for rediscovery. --Richard T. Jameson
A well done telling of a legendary military fiasco
This is a well done and creative movie. Frankly, I had expected it to play fast and loose with the history of this Victorian military catastrophe in order to make an anti-war statement since 1968 was the height of the Vietnam War and the anti-establishment culture was in full flower. However, this movie treats the story with seriousness while using beautiful pictures and some wonderfully creative animation that helps evoke the times and move some aspects of the plot along.
The animation is in the style of Victorian political cartoons and those that were used in newspaper advertisements of the time. The animation used by Monty Python to segue between sketches is very close. It is used to illustrate the masses being urged to a passion for war against the Russians over Turkey, to show the character of some of the officers, and to pierce the bubble of Victorian public respectability.
Most of the movie sets up the characters and showing us how life was in 1854. We learn about the Empire's military was really a collection of private units that were funded by wealthy Peers to the Realm and led by them regardless of their ability. It was not nearly professional in the modern sense and that point is made several times by Captain Nolan (this is likely put on the character rather than being something held by the actual person).
We see how the soldiers were recruited, trained, brutally disciplined, and the pettiness of certain high officers and their celebrity. We follow the army to Turkey where the action described by Tennyson actually takes place. The actual Charge of the Light Brigade actually happens in the last act and is, as Tennyson said, the result of multiple blunders. The finest horsemen of the realm were ordered out to recapture British cannon were, instead, led into the maw of the Russian guns and one third of them were slaughtered and many more were wounded and the Light Brigade became the stuff of legend and buck passing.
The movie is very well done, a delight to watch and enjoy all the bucolic scenery of Victorian times as well as the grime of the slums, and the strange attitude they held towards war and the appropriateness of wives to travel with the officers.
Very much worth seeing.
Accurate and Entertaining
A great depiction of the opening stages of the Crimean War and the infamous Charge. Steady acting from Hemmings, and a shinning performance from Trevor Howard, both quality British actors.
However for me the films animations made the picture complete, they add depth, meaning and importantly help to bridge the gaps. They depict both the British publics image of a heroic British Campaign against a tyranical Russia, and also the later realisation that war is far from glorious.
Richardsons version improves on almost every apect of the earlier picture staring Errol Flynn, which is seriously inaccurate. Put simply, Richardsons version is perhaps as close to the truth as is possible and in my opinion puts the earlier film to shame.
60's socialism and pathological dullness
It is hard to believe that this film has somehow retained a degree of popularity. It has its points--like strong acting and good costumes. There are also neat opening credits using historical cartoons. But 'Charge' is mind-numbingly dull and cudgels the viewer over the head with that horribly dated 60's-brit-class-warfare thing again and again. The amount of action, drama, and adventure that should be inherent in a film of this title is high; the actual amount is miniscule.
Yes, certainly the plot is true-to-history, but a documentary on the shaving habits of Rutherford B. Hayes would be, too. Sure, the stuff about parliamentary debates and public protests of the time will interest a few viewers--the ones who also watch large amounts of C-Span. If that's you, God bless ya, order this film.
If you are looking for a good movie, see the 1936 Errol Flynn version instead!
"Sentries have come in from the hill, sir.... They report Zulus to the southeast. Thousands of them." One of the best pure action movies ever made, this rousing adventure recounts the true story of a small 18th-century regiment of British troops (including a very blue-blooded turn by a young Michael Caine) endlessly besieged by an seemingly unceasing number of fierce attackers. Although the basic premise has since been executed with more technical skill and panache (most notably by Aliens and Michael Mann's The Last of the Mohicans), it's unlikely that anything will ever top the utter spectacle and, above all, sheer unbelievable size of the combat scenes that almost wholly comprise the last half of this film. A gloriously exhilarating essential for anyone looking to... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Stanley Baker - Jack Hawkins Director(s): Cy Endfield DVD Release Date: Released the 20 May 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Set in the expanse of the Sudan desert in the midst of holy war, Khartoum (1966) plays like an attempt to work the Lawrence of Arabia magic on the (mostly) true story of eccentric British general Charles "Chinese" Gordon in 1884 North Africa. The magnificent opening desert battle suggests David Lean's epic sweep, at least until the film settles into a more modest story of political games, military standoffs, and a battle of wits and wiles between two fierce leaders. Charlton Heston plays the wily Christian soldier as cocky, unconventional maverick, and Laurence Olivier (behind heavy make-up and a thick black beard) is almost as good as his cagey nemesis the Mahdi, the Islamic holy warrior on a mission of annihilation. More talk than spectacle, the film falls short of... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Charlton Heston - Laurence Olivier Director(s): Eliot Elisofon - Basil Dearden DVD Release Date: Released the 07 May 2002 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Before coming to America to make such acclaimed films as Tender Mercies and Driving Miss Daisy, Australian director Bruce Beresford made a lasting impression with this compelling courtroom drama, considered one the finest films of the Australian new wave of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Based on a true story about three soldiers in the Boer War who are served up as political scapegoats of the British Empire, the film uses a flashback structure to dramatize the courtroom testimony. It begins when the three Australian soldiers are railroaded for the justified killing of a German missionary and placed on trial for court-martial not as a matter of justice, but to mollify the German government for the sake of political expediency. Burdened with a competent but inexperienced... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Edward Woodward - Jack Thompson Director(s): Bruce Beresford DVD Release Date: Released the 05 July 2000 Usually ships in 24 hours
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First film by director Ridley Scott barely got released in this country in the mid-1970s, but stands up, despite the rather noticeable accents of its stars. That's because Brooklynite Harvey Keitel and Westerner Keith Carradine are playing a pair of officers in Napoleon's army--oops! The plot centers on Carradine insulting Keitel and Keitel demanding vengeance. But every time they get into the middle of one of their duels, war breaks out or something else happens to interrupt. Keitel, however, is too pig-headed to let it drop and dogs Carradine over the course of 20 years. Strong performances otherwise and amazing cinematography, as well as a cast that includes Albert Finney, Edward Fox, and Tom Conti. --Marshall FineMore Info about this DVD Actor(s): Keith Carradine - Harvey Keitel Director(s): Ridley Scott DVD Release Date: Released the 03 December 2002 Usually ships in 24 hours
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This big, boisterous adventure is more inspired by than based on Rudyard Kipling's famous poem. Legendary screenwriters Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur have fashioned a rousing Hollywood movie full of high adventure, knockabout comedy, and old-fashioned male bonding. And old-fashioned it is: the trio of British officers and best friends who form the core of the film are a 19th-century three musketeers in India, threatened by the interventions of a woman who means to marry the dashing Ballantine (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.). Blustery commander MacChesney (Victor McLaglen) schemes to keep Ballantine in the army while his second in command, the treasure-hunting Cutter (Cary Grant in a hopelessly mugging comic performance), continues searching for his elusive mother lode, but all their plans are... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Cary Grant - Joan Fontaine Director(s): George Stevens DVD Release Date: Released the 07 December 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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