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DVD The Four Feathers
Some movies you just have to love. Oh, they may be well, even beautifully, made; wonderfully cast and stirringly acted; uplifting in theme and noble in motive. That's fine. In fact, that's great. For that, you admire them. But you love them because they are perfect distillations of a mood, of a moment in the history of filmmaking, of a breed of imagination that, like the best of fairy tales, transcends the tides of taste and empire, and certainly of political correctness.
Consider The Four Feathers, produced in England in 1939, at Alexander Korda's London Films studios, where a family of Hungarian expatriates aspired to exalt their newly adopted country, its history and traditions, and also to out-Hollywood Hollywood. With this film, they realized both ambitions, in spades.
A.E.W. Mason's novel of stiff-upper-lip honor and valor had already been filmed three times (and at least that many remakes have followed, superfluously). This is the only version that matters. On the eve of the British army's departure to reconquer the Sudan, a young lieutenant descended from a long line of military heroes resigns his commission and is tendered a white feather--the symbol of cowardice--by each of three brother officers. From his fiancée's plume he plucks a fourth, then fades out of their lives... to embark, a year later, on a private quest that will carry him down continents and through unimaginable sacrifice to hard-won redemption.
John Clements (who never had much of a film career) is excellent as the tormented Harry Faversham. But it's Ralph Richardson, as Harry's romantic rival John Durrance (wonderful names!), you'll cherish--he and that spitting image of the Duke of Wellington, C. Aubrey Smith, whose blustery recollections of the Crimean War strike a satiric yet affectionate keynote. Directed by one Korda brother, Zoltan--who shot spectacular sequences in the Sudan--and exquisitely designed by another, Vincent, The Four Feathers is a Technicolor milestone, and its music score is an early triumph by one of the Kordas's legion of Hungarian-expatriate helpmates, Miklos Rosza. --Richard T. Jameson
The 1939 Zoltan and Alexander Korda production of The Four Feathers is one of the greatest adventure movies ever. Accept no substitutes -- especially the 2002 version with Heath Ledger as a totally anachronistic Harry Faversham. That one was shot somewhere with a lot of sand, but it wasn't the Sudan. In addition to an exciting and cohesive plot, one of the factors that make this 1939 version so extraordinary is the authenticity of production. In 1939, "shot on location" meant filming where the story actually took place, not, as now, just outdoors in a place that resembles the story's setting. Then, "location" meant the Sudan, which the British still controlled. The British soldiers were played by the contemporary British Army garrison in Cairo, with correct uniforms and weapons drawn from quartermaster warehouses and arsenals where they had been preserved for decades. Moreover, the Khalifa's Sudanese warriors were played by sons of men who had fought the British 41 years before at Omdurman; indeed, it is likely that some of the oldest Sudanese extras were veterans of that battle.
Although in many respects -- and not just in uniforms and weapons -- the book and the movie were products of their time and place, certainly people today still grapple with questions of service to their country and competing loyalties to family, not to mention self-doubt and bravery. These are central themes of this movie and are handled very well. In 1939, of course, the British were facing the terrible dangers posed by Hitler, giving the movie special relevance to theater patrons.
I've had the VHS version for years and this DVD is a welcome improvement in clarity of picture, color and sound. However, I agree with those who have complained about the chintzy packaging of the DVD: no bios of the stars, no liner notes or even a scene list. That's not the fault of the Kordas but of the present-day cheapskates at MGM. And the DVD jacket notes were obviously jotted down on the back of a leaflet at some anti-war rally by someone who had not seen this movie at all. These are annoyances and disappointments, but they don't detract from the story or the movie production.
Having read the book by A.E.W. Mason, I can say this is one of those rare instances (like "Goldfinger") where the movie is better than the book. Those who choose to project contemporary attitudes back many decades will sniff or gasp at this movie and the standards and mores it portrays. So be it. I suspect that if C. Aubrey Smith (as General Burroughs) were still around, Queen Elizabeth II would even now be toasted as "Queen Empress" in British regimental messes.
Cut?
The MGM DVD edition appears to be a cut edition of this movie. I believe the runtime should be 130 minutes. It's a shame if MGM chose to release this in an abbreviated form.
Better than the Remake
I really enjoyed this movie and felt it was better than the remake. Both this one and the new one hold to a very similar story line.
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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Nineteen thirty-nine is often proposed as the movies' halcyon year, and three reasons why were directed by John Ford: Stagecoach, Young Mr. Lincoln, and Drums Along the Mohawk. In that exalted company Drums... would have to be accounted "merely superb"--even if it's the best film ever made about the American Revolution and, oh, only about eighth-best picture of its year.
Henry Fonda and Claudette Colbert play newlyweds in New York's Mohawk Valley at the time of the Revolutionary War. That war is more a distant rumor than a direct concern of people with cabins to raise, crops to harvest, and firstborn on the way. When it comes to their valley, in the form of hitherto-peaceable Indians whipped up by a gaunt Tory with an eyepatch (John Carradine), life changes... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Claudette Colbert - Henry Fonda - Edna May Oliver Director(s): John Ford DVD Release Date: Released the 24 May 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Errol Flynn is one of those names that define movie stardom. Chiseled good looks that stopped just short of being preposterous. A brash and jaunty manner that charmed men and women alike. Whiffs of bad-boy scandal offscreen that only enhanced his legend (not for nothing did "In like Flynn" become a national catchphrase!). And enough marquee-worthy titles that in memory's ear ring like classics.
Flynn's stardom wasn't on a par with the richly ambiguous artistry of Cary Grant, or the deep, enduring heroic legacy of John Wayne, or the indelible character work amassed by Flynn's Warner Bros. contemporaries Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, and Edward G. Robinson. Still, this most celebrated of Tasmanian devils was a one-of-a-kind, often raffishly entertaining icon of Hollywood in the '30s... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Michael Curtiz DVD Release Date: Released the 19 April 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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I agree completely with "Ohio Guy"........these are some of Gary Coopers best movies BUT the studio, instead of spending a little on restoration and packaging them individually, chose to go the CHEAP way and made them a set. The transfers are marginal at best and the picture quality is no where what it should be to be viewed on big screen TV's. Come on Amazon.com.....pay attention to YOUR customers and force the studios to do a better job of restoration. There really are customers out here who don't want knock-offs and who consider what is being done to these great films a true injustice and also a RIP-OFF....!!!!!!!! More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Gary Cooper DVD Release Date: Released the 31 May 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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This silky smooth film noir pits gruff police detective Dana Andrews, stiff and blunt in his street-bred manners, against a cultured columnist and acidic wit (Clifton Webb at his prissiest) in a battle of wits during a murder investigation. The cop is a romantic hiding under a hard-boiled exterior who falls in love with the beautiful victim through the portrait that hangs in her apartment. Gene Tierney, whose heart-shaped face mixes the exotic with the girl next door, brings the poise and calm of a model to her role as the object of every man's gaze and the target of a killer. Laura, handsomely shot in dreamy black and white, is the first and best of Otto Preminger's cool, controlled murder mysteries. In the gritty world of film noir it remains the most refined and elegant example... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Gene Tierney - Dana Andrews Director(s): Rouben Mamoulian - Otto Preminger DVD Release Date: Released the 15 March 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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