Mjeteconer Just perfect...

Glucedee It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

Connianatu How wonderful it is to see this fine actress carry a film and carry it so beautifully.

Whitech It is not only a funny movie, but it allows a great amount of joy for anyone who watches it.

TheLittleSongbird With a cast like Errol Flynn, Olivia De Havilland, Henry Stephenson, J. Carroll Naish, Donald Crisp, David Niven, Nigel Bruce and C. Henry Gordon, being based on an interesting subject matter and with direction by Michael Curtiz and music by Max Steiner, 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' had all the ingredients for a great film.It almost was, but to me instead is a very good one. It is often criticised for historical inaccuracy (or as some say lack of respect for history), as somebody who always judges a film on their own terms with only brief mention made it isn't an issue for me. Nor despite its troubled production, with horses and a stunt man being killed, its alleged animal cruelty.'The Charge of the Light Brigade' doesn't have an awful lot wrong. It is slowed down a little by the predictable and not particularly interesting (save for the charming chemistry between Flynn and De Havilland) love triangle subplot that felt thrown in and unnecessary. Patric Knowles is also pretty stolid and bland.However, 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' is beautifully filmed and produced, Max Steiner's stirring music score and Michael Curtiz's assured direction adding enormously. The script is literate and thought-provoking, with the eloquent on screen quotations of Tennyson providing much emotional resonance, while a vast majority of the story absorbs, rouses and moves with thundering action sequences (the climactic one stays with one for a long time).Flynn is full of charisma and confidence, while De Havilland is radiant. Crisp, Bruce and Naish also give distinguished performances (didn't know Naish could be so affecting), but standing out in particular are Niven (who has a very moving scene with Flynn), a noble Stephenson and a chillingly reptilian Gordon.Overall, very good and mostly splendid, just a couple of things stop it from being a masterpiece. 8/10 Bethany Cox

jc-osms I really should hate this film. Like other Flynn films of the time, most notably "They Died With Their Boots On", it plays fast and loose with the known facts of a historical event to the extent of creating a fictitious pretext for the actual charge of the Light Brigade itself and creating imaginary characters like Flynn's Major Vickers and Indian warlord Surat Khan as the main protagonists in the battle, even the Chikoti massacre which triggered the bloody conclusion is based on events which happened three years after the Battle of Balaklava. More importantly, the now known facts about the production's incidental slaughter of numerous horses in the climactic battle scenes can make it somewhat distressing to view, as I found myself inadvertently watching for the deadly trip-wires which sent so many of them to a no doubt nasty death.That's a lot to put aside but still I can't help but admit that this is another golden-age Hollywood classic, utterly entertaining in the "Boy's Own" tradition of so many great films of that era, many of them of course synonymous with Flynn as the leading man. Here, he's at his dashing best as the honourable Major Vickers, for once giving up the love of his betrothed, the ever-present Olivia De Havilland in favour of his weedy brother, in a turn of events as hard to believe as anything else in the fanciful script, who, to revenge the slaughtered innocents by the barbarous Khan, countermands official orders to lead the suicidal attack of his brave 600 cavalrymen into the valley of death, where Flynn inevitably expires in the knowledge that he has at least avenged Khan personally.Excusing director Curtiz's heartless treatment of the poor horses, one can't deny his ability in managing the sheer spectacle of both the massacre at Chikoti and especially the final carnage at Balaklava. In the days before C-Gen special effects capable of creating imaginary thousands in battle, here you actually see, especially in the long-shots, the actual blood and thunder of war in the raw, which makes the heart race just to watch it.Flynn is of course imperious as the gallant Vickers and there's good support for him too in the familiar forms of De Havilland, Nigel Bruce and in a fairly brief role, the young David Niven. No, they don't make them like this anymore, thankfully in respect of the treatment of animals on set, but regrettably in terms of sheer action and story-telling.

