The Charge of the Light Brigade

I have seen this movie several times. It is as accurate a portrayal of the Crimean war as ever presented. Unlike the farce movie starring Errol Flynn, this movie showed, in detail, the ineptness of the British command. At war's end, Lord Raglan was vilified for his handling of the war, and died shortly thereafter.

I'm never quite sure what this film was aiming for. Is it a critique of war or is it a telling of a real story? The performances are average at best. Jill Bennet is annoying, Peter Bowles has a silly accent and Vanessa Redgrave is pointless. David Hemings does his best with a poor script and Trevor Howard hams it up beautifully. John Gielgud as Raglan is, unsurprisingly, excellent but again suffers from a poor script. In my humble view Tony Richardson was entirely the wrong director and gives far too much screen time to Redgrave's character Clarissa. The final product is boring and has not lasted at all well whereas the 1936 Flynn version is just as inaccurate but great fun.

Incredibly slow, even for a 1960's film. For about the first half we sit through a half-hearted "affair" between Captain Nolan and a fellow-officer's wife (I cannot even remember her name, played by Redgrave). Was this historical or were they just desperate to spin things out? It involves them doing things like staring at a river from a bridge, and we watch Nolan playing a game of Solitaire. We also have to watch a sort of documentary on how a cavalry trooper is trained, starting right from being recruited in the street. It's poorly done and painful. The black bottle row between Cardigan and a junior officer at dinner in the mess is historical but that officer was not Nolan. It would have been incredible for Nolan to have remained in the regiment after a row such as the film depicted. The frequent changes into animated Victorian style political cartoons are plain ridiculous. For a moment I though I was watching Monty Python, with it's terry Gilliam animations, but without the humour. They should have been kept to the opening titles. Even the superb acting by Trevor Howard could not save this film.

This film could and really should have a masterpiece. There is a strong sense of period enhanced by what appears to be authentic 19th century barrack room slang and music from the period. It could be argued that the film is rather slow, but to my mind a lingering on the enormous wealth of detail, adds rather than detracts from the film's appeal. There are also many strong performances, in particular, Trevor Howard is imposing as the stubborn commanding officer. Yet I find this film unsatisfying and somewhat boring to watch. The fault, I feel, is that the film's message is hammered home over and over again. A case in point: Howard instructs an inferior officer to spy on David Hemmings. The officer is reluctant and when pressed says he would have to inform Hemmings that he was instructed to spy. He then relates a touching tale of how he has worked his way up and been sober for many years. Howard is completely contemptuous and tells him his career is now in ruins. This scene is highly memorable and moving and had it been left at that, it would have been been effective. We understand the injustice and brutality of ruling elite. However, we immediately see this officer becoming drunk followed by him being horse whipped, something that belabours the message. In another scene an officer is seen trying to subdue a horse through aggression. Hemmings shows up and subdues the horse "through kindness" as he says. Howard immediately flares up when he sees this. And in another, an anti-war protest is violently broken up. Yes we get the message: War is bad, and the military machine is ugly and inhuman. But it need not be repeated over and over again.

Tony Richardson's 1968 re-make of "The Charge of the Light Brigade" plays moore like an absurd black comedy than a historical military drama. Richardson("Tom Jones", "Look Back in Anger", "A Delicate Balance")'s re-make is moore historically cowrect than the rousing, B&W Hollywood-plotted 1936 version by Michael Curtiz, starring Errol Flynn, but not nearly as fun. This one focuses moost of it's attention on the feuds between the boorish and incowpetant Lord Cardigan(Trevor Howard, "The Third Man", "Mutiny on the Bounty", et al) and the equally loutish Lord Lucan(Harry Andrews, "Moby Dick", "Barabbas", et al); also feuding are Cardigan and the sympathetic, sensible Captain Nolan(David Hemmings, "Blowup", "Barbarella"). Sharp-eyed Anglophiles will also recognize Peter Bowles("To the Manor Born" british tv), Vanessa Redgrave("Isadora", "Murder on the Orient Express", et al), and Jill Bennett("Poor Little Rich Girl" PBS tv, "The Sheltering Sky"). These Victorian would-be-Wellingtons are all displayed as brainless, rank amateurs, whose personal squabblings lead to the folly and destruction of the Light Horse. Richardson's dry, black wit in "Tom Jones" is nicely balanced with the film's sheer bawdy fun: no such cownterbalance exists in Richardson's "Charge", and the whole film simply feels absurd, a feeling even moore accentuated by the many zealous propaganda animations. Richardson's anti-war message is about as subtle as a 900lb Holstein. Worst of all, the MooCow sorely misses the wonderful action scenes in Curtiz's 1936 "Charge" - the "revisionist" battle scenes here seem somewhat moore realistic, but lack zing. Not a bad film, to be sure, but this is no "Dr. Strangelove" or "Paths of Glory". Action-seekers should try to procure a copy of Curtiz's 1936 version, with Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. The MooCow says this "Charge" is worth a rent, but keep yer tongue firmly in yer cheek! :=8)

