THE LIGHT THAT FAILED (1939)

Ronald Colman, whose combination of box-office clout & prestige allowed him to roam the Hollywood ‘majors’ for bespoke vehicles like few stars of his day, went to Paramount for two exceptional literary properties: Rudyard Kipling’s LIGHT following hard on a fantasia about rabble-rousing 15th Century French poet François Villon in IF I WERE KING/’38.*  Neither quite hits its potential, largely due to miscast directors, yet both such whales-of-a-tale, and Colman such splendid company, they’re unmissable.  (It hardly matters that Colman is twice the age of his character in the book.)  Kipling’s first long-form work has a great narrative thru-line after its childhood prologue, as Colman’s war correspondent artist moves from battle in the Sudan to study & dissipation in Port Said, then sudden commercial success in London.  Poised between Madonna & whore in the form of now grown childhood friend/fellow artist Maisie (Muriel Angelus), and his correspondent friend’s street pickup, Bessie (Ida Lupino), whom he uses as model for his magnum opus, ‘Melancholia.’  In different ways, they each fail him nearly as completely as his fading eyesight, his main support coming from male war correspondent chums led by Walter Huston.  Kipling’s attitude perhaps less misogynist than fear of the unknown.  (Note the rare use of a ‘bromantic’ renunciation speech from Colman to Huston.)  Loaded with ‘boy’s own’ adventure tropes, the film, while relatively faithful to the book, skips over Maisie’s talented red-headed roommate, as well as much of the exciting blindman’s journey back to the front.  (Why replace a ride thru enemy territory shared with an unreliable guide on a two-humped Bactrian camel for galloping horses?)  We also miss a sense of spaciousness in William Wellman’s blunt direction and there’s little sweep to Victor Young’s unusually insensitive score.  But even with lesser elements, it’s close enough to let Colman & Kipling get their effects across.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: *On the whole, IF I WERE KING, with it’s very special Preston Sturges screenplay, is the one to try first.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2019/05/if-i-were-king-1938.html

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Our previous post had a musician lose his hearing; here a painter goes blind.  What next?  A baker’s lost sense of taste, a perfumier’s sense of smell, a masseuse’s touch?