Search - The Four Feathers on DVD

MPAA Rating: NR Content Advisory: Suitable for Children Movie Release: 1939 DVD Release: 04/19/2005 Format: DVD Audio Tracks: English Subtitles: English, French, Spanish SwapaDVD Credits: 1 Number of Discs: 1 Run Time: 1 hrs 55 mins Studio: MGM Members Wishing: 6 Genres: Adventure, Costume Adventure, British Empire Film

This was the first sound production of A.E.W. Mason's classic adventure novel, which was brought to the screen three times in the silent era. Harry Faversham (John Clements) is the son of a military man who expects his son to follow in his footsteps on the fields of battle. Gen. Burroughs (C. Aubrey Smith), the father of Faversham's sweetheart, Ethne (June Duprez), was also a hero in the Crimean War, and he often regales Harry with tales of his exploits under fire. However, Harry is not so sure he believes in the family's tradition of military service and resigns his commission in 1898, shortly before his company is scheduled to head into the Sudan. Three of Faversham's comrades in arms, Capt. John Durrance (Ralph Richardson), Lt. Peter Burroughs (Donald Gray), and Lt. Arthur Willoughby (Jack Allen), each present Harry with a white feather, symbolizing their belief that he is a coward; Ethne shares their belief, and gives him one as well. Disgusted with himself, Faversham disguises himself as a Sangali tribesman and travels to the Sudan so that he might be able to move behind enemy lines and serve the British forces as a scout and reconnaissance agent. When his former regiment is attacked, Faversham is able to lead Burroughs and Willoughby to safety, with the wounded Durrance not realizing that the Arab who saved his life was in fact the man that he accused of cowardice. The Four Feathers was a great critical and commercial success and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Cinematography. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

John Clements - Harry Faversham
Ralph Richardson - Capt. John Durrance
C. Aubrey Smith - Gen. Burroughs
June Duprez - Ethne Burroughs
Allan Jeayes - Gen. Faversham

"Those were the days when war was war, and men were men," Sir C. Aubrey Smith's retired general says, more than once, in Zoltan Korda's The Four Feathers (1939), the last great epic of the British Empire's history made while the empire was intact and a reality, and for much of its length the movie can seem deceptively simplistic. But at several moments, the script and director Korda tip their hand, that they're doing something bigger and better than a homage to the empire, and at about 84 minutes in, there comes a moment of such intimacy, drama, poignancy, irony, and overall impact, that it makes men in the audience shed tears -- a moment so brilliantly written and staged that the best playwrights of the period could only wish they had such a moment to their credit. In brief, there aren't ten titles in the whole history of war movies that are better, or better made, than this 1939 production of Sir Alexander Korda's London Films, and it finally showed up in the U.S. market in the spring of 2005, more than three years after its DVD release in Australia. The most opulent and critically successful of the seven film versions of the A.E.W. Mason story (and that's not counting at least two satirical treatments of the same story), this film has been the subject of several restoration efforts across the decades, although there is still no sign of the original 130-minute version that was supposedly found by the BFI in the 1990s. Still, this disc is easily the best presentation of the extant 115-minute edition that has yet been seen, with a sharp image throughout and rich picture detail even in the darkest night shots, which look like real night shots (compare them to the day-for-night work on a lot of modern movies). The attack on the desert outpost at just under an hour in remains one of the most finely staged battle scenes in movies, and the images of the Anglo-Egyptian Army en route up the Nile to meet the enemy blaze with still brighter color -- yet, always, natural color -- than in the film's theatrical showings of the 1980s. The full-screen (1.33:1) film-to-video transfer is impeccable, with exceptional detail visible even in the wide shots of a desert battlefield littered with corpses. The source print for this disc manages to capture all of the Technicolor's original richness, but also the most exquisitely natural skin textures and flesh tones. And June Duprez, who had her first major role in this movie, never looked more gorgeous on home video than she does in the second half of the movie in this transfer.

Otherwise, the disc is well done if not exceptional. The story has been broken down into 20 chapters, most of which are expended before the first hour is up, in the setup for the final 55 minutes. The audio has been mastered at a fairly high volume level and captures the richness of Miklos Rozsa's score reasonably well. There is a trailer from the original release, which looks nearly as good as the complete movie (and better than the old laserdisc). There are English, French, and Spanish subtitles available, but no other special features. The movie looks so good, though, that it is, in effect, its own "special feature." A commentary track would have been nice; this was one of the most enduringly popular British movies of the 1930s, and was so well photographed that, when Korda remade it in 1955 as Storm Over the Nile, he reused all of the second unit footage shot by Osmond Borradaile. The plot description on the back is strangely inaccurate, but this is still an irresistible treat for fans of adventure films, drama, or romance, a four-and-half-star treatment of a five-star movie, which is still close enough to the bullseye to marvel at. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide