Despite the one-two punch of schlockmeisters Sam Katzman and William Castle, Charge of the Lancers (1954), a melodrama set during the Crimean war, is monumentally lackluster. And as history, well, putting producer Katzman and director Castle in charge of a movie like this is a little like asking Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall to give a lecture on the Theory of Relativity. Paulette Goddard, in her last American feature, and French import Jean-Pierre Aumont, are the mismatched stars.

The movie has very little to recommend it, though its origins are somewhat mysterious and mildly intriguing given when it was made and the less than impressive final results. A "Sony Screen Classics by Request" title on DVD-R format, Charge of the Lancers is presented in 16:9 enhanced widescreen. The Columbia logo at the head and tail is 1.37:1 pillarboxed, but the rest of the movie is 1.66:1. Filmed in Technicolor, there are a few shots in which the color matrixes get out of alignment, but mostly the transfer is well above average. No extra features.

The armies of Britain, France, Sardinia, and Turkey (the latter in fact the Ottoman Empire, though not called that in the movie) have a new weapon to drive back the Russian Empire: a powerful new cannon whose plans are entrusted to Maj. Bruce Lindsey (Richard Stapley). He puts off proposing to his devoted girlfriend, nurse Maria Sand (Karin Booth, Tobor the Great). However, the Russians capture Lindsay, and it's up to suave Frenchman Capt. Eric Renault (Aumont) to rescue him.

Renault and a British corporal, Tom Daugherty (Charles Irwin), become trapped behind enemy lines and, with Russian troops everywhere, they seek refuge in the caravan of gypsy fortuneteller Tanya (Goddard) and musicians Asa (Tony Roux) and Keta (Fernanda Eliscu). (The only-in-Hollywood caravan is small on the outside, but singularly spacious within.) Rounded up by the Russians, Renault manages to pass himself off as a gypsy fortuneteller, while Russian general Boris Inderman (Ben Astar) takes a lascivious liking to Tanya. Meanwhile, Bruce has managed to not spill the beans by feigning shock, which Russian doctor Manus (Ivan Triesault) has little success treating (the shock, not the beans). A plan is hatched to convince Inderman that Renault can read minds in order to gain access to Bruce's jail cell.

Charge of the Lancers is completely, instantly forgettable, and no great credit to Goddard or Aumont. Goddard, at 43, had long before lost her youthful appeal (in films like Modern Times, The Cat and the Canary, and The Great Dictator), prematurely aging and adding harshness to her raspy voice courtesy years of chain-smoked cigarettes. Her attempts at Marlene Dietrich-like exoticness are laughable. Ironically, the same year Modern Times was released Goddard also made an uncredited appearance as a Gypsy, in Laurel & Hardy's The Bohemian Girl. Though top-billed Goddard isn't even in the picture all that much, and doesn't make her first appearance until it's nearly half over.

Jean-Pierre Aumont got his start with Jean Cocteau and had been a rising name at MGM (in films like Cross of Lorraine, 1943) when he left Hollywood to join the Free French Forces. He was wounded twice, once seriously, and his real-life experiences must have made shooting the singularly unreal Charge of the Lancers awfully trivial. After the war he did other movies - Song of Scheherazade, Lili, Day for Night and won numerous honors before his death in 2001 at the age of 90.

The picture draws a few Cold War parallels in a very early '50s way, though much less so than other hysterical anticommunist films (Jet Pilot, Red Planet Mars, and The World in His Arms, to name a few). To its credit, there is a genuinely surprising plot twist near the end.

Charge of the Lancers was announced for 3-D production and I strongly suspect it was at least partly shot in 3-D, though R.M. Hayes's indispensable reference 3-D Movies disputes this.* The picture was shot over just 11 days in April 1953 - the very month Columbia's Man in the Dark, the first Hollywood studio 3-D feature, and House of Wax, the first 3-D blockbuster following 1952's Bwana Devil, were going into release.

The 1950s 3-D craze lasted from the fall of '52 to well into 1954, but peaked early, the month Charge of the Lancers was being photographed. All the major studios jumped on the 3-D merry-go-round for a short while, but the technology's future was already doomed because of steadily growing anticipation about another new technology: CinemaScope, which was being readied for that fall. As a result many 3-D movies switched to 2-D before shooting, or their 3-D release was limited or scrapped altogether.

Charge of the Lancers certainly looks like it was planned for 3-D. The opening low-angle shot of horseback lancers charging straight at the camera is iconically 3-D, and many of the action scenes are shot from angles that would seem to have had the process in mind. That said, director William Castle's first unit footage, the dramatic scenes, show almost no imagination at all - static medium shots from dull angles. Another argument in favor of this being at least partly shot in 3-D is the funky aspect ratio. Columbia was one of the first studios to adopt 1.85:1 for their non-scope releases, but this slighter framing (1.66:1) is more in keeping with early 3-D releases. Either way this was held back until January-February 1954.

Video & Audio

As stated above, Charge of the Lancers has been given a good transfer despite a few shots where the Technicolor matrixes are misaligned. The Columbia torch lady is 1.37:1 but the rest of the picture is 1.66:1. The region-free disc's English-only mono audio is adequate. There are the usual chapter stops every ten minutes. There are no Extra Features, and the film plays automatically, with no menu screens.

Parting Thoughts

Only die-hard William Castle and Paulette Goddard fans are likely to have the patience to try sitting through this. Though not all that terrible Charge of the Lancers has almost nothing to recommend it, either. Except, that is, as a curious bump in the road for talent on their way up ... and down. Rent It.

* Eminent film scholar Bob Furmanek helpfully writes, "Charge of the Lancers was never announced as a 3-D production. The intended ratio was 1.85 which was Columbia's house widescreen ratio when this began filming on April 7, 1953. Of the 30 'Golden Age' 3-D features composed for widescreen, the aspect ratio breakdown is the following: six were composed for 1.66; four for 1.75; seventeen for 1.85 and three for 2.1."


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