The Crimean War of the 1850s, with major campaigns plotted in British & French war offices by Generals working without much knowledge of the area or even proper maps, remains Poster Child for War As SNAFU. Top/down chaos, with only the even grosser incompetence of Russia under Tsar Nicholas I rescuing the situation. No wonder Warner Bros. fictionalized the conflict to use the famous Tennyson poem and spotlight a fast-rising Errol Flynn.* And between desert battles & political intrigue? Romance for 19-yr-old Olivia de Havilland, choosing between Flynn & younger brother Patric Knowles. Everyone tries to do the honorable thing, but duty calls (again & again) right at the precipitate confessional moment. It’d be slightly ludicrous in a more realistic film, but heightened studio artifice helps it fly. That and director Michael Curtiz’s dazzling form in both action & sentiment, with Flynn adding nuance & power to the raw excitement (and beauty) shown the year before in his CAPTAIN BLOOD breakout. (Yet how disheartening to see so many East/West issues and battles of influence between Russia & Europe recognizable after 200 years.)
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Not a film for the PETA crowd what with leopard hunts & scores of horses ‘wire tripped’ for the battles. So many, it ended the practice in Hollywood.
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Rule of thumb when watching fictionalized historicals: only the most unbelievable story element will be based on fact. Here, the eponymous ‘charge,’ though not ordered with forged papers, as seen here, was initiated by reversing a superior officer’s specific instructions.
DOUBLE-BILL: Though it doesn’t compete in terms of sheer production values, Paramount’s LIVES OF A BENGAL LANCER/’35 (Gary Cooper/Franchot Tone/dir. Henry Hathaway) brings swoon-worthy bromantic elements to its Rah, Rah, Raj story line.
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