December 11 movie: The Four Feathers. I think they were doing a special on Alexander Korda last night. Besides this and The Third Man, they also showed The Scarlet Pimpernel (which I also watched) and The Thief of Baghdad (which I didn't).
Anyway, The Four Feathers is an epic adventure about a British soldier who chickens out and resigns his commission just before being sent to the Sudan. His three friends and fiance each give him a white feather, which they say is a symbol of cowardice in Britain. Can anyone confirm that? I never heard it before. The erstwhile soldier spends years "repaying his debt" by saving everyone's life in the midst of great danger and personal suffering.
At first I found this movie simply appalling. We're supposed to agree with the friends and condemn the unwilling soldier, but I was totally on his side. Everyone makes the war in the Sudan sound like suicide, and yet the poor guy -- who never wanted to be a soldier in the first place -- is supposed to cheerfully march off to his death just because his father expects him to. Strangely, I'm just not in the mood for an exciting story about a futile war in the Middle East. I can't imagine why.
But then Georg and I realized that the movie was released in 1939, when Britain was about to head into WWII. The movie makes a lot more sense in that context. Especially one speech by the fiancee after the hero has resigned his commission. She tells him that they aren't free to pursue their dreams because they both have an obligation to tradition and duty, which they have to honor even if they don't believe in it because of what they owe to their families.
Eventually they got into the "ripping yarn" phase of the movie, at which point I enjoyed it much more. It really is a good adventure story if you can get past the hawkishness.
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I read the book for the Four Feathers. I was pretty hard for me to read.
Supposedly giving out feathers for cowardice acts had been around for a couple hundred years, 1700s (one could argue that the practice was also a jab of the English in the Yankee Doodle song- stuck a feather in his cap et all). Looking at the book, I see that the story was first published in 1902.
Have you seen the Heath Ledger/Kate Hudson version? I always got the idea that they got much of their source material from the idea of the "Order of the White Feather of Cowardice" from around WWI. Somebody then got women to give out feathers to men who did not enlist in the war.
I read the book for the Four Feathers. I was pretty hard for me to read.
Supposedly giving out feathers for cowardice acts had been around for a couple hundred years, 1700s (one could argue that the practice was also a jab from the English in the Yankee Doodle song- stuck a feather in his cap et all). Looking at the book, I see that the story was first published in 1902.
Have you seen the Heath Ledger/Kate Hudson version? I always got the idea that they got much of their source material from the idea of the "Order of the White Feather of Cowardice" from around WWI. Somebody then got women to give out feathers to men who did not enlist in the war.
Yes, the handing out of white feathers to (apparently) able-bodied men who had not enlisted was a big thing in England during at least one of the Big Wars; I've encountered references to it elsewhere.
Americans, of course, just call people like that "traitors" or "Commie pinko pigs".
I think it's interesting that Korda & Co. decided to make a straightforward, epic version of this 1904 novel in late 30s England, a time when there was a lot of tension between those who felt it was time to prepare for war and those who felt they had to do anything possible to avoid another war. I don't know enough about between-the-wars British history to say for sure, but I wonder how much of the reluctance to go to war with Hitler was driven by the horrors of WWI. To me, embracing the trad. "Queen & Country" version of honor seen in Four Feathers seems a direct counter to war poets like Wilfrid Owen.
Re The Four Feathers: There was a very strong antiwar sentiment in the U.K. in the 30s. Winston Churchill, who was out of office was one of the few notables who saw that sooner or later Hitler would have to be dealt with. Curiously enough, Neville Chamberlain's appeasement policy which gave Hitler a free hand in 1938 gave the U.K. another year to develop and produce sufficient fighter aircraft to thwart the German invasion attempt in 1940 by winning the "Battle of Britain.
"While the City Sleeps" sounds like a remake of "M" sans Peter Lorre.
Except for the "Satan" scenes, I love "Time Bandits" especially John Cleese's Robin Hood. Satan certainly does provide a problem for the religious unless like Candide's friend Martine, you're a Manichean. As a card carrying materialist, my take on Satan is: Satan = The Selfish Gene - any altruistic algorithms that have evolved.
Interesting: they showed Korda's 'Scarlet Pimpernel' here yesterday as well. Great movie. They don't make actors like Raymond Massey any more.
You missed a trick when you missed The Thief of Baghdad because it totally rocks. Ghost-directed in parts by several British notables including Michael Powell, it may be one of the greatest fantasy films of all time. Sumptuous stuff.