“Four Feathers”

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 834, 30 November 1929, Page 25

“Four Feathers”

GREAT PARAMOUNT FILM Noted Production for the Plaza KIPLING’S “first-class fighting* men,” the heathen “ FuzzyWiizzys” of Sudan, are given outstanding celluloid fame in “The Four Feathers,” a magnificent Paramount production for the Plaza. Interpreted by ,an excellent cast of English-speaking players and equipped with scenes of scope and realism far beyond the ordinary, this is one of the most talked-of films of the year.

“The Four Feathers” is one of the admittedly few films which everyone from the occasional picturegoer to the most regular fan will delight in. It

is highly educational, intensely entertaining, excitingly dramatic —it has everything that a great lilm should possess. Withal it is an excellent adaptation of the wellknown A. E. W. Mason novel. William Powell, Richard Ar 1e n,

Richard Arlen Clive Brook, Fay Wray and Noah Beery are only a few of the players who interpret the story of a young man who receives a white feather from each of four misunderstanding friends and determines to avenge the insults in the sands of the Sudan. “The Four Feathers” was produced and directed by those pioneers of what may be termed “travelogue dramas,” Ernest Schoedsack, Merian

C. Cooper, and Lothar Mendes. Paramount’s executives consider that their effort rivals “Chang” and “Beau Geste” in the authenticity of its scenes and its limitless scope. One of the great moments of the production comes when the hardpressed British troops form their famous square and turn a hedge of bristling bayonets to the advancing Sudanese or "Fuzzy-Wuzzys,” as they were termed because of their curly mops ot hair. - Magnificent fighters, - these natives •hold the distinction of being the only primitive tribes who managed to break a British formation in the good old “Ready, Present, Fire!” days. There is very little faking about “The Four Feathers.” The enterprising and adventurous makers of “Chang” and “Grass” visited the Sudan and secured tribes of Sudanese natives for the most spectacular sequences, and the thread of the powerful story was woven in when the party returned to Hollywood. All over the world, but particularly in England, “The Four Feathers” accompanied by sound has had a really unusual reception. English critics, exceedingly difficult to please, were unanimous in their praise and the production has been greeted with equal enthusiasm in the United States of America.