The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936)

After the huge success of the fabulous "Captain Blood" in 1935, Warner Bros. was quick in capitalizing their new found romantic pair, whose box-office appeal and on-screen chemistry was undeniable. Australian brawny Errol Flynn, shot into fame by Blood, and Olivia de Havilland, sweet and powerful actress with a fling for the melodramatic, once again teamed with director Michael Curtiz (who would latter direct many other Flynn-de Havilland movies such as "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (1938), and others like "Casablanca", "Yankee Doodle Dandy" (both 1942) and "Mildred Pierce" (1945), all near-perfect masterpieces!), for this war extravaganza. Hollywood always had a thing for heroic armies being slaughtered when outnumbered in a final battle, from "Fort Apache" (1948) to "Glory" (1989), and Charge is no exception. Based on a poem by Tennyson of the heroic feats of the army, this movie, despite its magnificent 15 minute final battle scene, lacks in giving an appropriate build up. It tells the story surrounding the captain of the regiment (Flynn), his fiancée (de Havilland), who leaves him in favour of his brother (played by Patric Knowles), in the backdrop of the English occupancy of the middle east in the 19th century. The political intrigues and the manoeuvres of the armies back and forth have a rhythm that, despite not being ideal and somewhat slow, can be bearable (maybe this is made as a build up in tension for the final scene, that would work back then but not to today's audiences). But these army and tension scenes are entwined with the melodrama of the love triangle, which is very mushy, even for the likes of DeHavilland. When the regiment is betrayed by the Khan and many women and children and fellow soldiers are slaughtered, the regiment strikes in an almost poetic final assault, to be slaughtered themselves, but changing the course of the war in doing so. The movie has some faults, the English are all saints, and the arabs cunning and deceitful (even though, off course, the English are occupying a land that is not theirs), and, excluding the final battle and the massacre, it has very few gripping scenes. The attempt to give a scope and a back story to the characters didn't result very well. But on the bright side, here is a classic studio action picture, with an amazing cast (also including the likes of a very young David Niven, Nigel Bruce and Donald Crisp... but Flynn still struggles to say some more sentimental lines...), a wide space broad filming, an epic final scene overlapped with on screen titles of poetry, and that golden Hollywood quality around it (hard to define really). In my opinion, George Steven's "Gunga Din" (1939) with Cary Grant, which follows a somewhat similar structure (it gives a back story to Kipling's poem of British occupied India), is much better and much more appealing, because it balanced warfare, with wit, with humour and with heroics. Between the two, see "Gunga Din", unless, off course, you are a die hard fan of the Flynn-deHavilland duo, who, after Blood and Charge, would star in 7 more movies together.