I did enjoy this film, but it was not so much my "bag" as such films as "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp", a film that more satisfactorily portrayed the ambivalence and complexities of old "Britishness". "The Four Feathers" is made from a perspective foursquare behind the establishment - there is a little mockery of figures such as the old buffer General played by C. Aubrey Smith, but it is mockery in the gentlest manner.
The acting is largely good, but rarely brilliant. Ralph Richardson does a fine job at making his character compelling and physically memorable. Aubrey Smith is so assured in the musty old military relic role that it thoroughly convinces. John Clements is respectable if not at all remarkable as the important figure, Harry Faversham. The love interest, shown to be every bit as upholding of societal codes of honour, is played in predictable fashion by June Duprez. She is very much the typical British leading lady figure of the late thirties, as opposed to the more ebullient vivacity of a Margaret Lockwood, or the varying charms and depths of Powell and Pressburger leading ladies, like Katherine Byron of "Black Narcissus", Deborah Kerr in several and Moira Shearer in "The Red Shoes". Where in America, you had many actresses who could steal movies practically - Myrna Loy and Carole Lombard particularly come to mind - many British female parts are mere "classy love interests" as June Duprez proves to be. Certainly a beauty in a delicate, wan way, she is however a trifle too bland, with a mere hint of the haughty about her.
There is a seemingly genuine seam of jingoism embedded in the film; a nationalism that at least is portrayed with dignity, but a wider perspective is missed. The doubtful at best, morally spurious at worst aspects of the Sudan conflicts are wholly overlooked, and the film is marked by its era in its uncritical, perhaps naive confidence in the British Empire and all it stood for. But as a mercurial friend of mine is wont to say however, you should be wary in judging the past by today's standards. Yet however, I cannot fully embrace this film, as its society and character depictions are simply not that rich, balanced or entertaining.
However, the film has its undoubted successes, the at times lavish early colour photography perhaps being the most evident. As well as the predicted effectiveness of the Sudanese vistas (a precursor of David Lean's measured expansiveness), I really was taken by the shots used for the engagement party scene early in the film, especially exterior shots from which the dancers are visible from within; a triumph of lighting contrasts and scale. While as I have remarked, the film isn't really an adequate study of the Sudan "escapade", or that much of a character drama, there are fine scenes. The act of bravery itself is wonderfully understated and astutely filmed. The eventual realizations about the silent "native" are well played. The myriad interjections of the General's "The Crimean War! Now war was war in those days...!" speech, with positions marked by parts of dinner, are very amusing, with the final variation apposite. It was marvelously amusing as, ten years on, at the engagement dinner, he begins the "anecdote" again and pretty quickly everyone leaves...! Perhaps there should have been more comedy in the film; its innate, stiff-upper-lip sobriety is perhaps unchecked and too reverently preserved on the whole, aside from these scenes, though even the last of these is tempered by Faversham's establishment one-upmanship over the old General.
Overall, an enjoyable if not always so affecting a film. A relic of a long-dimmed, wistful nationalism certainly; a solidly plotted gentleman's entertainment indupitably. By no means a great film, but one that has stood time's winged chariot as well as can be expected, by jove.
Rating:- *** 1/2/*****