My favourite subject is history (especially the Victorian era)and I was very pleased that Tony Richardson made this excellent film historically accurate.No Hollywood style poetic license.Some of the quotes that Capt.Nolan said were apparently excerpts from a book he wrote on cavalry warfare (which I have never found).I wondered how he (Richardson) would handle the fact that no one actually knows whether Cardigan reached the Russian guns or not and at what stage (if any) he turned back,but he seems to have glossed over that issue.I can only give this film 10 out of 10 because it is simply brilliant.The casting was superb with what I think was Trevor Howards best ever role,and Harry Andrews as Lord Lucan was perfect.I watched the Errol Flynn version of the events the other day and they seemed to have gone out of their way to make it as far from the truth as possible,right down to the uniforms and regiments involved.So well done to Tony Richardson etc.for making what is so far my favourite war film.Since writing my earlier comments I have discovered that Capt.Nolans book is still available "CAVALRY,ITS HISTORY AND TACTICS"and I would dearly love to read it but it costs £80!.I have also been told that the scene where Cardigan does actually reach the Russian guns was in fact edited from the final version.I thank other people for the comments and my learning more about a fascinating event in military history

The last charge ever by a British cavalry regiment, and no mention of Winston Churchill who took part in it.

I do find it fascinating to come across obscure, almost forgotten films like this with familiar faces and famous actors in it. It was made ca. 1968, and in the true spirit of '68, it is strongly anti-war, anti-military, and anti-establishment, even though it is set in the Victorian era, the height of the Romantic age, when Military valor was largely celebrated. Military life is here portrayed in terms of ranks of men being bullied and brutalized by each successive rank above them, with the biggest, meanest and stupidest ones at the top. I found it quite interesting to see the famous charge, celebrated in the romantic verses of Tennyson, portrayed in such a matter-of-fact manner as a series of tactical blunders due to bad communication and incompatible personalities among the commanders. These events were supposedly well-researched, and though I am not informed on the subject, I found this version of events very credible. Even with the high level of weapons and communications technology we have today, this sort of thing still happens. It must have been very common in centuries past. To me, the dialog of this film and its delivery by the actors is its most remarkable feature. Seeing films that depict distant eras, I've often thought that these eras must have not just looked different from what we are used to, but sounded very different as well. If we were suddenly dropped into Victorian England, we wouldn't always understand what was being said or inferred to us. Words, phrases, gestures, facial expressions or body language that would have obvious meaning in that time and place would be strange to us. The language and syntax would, of course, be different, but so would the rhythm, pace, expressive color and accenting of the way people spoke. `Charge of the Light Brigade' does a remarkable job of not just looking, but sounding like a distant place and time. For a viewer who is not educated in antique British expressions and military jargon, as I am not, it makes watching this film a bit challenging, but it's like spending 130 minutes in the Victorian age as a so-called `fly-on-the-wall,' as the British put it. There was more than one line spoken after which I thought `say what?' But that's OK. It doesn't kill you, just encourages you to think a bit. This aspect of the film looks to be well-researched as well, a superb example of a somewhat talky script in which great care is taken with the language and its use by the actors. The script doesn't serve the purpose of an exposition device for the dumbest members of the audience, a very common vice in films, particularly big-money films engineered to alienate as few people as possible. It's an integral part of a design to recreate an unfamiliar time and place, and as such, a bit uncompromising.

source: The Charge of the Light Brigade

The Charge of the Light Brigade