Criterion Collection: Four Feathers [Blu-ray] | DVD Review

The Four Feathers, produced in that seminal cinematic year of 1939, is a rousing adventure epic that, for better or worse, reflects the popular mentality of its times. Produced by Alex Korda’s London Films, a massive operation known for sprawling costume dramas that took themselves way too seriously, The Four Feathers is all about the British military’s colonialist escapades in North Africa circa 1898. Based on a best selling novel by A.E.W. Mason, the story has been committed to celluloid at least six times – most recently as a Heath Ledger vehicle in 2002 – with each incarnation taking degrees of narrative license. But this production, directed by Korda’s brother Zoltan, is generally considered the definitive version. While it’s inherently unfair to apply today’s standards to a screenplay of this vintage, even the most tolerant appraisal would have to conclude that, despite its historical basis, this Four Feathers is guilty of excessive condescension and aggressive pandering. The film’s storyline simply isn’t believable, and its three acts range from sentimental to melodramatic to outright preposterous.

The film reduces the African conflict to a tale of four newly-minted British lieutenants: Willoughby (Jack Allen), Burroughs (Donald Gray), Durrance (Ralph Richardson) and Harry Faversham (John Clements). All are from upper-class military families, and strut about with gung ho, stiff-upper-lipped propriety reminiscent of Graham Chapman’s twitty General from the Monty Python skits. All except Faversham, a quiet, reserved chap who spends his evenings reading poetry, much to the disgust of his father (Allen Jeayes), a flinty retired officer who loudly complains that all the young men of England, especially his son, are “turning soft”. But young Faversham has other things on his mind. Along with deep, nagging doubts about the virtue of Britain’s war efforts, he’s also set to announce his engagement to the fetching Ethne; an elegant lass who, by Victorian standards, is quite the hottie. This bit of news hits the crestfallen Durrance quite hard – he was also vying for Ethne’s attentions – and a bitter rivalry develops between the two men; a rivalry that will serve as a prime mover for the rest of the film.

These expository scenes rank among the film’s best, with some wonderful technique driven acting and sumptuous, colorful sets. The Four Feathers is an early Technicolor production but unlike many of its peers, it strikes a good balance between saturated hues and realistic production design. Zoltan Korda’s fine touch with actors is evident, as the older generation puff on cigars and amusingly recall – some could say exaggerate – their youthful heroics in the Crimea. Clements, often derided as a wooden performer, is convincing here as a sensitive man struggling in a privileged world devoid of nuance, while Richardson is excellent as the jilted lover who cunningly decides to bye his time. Act One reverberates with a solemn sense of duty enlivened by moments of jaunty esprit de corps, and serves up enough grim foreshadowing to make viewers giddily anticipate the coming splendors.

Unfortunately, it’s at this point the wheels begin to fall off. On the eve of his unit’s deployment to Africa, Faversham abruptly resigns his commission. His excuse is pressing business at home, but he is soon declared a coward, and receives an envelope in the mail containing four feathers (one each from his former friends and fiancée) as an unsubtle hint. Eventually Faversham grows to regret his decision, and embarks for Egypt where he hatches a scheme to disguise himself as a Sudanese peasant, and act as a sort of guardian angel and unofficial spy for the British; secretly returning the feathers to his estranged friends in the process.

All manner of political incorrectness, and just plain idiocy, begin to dominate the proceedings, as Faversham meets a kindly doctor in Cairo who agrees to “darken his skin” – no mention of how this will be achieved – in order to affect the charade. Somehow, despite the millions of souls involved in this war, the disguised, somewhat less pasty Faversham makes his way on foot – over hundreds of sweltering desert miles – to the precise encampment he seeks. Meanwhile, his former army buddies have discovered that service in the Sudan is no weekend in Brighton, as one has been struck blind (Blind, I tell you!!) by the broiling sun while the others have fallen victim to the perfidious Fuzzy Wuzzies. Yep, that’s what the local rebels are called – Fuzzy Wuzzies – and it’s sort of a catchall epithet that appears not just in the dialogue, but on the intertitles as well. One would expect more sensitivity from the Kordas; after all, they were a Jewish clan from Hungary who spent much of their lives keeping one step ahead of the Nazi genocide

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The Four Feathers includes a number of impressive battle scenes involving thousands of extras, an equally high number of charging camels, and a perpetual hailstorm of bullets. The results will please action junkies, but given the script’s massive absurdities, it all seems like wasted spectacle. Logic is abandoned entirely during the climactic Battle of Omdurman sequence, when an improbable plot device allows scores of prisoners to escape and immediately find a cache of carbines, complete with inexhaustible supplies of ammunition, at their disposal. The action becomes so incoherent that as Faversham desperately attempts to complete his sacred mission, viewers are left amid a smoldering pile of blowed up Fuzzy Wuzzies, wondering what the hell just happened.

The Four Feathers looks wonderful for a film from 1939, thanks to a superb restoration by Criterion. The film is presented in its original aspect of 1.37:1 – which will appear a bit restricted to today’s viewers – and the timings are generally perfect. There are some issues with the original negative that were beyond correction: a couple of streaky optical superimposition scenes suffer from what would appear to be insufficient rinsing, and there’s some brief three strip registration problems during one interior scene, but the distraction is mild. The mono track is lush, big and totally devoid of noisy artifacts. Overall, the technical aspects of the disc receive very high marks.

Audio commentary by film historian Charles Drazin
Reading from prepared notes, Drazin delivers a lectural tour de force on the making of The Four Feathers. He describes in some detail the previous film versions of the story, along with their critical variations from the original novel. Drazin is thoroughly versed in the film’s behind the scenes lore, and delivers a number of fascinating anecdotes about the difficulties of filming a large scale drama in the African desert. The racist attitudes of 1939 were clearly in play, as Alex Korda paid his African extras a pound of snuff per day. When some of those same extras were shipped to England for studio scenes, they were forbidden to use the cafeteria and were assigned to segregated train cars. He discusses London Films’ standard practice of inserting studio scenes in the middle of location footage, and how the studio never mastered the trick of making the results believable. The viewing experience is actually much better with the commentary engaged, and Drazin’s presentation is highly recommended.

New video interview with David Korda, son of director Zoltán Korda
This 23 minute segment features a lot of interesting and heartfelt reminiscences. Korda give a background about the family’s struggles in Hungary and their eventual immigrations to London and Hollywood, where they found phenomenal success. He discusses his father’s humanitarian nature, and his frequent financial disagreements with brother Alexander. While David Korda clearly wishes his father had been more of presence in his childhood, one can still sense tremendous love and respect. Korda’s comments are concise and articulate, and the piece is valuable as a film history lesson.

A Day at Denham, a short film from 1939 featuring footage of Zoltán Korda on the set of The Four Feathers
Essentially a public relations piece, A Day at Denham nonetheless contains some remarkable footage, all about the construction and day-to-day operation of Alexander Korda’s gigantic operation, London Film Productions. Built on a former cow pasture 14 miles outside of London, the sheer scale of the enterprise was staggering, with massive set and sculpture shops, enormous sound stages, its own electric generating plant and thousands of full time employees. The grounds served as a surreal landscape of cinematic dreams, as the facades of ancient Roman cities sit cheek-by-jowl with a discarded Spanish galleon, while the studio’s remuda of horses peacefully graze nearby. Narrated with wit, the piece is a splendid look at the factory style filmmaking of a bygone era, and will be worth the price of the disc to fans of classic cinema.

Theatrical trailer
The trailer is a hoot, filled with arrogant triumphalism and self-important narration. It promises the greatest battle scenes ever filmed, and a cast of thousands of “Fuzzy-Wuzzys”. I suppose the latter was certainly true.

An essay by film critic Michael Sragow
A fold-out brochure accompanies the disc, featuring a hefty analysis of the film by Michael Sragow of The New Yorker. Cast, crew and production credits are also included.

The Four Feathers reflects the spirit of a hip-hip-cheerio age of expansionist entitlement; when Anglo-Saxons wrong-headedly assumed a divine right of world domination. This is not the fault of the film, as motion pictures, like people, cannot choose their date of birth. But the film can be taken to task for its implausible twists and unreasonable demands of belief-suspension. While The Four Feathers may have resonated deeply with the audiences of 1939, today’s viewer will find it little more than a diverting, at times appalling, antique. The short, almost mocking, shrift given to Harry Faversham’s anti-war impulses speaks volumes about the ugly prevailing thought of the era. Ultimately, the suspect Faversham can only prove his bravery by going out and killing Fuzzy Wuzzys. Fortunately, at least for the most part, the civilized world has said goodbye to all that.

Reviewed by David Anderson

Movie rating – 2

Disc Rating – 3.5