Classic Film Guide

Four Feathers, The (1939)

Directed by Zoltan Korda, this A.E.W. Mason novel was adapted by R.C. Sheriff (Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939)) to create an entertaining wartime adventure drama that received an Academy Award nomination for its Color Cinematography. A popular story, and a remake which would be remade again & again, the film stars John Clements as the young British Lieutenant Harry Faversham, from a family with a proud military heritage of heroes, who's thought a coward (for his pacifism) by three of his peers and even (by inference) his fiancée (June Duprez). Upon resigning his commission, Harry receives a symbolic white feather from each, adding the fourth (as his fiancée’s) himself before breaking their engagement. Virtually ruined, he then risks everything to restore his honor, traveling great distances and even disguising himself as a deaf-mute Arab to assist his fellow officers in battle. One by one, Harry ends up saving each of their lives, after which he returns their feather. Ralph Richardson plays one of these, who is blinded, Jack Allen & Donald Gray (as his fiancée’s brother) the other two (they'd been imprisoned). C. Aubrey Smith plays his fiancée’s father, an old warhorse who regales everyone to boredom with his endless (embellished) recounting of one of his famous battles during the Crimean War. Frederick Culley plays the doctor who figures out what Harry is doing; Allan Jeayes plays the father of 12 year old Harry (Clive Baxter), the General whose stories had terrified the youngster.