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Vindication of the Old Guard, a global affair. The introduction scans Wee Willie Winkie terrain, a British colonel (C. Aubrey Smith) on trial in India before the dishonorable homecoming. The official story is a suicide by shame, the murder investigation falls to the filial quartet—Washington diplomat (Richard Greene), stolid barrister (George Sanders), playboy flier (David Niven) and Oxford pup (William Henry). The madcap American socialite (Loretta Young) tags along, "I adore intrigue!" An empty satchel next to the corpse in the drawing room points up the conspiracy, it ricochets between continents and genres and tones, mystery to romance to adventure to comedy and back in a dash to use whatever exotic sets the studio has at hand. "This is all very mock heroic, gentlemen. May I ask the point?" Scattered John Ford notes amid the hodgepodge, Barry Fitzgerald literally crowing with glee during a donnybrook in an Arabian saloon, valiant close-ups for rebellious townspeople in a South American revolution. (The massacre on the stone steps is a tip of the hat to Eisenstein, the heroine bears witness in evening gown and veil.) London, New York, Buenos Aires and Alexandria, dots in a constellation of insurrectionist generals and munitions tycoons. The portrait of a country in upheaval with zipping jeeps and constant gunfire is updated by Costa-Gavras in Missing, elsewhere Niven does goofy vocal tricks. "Good medicine for your proper English soul." The closing image coincides with Borzage's in Three Comrades, and nearly three decades later Hathaway has his own war allegory in The Sons of Katie Elder. With Alan Hale, J. Edward Bromberg, John Carradine, Reginald Denny, Berton Churchill, Claude King, and Cecil Cunningham. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |