By Mike Wilmington Wilmington@moviecitynews.com
Wilmington on DVDs. Co-Pick of the Week: Classic. The Four Feathers (Korda)
The Four Feathers (Three and a Half Stars)
U.K.: Zolta Korda, 1939 (Criterion Collection)
Four adventure-loving upper class British soldiers — best friends who are about to leave for the 1896-98 colonial wars in Sudan — symbolically exchange four white feathers, plucked from the plume of the beautiful Ethne (June Duprez), daughter of the harrumphing and matchlessly windy Gen. Burroughs (C. Aubrey Smith, of course). The feathers are symbols of cowardice, a fatal soldierly weakness of which one of the four, Harry Faversham (John Clements), is being accused by his three chums: stalwart John Durrance (Ralph Richardson), “Fat Face” Tommy Willoughby (Jack Allen) and Ethne’s disapproving brother, Peter (Donald Gray).
Harry, who is Ethne’s fiancee and the son of yet another military luminary, General Faversham (Allan Jeayes), would rather make love than war. But his ’60s philosophy damns him in the eyes of his trio of dedicated warrior pals, his Fiancee/wife-to-be, and, it seems, his entire class.
Why do we kow with such certaity that Harry, like Lord Jim or Beau Geste, will redeem himself by novel’s end? Well, because this is movie based (faithfully) on a Kiplingesque British war novel set in Victorian England, and in Sudan, and Khartoum, and written by A. E. W. Mason (author of the classic mystery novel “The House of the Arrow”), and because, in that kind of book, British upper class “cowards” or “outlaws” often redeemed themselves, somehow, unless they died a coward’s death. And also because it’s a breathlessly exciting, staunchly romantic war-adventure movie, beautifully photographed (by Georges Perinal and, in Sudan, by Osmond Borradaille), scripted by R. C. Sherrif, directed by Zoltan Korda, produced by Zoltan’s brother Alexander Korda, and designed by the third of those magificent Hugarians, Vincent Korda — a movie with the kind of heart-stopping scenes that make a young adventure-loving boy want to take off immediately for the land and time of Gunga Din.
If you’re going to live under imperialism, this is the way to do it. And while we’re at it, don’t miss the upcoming Criterion Eclipse set “Sabu!” with three more colonial adventures by the Korda brothers, all starring the exuberant Indian boy actor, Sabu, and all adapted faithfully (and excitingly) from novels or stories by A. E. W. Mason or Kipling. Watching these movies, especially The Four Feathers, is royal (or royalist) fun. It makes you want to go adventuring, pluck a plume, hop on a horse, uscabbard a sword, and lead a desperate charge in Khartoum, a white feather in your pocket.
Well, at least it makes you think about it…
Extras: Commentary by film historian Charles Drazin; Interview with Zoltan Korda’s son, David; short film A Day at Denham (1939), with footage of Zoltan Korda on the Four Feathers set; Trailer; Booklet with essay by Michael Sragow.