“THE FOUR FEATHERS”

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20957, 9 November 1939, Page 9

“THE FOUR FEATHERS”

AN OUTSTANDING FILM THRILLING TALE OF SUDAN “The Four Feathers,” which will open a season at the Civic Theatre to-morrow night, like “The Drum,” a previous Korda success, inscribes on the screen a stirring chapter of Empire history. This time the scene is the Sudan, where beneath a blazing sun Gordon met a martyr’s death and Kitchener fought through to victory and enduring fame at Omdurman.

An extensive technicolour camera unit, under the personal direction of Zoltan Korda, spent three months in the Sudan, so that every detail of this great epic should be authentic. Full justice has been done in every department to A. E. W. Mason’s story. The direction, technicolour photography, and the acting of the entire cast are all practically perfect. Harry Faversham, the coward whose efforts to redeem himself form the plot, as convincingly portrayed by John Clements, a rising young player, comes to the screen with all the sympathy with which the author endowed him. The ill-mated Captain Durrance, blinded by the fierce desert sun, provides Ralph Richardson with an excellent opportunity for another penetrating character study, while C. Aubrey Smith plays in his ! inimitable style a typical retired army officer. Jane Duprey plays the leading feminine role attractively. Spectacular Scenes Among the spectacular highlights of the film are the taking of Khartoum by Kitchener, and the thrilling battle of Omdurman, with tens of thousands of fanatical “fuzzy wuzzies” hurling themselves against the unbroken hollow square of the British, while the scenes representing the hauling of Kitchener’s army across | the raging Nile cataracts must be one ! of the largest spectacles ever recreated for the screen. A. E. W. Mason’s story records how a young Englishman is forced into the army life because of family tradition and how he resigns his commision on the eve of his regiment’s departure for the Sudan. Four friends present white feathers to the tortured fellow a sign of his cowardice, jftn the narrative switches and we are told how the decides to redeem himself that he has courage.