weezeralfalfa A largely fictionalized mishmash of two historic disasters in two quite distinct British wars in the 1850s. Most of the film deals with the misadventures of the Indian British army in connection with a largely fictional Surat Khan, who seems to be a tribal war lord in present northern Pakistan(arid and mountainous). The attack of the Khan on the isolated outpost of Chukoti, somewhere in the general vicinity of the regional headquarters in Lohora(presumably, present Lahore, PK), and subsequent slaughter of the survivors, after Flynn and Olivia escaped on a raft, clearly is a reference to the historic massacre of Brits by Indian rebels at Cawnpore, which was located in present northeastern India. Then, suddenly, in the last part, we switch to the historically prior Crimean War, and have Surat Khan allied with the Russians against the Turks and Brits, hence allowing the transferred Indian Brit cavalry an opportunity to extract revenge on the khan. Although Flynn's character, who leads this dramatic misguided charge on the entrenched cannon-rich Russians does manage to kill the khan, he, as well as the rest of his cavalry, pay the ultimate price for their pyrrhic revenge. As scripted, Flynn's character is really more of an insubordinating fool than a hero. Reminds me of a rather similar dramatic ill-fated charge in the later "Fort Apache".Flynn had traded mortal wounds with the khan, hence conveniently ending the romantic triangle problem with his brother and Olivia's character. But, Olivia and his brother don't appear after the battle. Instead, we have a conference between the 3 commanders involved in the Balaclava fiasco with Henry Stephenson, who seems to have been the governor general of India, located in Calcutta, now strangely transferred to the Crimea. He implies that all 600 in the charge died: the British equivalent of Custer's Last Stand. Historically, this is far from the truth. Also, Lord Cardigan, who led the charge and hence was being played by Flynn, survived the charge. Historically, this charge by the sword and lance -wielding light cavalry was the result of confusion in officer communications. Central to this confusion was Captain Nolan, who was also the first to die in the charge. Thus, Flynn's character relating to this charge is an amalgam of Cardigan and Nolan. His character had previously incorporated some of Nolan's prior activities.Returning to the middle portion of the film, a huge army of natives armed with anachronistic modern repeating rifles surrounds the frontier town/fortress of Chukoti, intent on massacring its inhabitants. Unfortunately, the fort commander(played by Donald Crisp) had previously ordered most of the cavalry out on a detail, leaving Flynn as the effective commander of the few remaining. Looks like an Alamo situation. The tribals use their many ladders to scale the wall , and it looks like they will soon kill all. But, suddenly, we switch to the women and children huddled in a room, and the attack seems to stop for no reason?? Later, when the escaped Flynn returns with reinforcements, they find all dead: mostly women and children. Flynn vows revenge, and eventually gets his chance when he learns that the khan has allied himself with Russia against the Brits and Turks in the Crimea.....Incidentally, the original screenplay didn't include the Crimean War segment. However, it was feared that it was too similar to the recently released popular "The Lives of a Bengal Lancer"Henry Stephenson, who generally played fatherly authority figures in many films of the '30s and '40s, returns from Flynn's first starring role, in "Captain Blood"(as well as the award-winning "Mutiny on the Bounty) of the previous year. In the finale scene, he tells the 3 commanders involved in the charge fiasco that he takes full responsibility, after receiving a letter from Flynn's character admitting that he rewrote Stephenson's orders after having failed to convince Stephenson that his light cavalry unit deserved a chance to try to extract vengeance upon the khan. Stephenson burns his letter, preferring to take the blame in place of than his fallen 'hero'.After the joyous romance of Flynn and Olivia's characters at the end of "Captain Blood", it's curious that Flynn is cast as the odd man out in the triangular love affair in this next pairing, especially since the historical leader of the charge he plays survived the charge. Flynn's character would, of course, again die in "They Died With Their Boots On", in another foolhardy cavalry incident. Again, Olivia played his love interest in their eighth and final film pairing.At least we are spared the gruesome details of the historical massacre of mostly women and children at Cawnpore. Professional butchers were sent and literally hacked the victims to pieces. This instigated a furious response by the British, who slaughtered or burned thousands of Indians in retribution, with the battle cry "Remember Cawnpore".I think it's a toss up whether we see more falling horses during the charge or in "The Comancheros". In the latter, at least the cruel and often lethal use of trip wires to make the horses fall when desired had long since been abandoned.

Theo Robertson This is a film that comes with a lot of baggage . Directed by Michael Curtiz and inspired by the immortal poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson it has been heavily criticised by the large number of horses killed during its action scenes and the callous disregard of historical fact , so much so Warner Brothers published a disclaimer caption that the film is heavily fictionalised This has done nothing to reduce the complaints but as a Briton watching this in 2013 I think I can safely say that after watching the likes of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN and BAND OF BROTHERS that I failed to notice anything along the lines of " Mr Spielberg and Mr Ambrose wish to apologise for the very American-centric tone of this film . The crusade against Nazism was of course a joint effort and we wish to apologise for portraying the British as incompetent fools who were mere passengers and to the citizens of the Soviet Union for totally ignoring their sacrifice which was instrumental in defeating Hitler rather than the one sided Hollywood view that in was all down to American fighting prowess " I'm afraid a simple disclaimer is the best you can hope for It should also be pointed that no one should be watching Hollywood movies as a history lesson . That's what books and classrooms are for not film studios . Movies are all about spectacle and entertainment and if I remember correctly the problem with the 1968 British version of THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE is that it tried too much to be a history lesson of what life was like in 1850's Britain and the frontline of the Crimean War . Here everything is romanticised and gives a Hollywood eye view of the British Raj and one can't help thinking it's seen through somewhat envious eyes One point the film probably fails upon is to disguise the fact that it doesn't look like it was filmed in India but rather it was filmed in sunny California ( Hey guess what ? ) but I doubt if very few of the audience would have noticed or cared . Also considering the title the Crimean war in general and the charge in particular only takes up a small portion of the film . That aside it is a memorable film from the golden age of Hollywood and the horses that died in its making should be proud of that