A British Army officer resigns, burning his last-day summons to war in the Sudan. Accusing him of cowardice, his girlfriend and three friends give him white feathers. To gain redemption, he ... Read allA British Army officer resigns, burning his last-day summons to war in the Sudan. Accusing him of cowardice, his girlfriend and three friends give him white feathers. To gain redemption, he shadows his friends to save their lives.A British Army officer resigns, burning his last-day summons to war in the Sudan. Accusing him of cowardice, his girlfriend and three friends give him white feathers. To gain redemption, he shadows his friends to save their lives.
- Awards
- 2 nominations
- Man
- (uncredited)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaDirector Zoltan Korda's own remake of this film, Storm Over the Nile (1955), re-used a lot of the battle sequences from this movie, which did not lend themselves very well to the cropping necessary to achieve the width of the CinemaScope ratio, nor did their comparative fuzziness blend well with the new footage.
- GoofsWhen Capt. Durrance feels the face and head of the dead soldier outside his tent, the corpse moves his head, lifting and turning it.
- Quotes
Harry Faversham: In England, the white feather is the mark of a coward.
Dr. Harraz: Ah, I see. Then why worry? Be a coward and be happy.
Harry Faversham: No, Doctor. I have been a coward, and I wasn't happy.
- Crazy creditsOpening credits prologue: In 1885 the rebellious army of cruel dervishes enslaved and killed many thousands of defenceless natives in the Sudan, then laid siege to Khartoum. The scanty garrison's heroic commander, General Gordon appealed for help from England - but no help reached him.
- ConnectionsEdited into Storm Over the Nile (1955)
- SoundtracksAuld Lang Syne
(1788) (uncredited)
Lyrics by Robert Burns, music traditional
Heard during the departure of the Regiment
The Technicolor photography is eye-poppingly rich, at the same level as three other 1939 color classics—namely, Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz and Drums Along the Mohawk. Particularly effective are the transitions from the browns and yellows of North African military outposts, with their punctuations by the red, white and blue of the Union Jack, to the deep greens of rural England. To top it off, much of the film was actually shot in the Sudan with what seems like thousands of native extras. By looks alone, sometimes it's hard to believe that this production predates the Second World War. It might have been a huge hit if it had had a Cary Grant or a Clark Cable or an Errol Flynn in the lead. As things go, John Clements is as good as can be, if not exactly bursting with charisma. Ralph Richardson gives a bravura performance as Clement's fellow officer, though he is saddled with a sequence that strains credulity beyond the breaking point. Let's just say that it takes a physically fit man longer than 30 seconds of direct exposure to the desert sun before he suffers total disorientation and unconsciousness. And if the sun can do that much damage so swiftly, then surely the flesh of the unconscious man's face, exposed for hours, would be cooked to a cinder.
C. Aubrey Smith plays his usual crusty old Brit, this time as a bombastic Crimean War veteran who complains that men are no longer men and war is no longer war. His repetitious boasting wears thin after a while. June Duprez barely registers as the female love interest.
Details
- Runtime2 hours 9 minutes
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1