The Charge of the Light Brigade (Warner Bros.) (1936)

" THE Making A Picture Harder Work Than Writing Poem Michael Curtiz So Decided In Directing Dynamic “The Charge Of The Light Brigade’ Hallam Tennyson, son of the Poet Laureate of Queen Victoria of England, says that his father wrote the immortal poem in a few minutes — after having read the stories in the London papers — which claimed that it was a blundering order — that sent the valiant six hundred to their death in The Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava. Michael Curtiz is not a poet. for Warner Bros. and he found it a bit more difficult to film ‘‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’’— starring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland—which comes to the Se Oe ee Theatre on ........ RTE ee , than it was to write the lyric. During the filming of the picture, Curtiz and his Light Brigade could be found any day on the rolling hills back of Calabasas, California. You couldn’t see the company from the boulevard that takes you from Los Angeles to San Francisco, but as you drove along you could hear the roar of the Russian cannon and sometimes you could see the flash of guns. As often happens in the picture business, the charge was being filmed backwards. Curtiz and his cameraman, Sol Polito, were photographing the end of the Charge first. A week later they filmed the beginning. “‘Flashed all their sabres bare, flash’d as they turned in air, sabring the gunners there, charging an army, while all the world wondered’’—that’s the part that was being filmed. Of course, Curtiz was not taking pictures of ‘‘all the world wondered.’’ He was content to show how the light Brigade “‘nlunged in the battery-smoke, right thro’ the line they broke; Cossack and Russian reel’d from the sabre stroke, shatter’d and sundered.’’ It was a tedious business with long waits between scenes. Curtiz’ Balaclava seemed cluttered with blue trucks and lunch wagons and men and horses from a distance. You reached it by turning off the highway beyond Calabasas and taking a dirt road for three or four miles. Three gates barred your way. A uniformed officer stopped you at the first gate and asked your business. A woman sat under an umbrella at the second gate and told you to take the right hand road. She was perhaps the only gatewoman in the picture. The third gate was open. The road took you to a tremen dous garrison set, a copy of a British Indian garrison of the 750’s. Much of the picture is laid in India. But, unless you were curious, you drove right past the garrison and continued to the Warner Bros. Crimea which lay a mile to the east. The picture ends with Errol Flynn leading the remnants of the Light Brigade into the Russian battery. There Mr. Flynn and the villain, C. Henry Gordon, die. Gordon dies discontendedly, because he doesn’t want death at Flynn’s hands. Flynn dies contentedly, he having lost his fiancee, Olivia de Havilland. He also has killed Gordon, so what has he to live for? The camera stood parallel to and looking down on the Russian battery. In front of the guns was a breastwork made of withes and earth, and the noses of the guns were thrust over the embankment. Up on the hill was a squadron of Russian cavalry in bright uniforms and their sabres flashed in the sunlight. Gordon, in the red coat and turban of a Hindu border chieftain, sat astride his horse between Robert Barrat and General G. Savatsky, who used to command a He directs motion pictures HARGE of the LIGHT BRIGADE SS Errol Flynn Carries Historic Old Sabre When Errol Flynn led his film cavalry in Warner Bros.’ “The Charge of the Light Brigades: which comes to the Theatre on a earried a sabre which a actually used in the heroic charge across the ‘valley of death’ in the Crimean War at Balaclava. Warner Bros. bought the precious relic from George A. Bowman of Los Angeles to whom it had been willed by his brother in Scotland in the early nineties. Film Historic Disaster The famous ‘‘charge’’ of the Light Brigade, immortalized by Tennyson, and long a disputed point in the history of warfare, is the climax of the Warner Bros. picture, ‘‘The Charge of the Light Brigade,’’ which opens Wb CRC sco tears aca Theatre on Taree iti ee Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland are starred, and the huge cast includes 15,000 extra players who appear in the spectacular scenes. Mat No. 204—20c¢ Cossack regiment. Barrat is a Russian general in the picture, Curtiz walked around looking things over. His assistant, Jack Sullivan, was making sure that the guns were loaded and that on the far hills the charges of dynamite were in their proper places. The powder man was behind a sereen not far from the battery and in front of him was a keyboard of switches. At a signal from Sullivan he threw one switch after another and set off the guns and dynamite. Flynn, G. P. Huntley, Jr., Walter Holbrook, Charles Sedgwick and Major Sam Harris were down the hill with the British cavalry. There were not 600 riders because most of the Lancers and Hussars had been killed in the ride across the ‘valley of death.’ There were in fact, less than 200 horsemen. Mr. Curtiz nodded to Polito. Sullivan picked up the microphone and the loud speaker said that everything was ready. The sound man swung the boom over the heads of Gordon, Barrat and General Savatsky. ‘Action! ’?? shouted Curtiz. The ‘cannon in front’ of Mr. Gordon went off with a loud bang. Yellow smoke curled around the Russians as_ the _ sulphur-sticks started burning. Another gun was fired and down the hill where the British were, the charges of dyna mite started going off, throwing dirt high in the air and filling the valley with smoke. Flynn and his men were riding hard toward the battery and now and then one of the men fell and his horse fell with him. The Russian cavalry went into action and met the British just below the breastwork and ‘‘Cossack and Russian reel’d from the sabre stroke.’’ The Russians turned tail and the British jumped the breastwork and the gunners went down and Gordon went down under a lance thrust and Mr. Flynn sabered him properly and then went down himself. The British wheeled and started back with ‘“cannon to the right of them, cannon to left of them. Back,’’ as Lord Tennyson puts it, ‘‘ from the mouth of hell.’’ ‘“Cut,’’ shouted Curtiz and the cannons stopped and the sabers were sheathed and the smoke blew away and the Light Brigade got ready to make another charge. It really was harder to film the charge than to write poems about it. Yet, without the poem, the picture would never have been made. ‘<The Charge of the Light Brigade’’ is a dynamic drama produced on a mammoth scale with a large and distinguished cast and thousands of extra players. The screen play is by Michel Jacoby and Rowland Leigh, based on an original story by Jacoby. a: = British Officer In India Film Technical Adviser Capt. E. Rochfort Johns Acts In This Capacity For “The Charge Of The Light Brigade’’ In 1890, a young British officer was sent to the border of India for patrol duty between Peshawar and Dira Ghaza Khan. For seventeen years he stayed there, fighting the tribesmen who came out of the hills to prey on the border villages. And now that officer, Captain E. Rochfort Johns has relived his experiences for the screen and been paid for it. He was technical adviser on Warner Bros.’ “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” starring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland, and now showing at the ................ Theatre. Captain E. Rochfort Johns is not one of those veterans of India whose disposition and health were ruined by climate and curry. He’s a tall, well-built, greyhaired man who makes his living as a writer of books and magazine articles. He left the British Army long before the world war, just after he had gone to China to organize the native police forces. But when his country was plunged into war again in 1914 he returned to the Royal Engineers and spent four years in France. The Captain likes to work on pictures about India. He thinks that too few of them have been made. He was technical adviser on “Lives of a Bengal Lancer,” “Clive of India” and “The Last Outpost.” “The Charge of the Light Brigade” he says, will be a better picture because it has a better story and a great deal more action than any of the others he had a hand in making. The captain began working on the film while the screen olay was being written. He sat in with the writers, Michel Jacoby and Rowland Leigh, and made sure that nothing got into the seript that would offend the English. He also furnished all the native dialect needed and that was considerable. “We were careful to avoid anything that would give offense to the Indian subjects of Great Britain,” the captain said. “We stressed the spirit of camaraderie existing between the English and the natives.” The captain was of great help to Director Michael Curtiz and the casting department. He helped in the selection of the cast of thirty-six principals and thousands of extras. The picture is a thrilling drama suggested by Tennyson’s immortal poem and produced on a gigantic scale. Errol Flynn, and Olivia de Havilland, are starred. Real Adventurer Errol Flynn, who has the leading masculine role in ‘‘The Charge of the Light Brigade,’’ the Warner Bros. picture coming to the ......... Fe aectwe ThEGtVE ON ......0..c..06053-518 O bona-fide adventurer in real life. He-has been a pearl fisherman, a gold prospector and captain of a trading vessel in the South Seas. Mat No, 105—10¢ In Triangle Olivia de Havilland and Patric Knowles, whose love affair caused one of the world’s greatest military tragedies, according to the author of ‘<The Charge of the Light Brigade,’’ the Warner Bros. picture in which they will come to Ui erga R a perenne T PREG CON. Mat No. 109—10c¢ Screen Actors Save Village By Battling Flames Fire, which threatened the safety of the Warner Bros. company filming “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” starring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland, which comes to the .............000 ‘Theatre One. » while on location at Lone Pine, did not delay production. Prompt action of studio employees in removing wind machines, wardrobe trucks, cars and other studio property from the garage which was destroyed by the flames, averted a serious monetary loss. And though the entire company was forced out of the hotel at 1 A.M., and kept in the street for two hours until the structure was declared safe, the film schedule was not disrupted. Lone Pine city officials gave high praise to the actors, including Errol Flynn, David Niven, G. P. Huntley, Jr., Patric Knowles, and to studio technicians who helped to bring the fire under control and save the entire town which was threatened. The fire destroyed the restaurant which was furnishing food to the company. Arrangements were made at once with other cafes in Lone Pine and Independence to serve meals to the 200 employees and players. “The Charge of the Light Brigade” is a thrilling drama suggested by Tennyson’s immortal poem, and produced on a gigantic scale. Michael Curtiz directed the picture from the screen play by Michel Jacoby and Rowland Leigh, based on Jacoby’s original story. Page Forty-nine