The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936)

The Charge of the Light Brigade is an American war film first released in 1936, directed by Michael Curtiz.  The film stars Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Patric Knowles, Henry Stephenson and Nigel Bruce.  Our overall rating for this film is: very good.


In the early 1850s, Geoffrey Vickers and his brother Perry are British officers in the 27th Lancers, a regiment stationed in the Indian city of Chukoti.  Both men are in love with the same woman, Elsa, but whilst she is engaged to Geoffrey, it is Perry who has won her heart.  When Geoffrey learns of his brother’s treachery, he is distraught, but he soon has weightier matters to deal with.  A local prince, Surat Khan, decides to sever his ties with the British and ally himself with the Russians, who are preparing for a war against the British and the French in the Crimea.  To show where his new allegiances lie, Surat Khan leads an all-out attack on Chukoti, massacring all of the inhabitants.  This callous slaughter goads Geoffrey into falsifying military orders that will commit the 27th Lancers to an attack on the Russian forces at Balaklava, where Surat Khan is known to be located.  And so into the valley of death rode the six hundred...

One of the most spectacular films to come out of Hollywood in the 1930s, The Charge of the Light Brigade still manages to impress with its magnificent battle sequences, which are among the best that cinema has given us.  The dull romantic subplot may date the film and slow down the action somewhat, but the sheer scale and intensity of the battle scenes make up for this with a vengeance.  The film was inspired by Alfred Lord Tennyson’s famous poem of the same title and, whilst it is awash with historical inaccuracies, it serves as a fitting tribute to the valour and resolve of the men who died at the Battle of Balaclava in 1854, one of the greatest blunders in military history.  

Fresh from his success in Captain Blood (1935), Errol Flynn returns in the role that he would make his own for the following decade, that of the swashbuckling action hero.  The film was directed with vigour and a keen eye for detail by Michael Curtiz, an Austro-Hungarian immigrant who, in a career spanning five decades, made some of Hollywood’s greatest films, including Casablanca (1942).  Curtiz worked with Flynn on a dozen films, including Captain Blood and The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938).

If The Charge of the Light Brigade is less well-known than Flynn’s other classic adventure films, that could be because Warner Brothers refused to re-release the film after it became public knowledge that several horses died during the famous cavalry charge sequence.   Trip wires were used to bring the horses down, a contemptible practice that was outlawed by the United States Congress not long after the film was made.   Tony Richardson’s 1968 film of the same title may be more historically accurate, but this romanticised fable of doomed heroism is much more engaging, an example of the early Hollywood blockbuster at its best.

© filmsdefrance.com 2009

Write a review for this film...


What do you think of this film?

More American Romance
More American War
Recent DVD releases