The Four Feathers
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Allan Jeayes, C. Aubrey Smith, John Clements, June Duprez, Ralph RichardsonDVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 129 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-04-19
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Movie Reviews of The Four Feathers
Movie Review: Puts the Remakes to Shame
Summary: 5 Stars
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.
Summary of 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
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