The Four Feathers The Four Feathers MGM 1939 / Color / 1:37 flat full frame / 115 130 min. / Street Date April 19, 2005 / 14.95 Starring John Clements, Ralph Richardson, C. Aubrey Smith, June Duprez, Allan Jeayes, Jack Allen, Donald Gray, Frederick Culley Cinematography Georges Périnal Sudan Unit Cameramen Osmond Borradaile, Jack Cardiff, Wilkie Cooper, Robert Krasker Production Designer Vincent Korda Film Editor Henry Cornelius Original Music Miklos Rozsa Written by R.C. Sherriff, Lajos Biró, Arthur Wimperis from the novel by A.E.W. Mason Produced by Alexander Korda Directed by Zoltan Korda
	Reviewed by Glenn Erickson The Four Feathers is the classic British military adventure story about bravery, cowardice and honor. It's been remade at least seven times but this Technicolor epic filmed at the outset of WW2 is the favored version. It's one of the most successful superproductions from the Korda brothers, a trio of Hungarians who prospered in the British film industry. The recent 2002 remake is a thudding bore that buries everything good about the original story under P.C. niceties - this 1939 version is the one to see. Synopsis: Respected Lt. Harry Faversham (John Clements) has begun a fine military career, and is the envy of his three friends Arthur Willoughby, Peter Burroughs and John Durrance (Ralph Richardson) when he becomes engaged to Ethne Burroughs, the most desirable young woman in London (June Duprez). But Harry never thought he'd actually have to see action, and when his regiment is assigned to the Sudan, he suddenly resigns his commission. The act outrages all who know Harry, and his engagement is spoiled. His former comrades send him four white feathers, a formal gesture that symbolizes cowardice and severs all ties. Harry decides to go secretly to Africa, with a wild plan to win back his reputation. National epics based on colonial greatness have waned in popularity in the last few decades, and the days when England could consider itself the center of a vast empire are now at least 50 years in the past. The Four Feathers is a great adventure story based on several set assumptions - that British rule represented order over chaos in foreign lands; that the darker heathen populations of the Earth were meant to be ruled by Europeans; and that there was no greater honor for an Englishman than to serve in the Armies of conquest and pacification. Harry Faversham would almost seem to be an object lesson for little boys disinclined to see the army as a career and the nation's unending wars as a good thing. In a flashback we see Harry traumatized by General Burroughs' stories of Crimea and what sounds like the Charge of the Light Brigade. Harry joins up and learns to be a solider, but never comes to grips with the idea of going to war. He doesn't realize that his resignation will cause him to be ostracized by both his peers and his fiancée. His reaction is to launch himself as a one-man deep-cover spy. Sneaking away to Egypt, he has his skin dyed and his forehead branded in order to pass himself off as a mute native. He slips quietly in among the laborers in his regiment's unit. His plan is to win back his honor and return those damning white feathers. What follows is a fine desert adventure. Harry's disguise puts him in a position to help after a devastating attack by the fuzzy-wuzzies (sic). In a prison hell-hole with two of his former friends, he's able to foment a break-out just when one is needed to aide a British attack. It's all very exciting and well-done, even now. The film is especially notable for being shot on location in the Sudan in Technicolor, which in 1939 was no small technical feat. The large-scale battle scenes still impress audiences; when the film was remade in 'scope in 1955 as Storm Over the Nile, Korda just took the same footage and reframed it for the wide screen. John Clements was mostly a stage actor and this might be his most famous film role; he was in Korda's Things to Come and much later played an intelligence officer in The Mind Benders. The real standout in the cast is Ralph Richardson. He turns in a memorable performance as the Captain who loses his helmet in the desert heat and goes blind. June Duprez's Ethne is lovely, but the actress is far more desirable in Korda's next film The Thief of Bagdad. Or perhaps it's just that we don't respect her as highly as we might. All the characters place social and military duty above personal relationships, and it would be a fitting ending if Harry offered Ethne his dress uniform to sleep with on their honeymoon night. It's interesting that western audiences find the honor system in the Japanese story like Chushingura so strange and perverse, when the inflexible social cruelty of The Four Feathers has such similar punishments for dishonored pariahs. Harry Faversham isn't expected to commit ritual suicide, but many of his peers are probably thinking that's what he should do. MGM's DVD of The Four Feathers has been awaited for some time, with fans hoping for a major picture restoration. It looks good, but not great. There seems to be a red halo to the right of many lines of high-contrast, where bright white shirts meet black evening jackets, etc. This isn't exactly misregistration, as the rest of the picture looks better than I've ever seen it. It's just that things like candle flames have little secondary ghost flames a little bit to the right of the real ones. I honestly don't know what the problem is is. After all this explanation, it's important to stress that the image overall looks great, and the flaw (I think it's a flaw) is not all that distracting. The mono audio with the marvelous Mikos Rozsa score is fine, free of the distortion that plagued MGM's disc of The Thief of Bagdad. There are no extras. The package has an excellent cover design but the plot synopsis on the back gives some wrong impressions. Harry Favisham doesn't resign from his post in the midst of battle, and the film is not primarily a battle epic. The IMDB lists a much longer running time, but this 115-minute version is the one I remember seeing many times over. On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, The Four Feathers rates: Movie: Excellent Video: Very Good Sound: Excellent Supplements: None Packaging: Keep case Reviewed: April 2, 2005 [Savant Main Page] [Savant Links] [Article Index] [Review Index] [Savant 5 Year Report] DVD Savant Text © Copyright 2007 Glenn Erickson Advertise With Us Review Staff | About DVD Talk | Newsletter Subscribe | Join DVD Talk Forum Copyright © DVDTalk.com All rights reserved | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use