The General Died at Dawn

source: The General Died at Dawn

Between masterworks such as "All Quiet on the Western Front" (1930) and "The Strange Love of Martha Ivers" (1945) the Moldovan born Lewis Milestone had a mixed career. He made a bunch of good movies, a bunch of bad ones, and several bunches of films that have just been forgotten. Somewhere in here we also encounter "The General Died at Dawn" (1936), an interesting adventure film set in China. The film features the first screenplay by Clifford Odets, then one of the hottest playwrights around. Even though the film boasts a charismatic ensemble of actors, it often feels like the real star here is the screenplay. The movies opens very strong. We are introduced to the plight of the poor Chinese, who struggle against a ruthless warlord General Yang, played by Akim Tamiroff in an Oscar-nominated role. Gary Cooper is our idealist hero, a guy who could never catch an even break, and is now trying to give the Chinese one. Coop is something of a spy, carrying important money shipment to the people fighting Yang, but unfortunately Yang has his own spies and is very much on to him... I would go as far as to call the first half an hour (or so) of this film a masterpiece. Coop is introduced wonderfully, he has a monkey named Sam as a sidekick, and the whole train sequence, featuring the female lead Madeleine Carroll, and eventually Tamiroff as Yang, is wonderfully written. The suspense of the narrative feels real, but the screenplay also has time to be witty and funny. Cooper gets great lines, and throws a few unexpected (yet so enjoyable) punches around as well. I laughed a bunch and was rooting for the hero, rooting for the film really. Unfortunately after the first third of the film, the narrative takes several missteps. All the important characters go their different ways for too long of a period, and by the time they are all in the same space again, the film has lost its momentum. The ending is not bad, but it is nothing breathtaking either. The film also runs into some trouble, when it can't quite decide, how it wants to portray General Yang and his men. Still, I would very much recommend this to fans of classic Hollywood. Cooper gets a really good role as our hero, and Tamiroff is very memorable as Yang. Tamiroff was originally Armenian, so in Hollywood-land, that will have to pass as Chinese. I do, however, seriously wish they hadn't turned poor Dudley Digges into Mr. Wu. That was a bit cringe-worthy.

Copyright 4 September 1936 by Paramount Pictures, Inc. New York opening at the Paramount: 2 September 1936. Australian release: 19 December 1936. Sydney opening at the Prince Edward: 19 December 1936 (ran 5 weeks). 98 minutes. SYNOPSIS: The Northern districts of China are being terrorized by the ruthless Chinese bandit chief General Yang. He and his twelve aides hope one day to rule the twelve provinces and subjugate China's millions. O'Hara, an American soldier of fortune, sides with the suppressed peasants, accepting the job of carrying a large sum of money to Shanghai to buy guns for their defense. He is to go to Pengwa, then fly to Shanghai where he is to meet with the loyal Mr Wu and Mr Chen, who are in contact with an American gun-runner named Brighton... Oxford, General Yang's chief aide, makes an attempt on O'Hara's life at Pengwa, but fails. He enlists the services of a cowardly American, Peter Perrie, to help him. Perrie plays on the sympathy of his daughter Judy, inducing her to lure O'Hara aboard a train. NOTES: Number 5 at Australian ticket windows for 1937. Tamiroff was nominated for a prestigious Hollywood award for Best Supporting Actor, losing to Walter Brennan in "Come and Get It". Milner's Cinematography was also Award-nominated, but lost out to Tony Gaudio's "Anthony Adverse". Also losing out were Boris Morros and Werner Janssen, defeated by Korngold's "Anthony Adverse" for Best Score. VIEWERS' GUIDE: Adults. COMMENT: A visual feast created by a master of the cinema, "The General Died at Dawn" is one of the most stylishly accomplished, pictorially exciting films of the 1930's. However, the story is not just an excuse for dazzling set-pieces. It provides wonderful opportunities for the players to shine in well-honed, highly memorable roles. When you think of the dozens of great performances delivered over the years by Akim Tamiroff, for instance, it would normally be a daunting task to select a single portrait that transcends many magnificent others. But fortunately the actor lent his talents to the title role of this movie — which makes selecting the ultimate front-runner easy! The same observation could be applied with equal veracity to other players, such as Porter Hall, William Frawley and J. M. Kerrigan. As for Cooper and Carroll, they make the perfect screen couple! Realized on a no-expense-spared budget, with stunningly imaginative sets, engrossing atmospheric photography, bizarrely off-beat editing, and a weirdly appealing music score, The General Died at Dawn provides thrillingly exotic entertainment in its every powerfully composed frame, its every brilliant stratagem of camera movement, its every breathtakingly novel cut, juxtaposition and dissolve. Formerly available on an excellent Universal DVD.

Never having seen it I have coveted this title for years on two counts; I am a great admirer of 1) Cliff Odets who was signed by Hollywood for this, his first screenplay, on the strength of his breakthrough play Waiting For Lefty, staged by The Theatre Group, and 2) John O'Hara, also on his first trip to Hollywood on the strength of his first two successful novels, Appointment In Samarra (1934) and Butterfield 8 (1936); visiting his friend Odets on the set he was coerced to playing a reporter more or less as a gag; Gary Cooper's character was also called O'Hara and he was continually confused and kept repeating 'but he's O'Hara' pointing to the novelist. I was, therefore, disappointed to find IMDb referring to O'Hara as 'the FUTURE novelist' but I was unable to correct this erroneous information.In its 80th year the film did tend to disappoint slightly although the occasional Odets line did shine through.

