Written by Michael Jacoby and Rowland Leigh, the film was directed by Michael Curtiz ( Captain Blood, Casablanca ) and starred Errol Flynn, Patric Knowles, and Olivia de Havilland. One of the films I remember from the WCIX era is Warner Bros. ![]() With rare exceptions, in the early to mid-1970s these flicks were mostly from the 1930s, ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s. Most of the local stations could be found on the UHF channels, but WCIX-TV (Channel Six) was on the “regular” VHF dial right next to the affiliates of the Big Three networks (ABC, CBS and NBC).Īlong with the indies’ standard fare of children’s programming, reruns of syndicated dramas and sitcoms, and local newscasts, WCIX aired a plethora of older Hollywood films. ![]() Lauderdale area of my childhood was no exception. Most of America’s TV markets have one or more “indies,” and the Miami/Ft. Cable TV and videotape devices existed as far back as the late 1940s and early ‘50s, but neither of these delivery systems were as available to the average consumer as they would be from the late 1970s to the present day. Rode, ‘David Niven appropriated a Curtiz utterance from the set of The Charge of the Light Brigade - ‘Bring on the empty horses’ - as the title of his best selling memoirs (pp.xv-xvi).For the first three decades of broadcast television in the United States, most movie buffs could only see movies from Hollywood’s Golden Age when they were shown on local independent stations. The conversation between Flynn and Niven is a good example of the easy male camaraderie that is so characteristic of Flynn’s films touching, emotional but jokey with it, yet the humour enhancing rather than undermining the feeling behind it all. Curtiz stages it beautifully with rhyming scenes of the moon and the sun coming up, of Errol Flynn looking outside windows for the enemy, of dramatic lighting that helps arrange space within the composition and helps set a mood. In the end, Geoffrey’s sacrifice is the permission Elsa and Perry need to marry.ĭavid Niven has a lovely bit in an early role that helped push him on his way to stardom (see below). This romantic triangle is alternated with scenes of the rigidity and nobility of the British army, which here go hand in hand and are in many ways personified by Elsa’s father (Donald Crisp) who asks her to remember her promise to Geoffrey and complicates rather than resolves the affairs of her daughter and those of the army. In fact the film revolves around a triangle where Geoffrey Vickers (Flynn) is engaged to Elsa Campbell (de Havilland) who has, since the engagement with one brother, fallen in love with the other, Perry Vickers (Patrick Knowles). The Charge of the Light Brigade is notable for Olivia de Havilland turning down the Errol Flynn character, but perhaps only because, as the Alfred Lord Tennyson poem which the film is based on and actively cites in the extraordinary battle scene that brings us to the end of the film, he is fated to die at the end. Henry Gordon, in blackface) and manages to kill him at the end, getting personal revenge as well as facilitating British forces being redirected to fight and win The Battle of Sebastopol. Flynn even picks up a British flag at one point and waves it proudly, and he finds the evil and traitorous Surat Kahn (C. The compositions are dynamic and demonstrate how well Curtiz can handle crowds in action the cutting moves from the Alfred, Lord Tennyson poem offering exposition, to the charge, to Flynn’s friends falling one by one, to Flynn rousing everyone to keep charging ahead. If you can ignore the Orientalism, Imperialism, and the rather offensive notion that Britons ruling the world is the natural order of things, it’s a rousing, visually exciting film, with fantastic action sequences.Ĭonstantine Verevis writes that, ‘ The Charge of the Light Brigade is best known for its final sequence, the charge often cited as one of the most spectacular action sequences of the Hollywood studio period’ (p. ![]() ![]() British Imperial jingoism from Hollywood directed by Michael Curtiz, a Hungarian.
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