The Charge of the Light Brigade **** (1936, Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Patric Knowles, Donald Crisp, C Aubrey Smith, David Niven, Henry Stephenson, Nigel Bruce) – Classic Movie Review 4723

Director Michael Curtiz’s tremendous 1936 gung-ho action adventure film is supposedly based on Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem about the British army’s heroic cavalry charge into disaster at Balaklava in the Crimean War in 1854. ‘Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.’

Certainly, the rousing climactic sequence of it that is staged in the movie is one of Hollywood’s finest and it is beautifully shot in black and white by ace cinematographers Sol Polito and Fred Jackman.

But producers Hal B Wallis and Sam Bischoff at the Warner Bros studio were concerned to deliver entertainment value rather historical accuracy, which kept escaping them, and getting n the way of a good story. So before the charge we have a standard India-set North-West Frontier adventure story, written by Michael Jacoby, in the style of The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935). And, as the stars are Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland as Major Geoffrey Vickers and Elsa Campbell, there is star-crossed romance in the air in India – and rather too much of it too.

However of course there is also action in India. Major Vickers is with the 27th Lancers in India 1856 when Surat Khan (C Henry Gordon) and his soldiers attack his barracks and massacre British men, women and children. But later, we finally get to the Crimea, and the major countermands orders and attacks to avenge the dead.

Thanks to Warner Bros, though, this is a lavish, thoroughly enjoyable production, with the two stars on fine form and cherishable star supporting players Patric Knowles, Donald Crisp, C Aubrey Smith, David Niven, Henry Stephenson and Nigel Bruce proving splendidly entertaining  old-style British types.

Also in the cast are Spring Byington, E E Clive, Lumsden Hare, Robert Barrat, J Carrol Naish, G P Huntley, Walter Holbrook, Princess Baigim, Charles Sedgwick, Scotty Beckett, George Regas, Helen Sanborn, Jimmy Aubrey, Dick Botelier, Phyllis Coghlan, Charles Croker-King, Jack Curtis, Dennis D’Auburn, George David, Herbert Evans, Martin Garralaga, Gordon Hart, Holmes Herbert, Shep Houghton, Brandon Hurst, Boyd Irwin, Crauford Kent, Jon Kristen, Frank Lackteen, Wilfred Lucas, Lal Chand Mehra, Carlyle Moore Jr, Stephen Moritz, Georges Renavent, Carlos San Martin, Harry Semels, Reginald Sheffield, George Sorel, Arthur Thalasso, David Thursby and Michael Visaroff.

The film won one Oscar for Best Assistant Director for Jack Sullivan.

It was remade as The Charge of the Light Brigade by Tony Richardson in Britain in 1968.

Curtiz also directed Flynn and de Havilland in Captain Blood (1935) and Dodge City (1939). It is the second of Flynn and de Havilland’s nine movies together.

Niven’s 1975 autobiography tells how the Hungarian Curtiz exclaimed: ‘Bring on the empty horses!’ (instead of riderless horses), leaving the phrase for posterity as the book’s title.

In a practice later banned by the studios, trip wires were used on 125 horses for climactic charge, which resulted in 25 horses being killed. An outraged Flynn came to blows with Curtiz over it. A stuntman was killed when he fell off his horse and landed on a broken sword lying on the battlefield.

The film is dedicated ‘To the officers and men of the Light Brigade who died victorious in a gallant charge at Balaklava for Queen and Country A.D. 1856.’ But it doesn’t forget to credit the author: ‘The world is indebted to Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Poet Laureate to Her Majesty, Queen Victoria of Great Britain, for perpetuating in an epic poem one of the most distinguished events in history conspicuous for sheer valor.’

Expert horseman Flynn did much of his own riding and some of his stunts, but his stunt double for the really difficult work is Buster Wiles.

Donald Crisp, born in Bow.