Gary Cooper plays Mr. O'Hara--a mercenary with a heart of gold. It seems that he's carrying money to help fund a revolt against a Chinese warlord, General Yang (Akim Tamirof). However, due to the work of an indifferently written woman (Madeleine Carrol), O'Hara is captured by Yang and the revolution is doomed to fail. It's up to O'Hara to somehow escape, find the money and then pay the arms merchant (William Frawley) so the revolution can commence. In general (bad pun, I know), the film is pretty good. However, Ms. Carroll's character simply made no sense. While she constantly professed that she was a good person, at every turn she behaved otherwise--making her confusing and quite stupid. How she could supposedly care for O'Hara AND betray him to be killed makes no sense at all nor do any of her actions. She is THE big problem with the film--otherwise it's mostly very good. Another problem, though much smaller, is that Dudley Diggs is perhaps the worst cast Chinese character in history. Despite decent makeup, his very, very strong English accent made him laughable--as much as Katharine Hepburn playing a Chinese lady in "Dragon Seed"! As for Cooper, he was cool--playing his heroic macho role extremely well. While it was rare to see a heroic man slap a woman, here it was quite fitting and he carried it off well in macho heroic fashion, he slugged a lot of folks in the movie! Because of this, his professing his love for Carroll at the end really made no sense. And, And, although Akim Tamirof wasn't the least bit Chinese, his General Yang was also quite good--and menacing. In fact, all the production aside from Carroll and Diggs was pretty good and I can see why the film was a success. Of particular note was the very good fake Chinese makeup. Although lots of Anglos had these roles, at least they LOOKED pretty Asian--unlike many other films of the period (such as the Charlie Chan pictures). Reasonably well made and interesting, though far from Cooper's best from this era. By the way, from what I have read about William Frawley in real life, he pretty much played himself in the movie.

i sat down with good expectations - what wasn't to like? the mysterious orient, a fine cast, a capable director, odets at work on the script... let's start with the script: the lines he had to mouth over and over made cooper sound like an automated propaganda-doll getting its string pulled till it frayed. he was absolutely tiresome in his protestations of good intentions against a backdrop of evil times; i think it must be a feat to write lines that cooper couldn't make seem fresh, lines that he could dust with a laconic wit. i can only imagine that the agenda beneath all this was to lay bare the evils of the rapacious, fascist warlords for folks at home too depressed to much care about how someone else was also having troubles getting dinner on the table; the script certainly was making a wooden effort to go beyond mere entertainment and to politically educate. no subtlety, no finesse, no nuance was wasted on this script. where some dry wit, as in casablanca, might have told the tale we are treated to lectures. so, that is my complaint. i liked the actors. they certainly did their best with the material, but this ain't no 'for whom the bells toll' - and maybe it could have been.... don e.

Thanks to the cast of characters in here, led by the wise-cracking Gary Cooper and a pretty Madeline Carroll, this was a pretty interesting film. Some of the minor characters also made this movie to fun, notably Akim Tamiroff's "General Yang," as well as Bill Frawley''s "Brighton;" Porter Hall's "Peter Prrie/Peter Martin" and Dudley Digges' creepy busybody "Mr. Wu." Nowaday, Digges and Tamiroff's characters would be played by real Asian actors and would be a bit more credible. Also, in a real-life situation, Cooper would have been eliminated early on after the bad guys had gotten his money. Nevertheless, credibility issues aside (which you have to do in most movies, anyway, old and new), the good dialog, interesting faces, characters and cinematography all make this movie a lot better than I expected.

As Universal states, in their nicely packaged DVD set entitled "The Gary Cooper Collection" (2005), the celebrated actor is "a mysterious American soldier of fortune determined to foil the ambition of a ruthless enemy general planning to take over the provinces of Northern China. Exotic settings, captivating performances, and extraordinary cinematography power this thrilling tale of courage in the line of fire." The story isn't as substantive or engaging as the presentation, but quality certainly permeates the production. "The General Died at Dawn" helped Mr. Cooper become Quigley Publications' "World Box Office" male star of 1936. In beautiful form, Madeleine Carroll (as Judy Perrie) certainly helped. Of five "Best Supporting Actor" possibles, Akim Tamiroff (as General Yang) received the "Oscar" nomination. ****** The General Died at Dawn (9/2/36) Lewis Milestone ~ Gary Cooper, Madeleine Carroll, Akim Tamiroff, William Frawley

A bit racist and enlightened at the same time. I guess for the period it was a step forward. Chinese are portrayed as intelligent, well-spoken men who want freedom and democracy. Of course the wicked General Yang (and all the bad guys) are blundering, vain, heavily-accented traditionalists. The more Chinese, the more evil in essence. This aside, it's a suspenseful film noir with Gary Cooper magnetic as the lead. A man sent to help peasants in their revolt against the domineering General Yang. He falls for the beautiful Madeleine Carroll, who was used as bait by her spineless father to lure him onto a train. Cooper is captured by Yang and robbed of the people's money, which he was delivering. He escapes and begins a mission to retrieve it from Carroll's father. It all ends in a disturbing mass suicide scene commanded by General Yang, who, of course, dies at dawn. William Frawley is funny as the hotel drunk.

"The General Died at Dawn" features Gary Cooper in a role similar to the one he played in "For Whom the Bell Tolls" a couple of years later. Directed by Lewis Milestone the movie is visually stunning and exciting. Madeleine Carroll (fresh from her success in Hitchcock's "The 39 Steps")is very good as Cooper's love interest.Akim Tamiroff was nominated for an Oscar as the General.He's certainly a menacing figure here.But I think Philip Ahn as his second in command delivers the best performance.What subtle fanaticism he conveys.The movie is full of interesting twists in the storyline and except for the ending,which I found a bit silly,it is a solid movie.