Four Frightened People (1934)

Director:

Cecil B. DeMille

Writers:

Lenore J. Coffee (writer)
Bartlett Cormack (writer)

Release Date:

26 January 1934 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Drama

Plot:

Four passengers escape their bubonic plague-infested ship and land on the coast of a wild jungle. In order to reach safety they have to trek through the jungle, facing wild animals and attacks by primitive tribesmen. |

Plot Keywords:

Jungle | Ship | Plague | Beautiful Woman | Based On Novel

Cast

Claudette Colbert	...	Judy Jones
Herbert Marshall	...	Arnold Ainger
Mary Boland	...	Mrs. Mardick
William Gargan	...	Stewart Corder
Leo Carrillo	...	Montague
Nella Walker	...	Mrs. Ainger
Tetsu Komai	...	Native Chief
Chris-Pin Martin	...	Native boatman
Joe De La Cruz	...	Native
Minoru Nishida	...	Native
Teru Shimada	...	Native
E.R. Jinedas	...	Native
Delmar Costello	...	Sakais
Ethel Griffies	...	Mrs. Ainger's mother

Runtime:

95 min | USA:78 min (1935 re-release)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Noiseless Recording)

Filming Locations:

Hawaii, USA

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Trivia:

According to "Cecil B. DeMille's Hollywood" by Robert S. Birchard, the 96-minute version of the film was only screened once, at a test screening in Huntington Park, California, on December 15, 1933. The test audience, apparently mostly composed of kids (who were there waiting to see the war aviation movie Ace of Aces (1933)), felt that the movie was too long by ten minutes, and that further character-set up was necessary. To accommodate this DeMille added in the opening blurb that the movie was filmed on real locations and he included brief bios for each of the four frightened people. DeMille then screened the movie and deemed the test audience was correct, and cut a "thousand feet" from the film, resulting in the 17 minutes cut from the test version. So then, the 96-minute "longer" cut was never actually shown to a mass audience; the only certain thing about it was that it included sequences with Ethel Griffies, who played the mother of Arnold Ainger (Herbert Marshall).

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Thou Shalt Not: Sex, Sin and Censorship in Pre-Code Hollywood (2008) (TV)

Goofy, campy jungle adventure courtesy of Cecil B. DeMille

It is included in Universal's five-disc DeMille set and is the least well known of the films, mostly because it's not an epic, the genre to which DeMille usually contributed. Claudette Colbert stars, and is, as usual, wonderful. She plays a mousy, virginal school teacher who eventually transforms into a jungle princess. Mary Boland, Herbert Marshall and William Gargan round out the cast, along with Leo Carrillo as a native who claims he is accepted as a white man because of his necktie. The film is racist as hell (at one point the men shoot a native because they think he is a chimp who stole their rifle), but I tend to expect that with these kinds of movies. It's about the same as a Tarzan movie. There's some good comedy, and Colbert strips down pretty naked. The film was cut upon re-release because of its sexual content (the version available is missing 17 minutes, at least according to IMDb). Either the missing footage is lost or Universal was too lazy to find and restore it.