Hollywood Raj classic: The Lives of a Bengal Lancer
Added 7/28/2007
The title of this 1935 Hollywood Raj classic was actually taken from the memoire book of Francis Yeats-Brown a British journalist that described his military life as a Lancer in Bengal but also many other military experiences, together with his love and discovery of Indian religion. Like in Gunga Din, the title is there to sound "familiar" and entice the spectators of those times.
A classical product of the Hollywood Raj, this movie is not as well known as Gunga Din and Beau Geste, but it still has a particular fascination.
The Regiment of the 41st Bengal Lancers is quatered in the North Western Territory (Bin Laden country!). Some fishy buisness is going on because Mohammed Khan (Douglas Dumbrille) is stealing amunition and supplying it to natives. Lieutenant McGregor (Gary Cooper) is a Scotch-Canadian that believes in action and initiative (his character is very "American" in this situation compared to the others that are more "Brit") and when his Captain gets killed in an action he disobeys orders of non aggression and stands up to the attackers. He is punished for this by Colonel Stone (Sir Guy Standing). In the mean time new soldiers arrive, among which the experienced Lieutenant Forsythe (nicknamed Fort by McGregor) (Franchot Tone) and the Colonel's son, fresh from the Sandhurst military college. Major Hamilton (C.Aubery Smith) has arranged this substitution without telling the Colonel of his son's arrival. The Colonel is not pleased even if he loves his son, fearing to show a preference toward the timid and insecure young soldier. Donald Stone (Richard Cromwell - Angela Landsbury's first husband) is quatered with Lt McGregore and Forsythe and the three become close friends. The scenes of their living together are the most hilarious, expecially that of the rivalry between McGregor and Forsythe with the prank of the snake.
Mohammed Khan has a woman Tania (Kathleen Burke), who is a beautiful Russian spy, that intrigues Donald and contributes to his capture. Colonel Stone does not want to go to the rescue of his son because the Regiment is in a difficult political position with the Emir of Gopal, but the two buddies McGregor and Fort decide to go alone. Disguised as merchants they head toward Mogala, where Donald is emprisoned. Unfortunately they are recognized and imprisoned as well and tortured. And here we have Mohammed Khan's famous phrase "We have ways of having men talk", that used to send shivers down the spine of our fathers. By the way my father saw this movie translated into Italian before WWII and today that he is 80 he still remembers the torture with burning slivers of wood under the fingernails! Only Donald, because he is weak or because he hates is father reveals the information the Khan wants. However the Regiment is coming to the rescue, while the three buddies with acts of heroism stop single-handed the Khan. Donald redeems himself with his courage and stabs the Khan. McGregor is the most practical and heroically sacrifies himself so that the English may win the day.
Henry Hathaway directed this now old fashioned Kiplingesque tale with the idea of showing men in desperate situations that are willing to die for their country and friends at a moments notice. But the main themes are "honor, loyalty and courage". Naturally as in all movies of that period (think of Gunga Din) humor was not denied and there are some really delightfull witty scenes. There is no "love-story" to distract from the soldierly message and the only woman is a real "dark-lady".
Personally I liked this movie because of its atmosphere, for the fantastic manly character of Gary Cooper (there is one image of him with the high uniform of the Lancers that is really impressive) and because as I said, talking to its intended public (those that saw it from 1935 to the years just before WWII) I understood how it influenced their "immaginary thinking".
The film was shot as others of the same kind in California (Paramount Ranch) and the set was also used for Cecil B. DeMille's "The Crusades". The same plot was utilized for "Geronimo" in 1939. Gary Cooper really became a star with this movie.
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For the Men and the Women
Added 10/5/2006
Lives of a Bengal Lancer is a film about strength, integrity, comradory, and intelligence. It has plenty of all of it. Set in British occupied India, the Bengal Lancers are striving to protect the area from aggressive Indians. Col. Stone (Guy Standing) orders together a group of men very different from each other to be his main defense against the enemy. Alan McGregor (Gary Cooper) is a strong man with a true allegiance to his country. He dislikes the colonel and expects his son to be the same, but Donald Stone (Richard Cromwell) turns out to be quite the opposite from his father and in constant need of his father's approval. The third and final piece to the group is a clever, sarcastic man, Lietenant Forsythe (Franchot Tone). The three become friends despite scuffles here and there, and they become part of an intense situation with the enemy in which their disobeying orders has good and bad results.
This film has something for everyone. Men can enjoy the male-dominated atmosphere and the strong tendencies toward morality and fearlessness in spite of danger. Women have a wonderful and diverse cast of characters to stare at. Cooper is rugged and sexy despite how different he looks with a moustache. Tone is smooth and sleek as always even in military garb. Cromwell is boyish and youthful, an underrated actor.
This film won two Oscars both for Assistant Directors.
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No...NOT THE PIGSKIN...Anything But the Pigskin!!!
Added 12/4/2005
If you made a major movie like this 1935 classic today you'd be skewered alive by the 'Politically Correct' establishment. But this is actually a movie that instils values of comradeship, heroism, and self-sacrifice...AND WHAT'S WRONG WITH THAT?
Gary Cooper plays a rough-round-the-edges Canadian Scottish officer called McGregor, who is lumbered with two new officers - Forsyth, a suave smug type from a fashionable regiment who rubs McGregor up the wrong way, and Stone, a wet-behind-the-ears Sandhurst graduate who just happens to be the commanding officer's son.
Despite their differences (mainly class but also a touch of Anglo vs. Celt tension), they all work together to stop an evil khan raising havoc on the North West Frontier (now renamed Bin Laden Country).
The very thing I like about these old films, besides their strong masculine values, is their complete lack of political correctness. When a Muslim prisoner won't talk, they threaten to kill him and bury him in a pigskin, thus preventing him from reaching Islamic paradise. This works a treat.
Interestingly a similar tactic was successly used by the Israeli army to curb suicide bombers until PC condemnation from the US stopped it.
I recommend everyone watch this movie to see what we have lost as a culture and a civilization in the last 70 years.
2 out of 4 people found this helpful.
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We Have Ways To Make Men Talk
Added 7/25/2005
I give extra points to this movie for just its one famous line, Mohammed Khan threatening his captives with the little phrase, "We have ways to make men talk."
But thinking about it's how silly is it to cast Douglas Dumbrille as Mohammed Khan, the radical Moslem leader of the rebellion? Didn't they have any Indian actors in Hollywood who could have played the part? Dumbrille made quite a career out of ethnic types, but he was actually from Hamilton, Ontario. Abbott and Costello fans will recall him playing the Sheik in ABBOTT & COSTELLO JOIN THE FOREIGN LEGION, and he was also menacing (though Russian) in CHARLIE CHAN CITY IN DARKNESS. I gues he could play just about everything, but it is really a stretch to make him the Islam insurgent who wants to capture two million rounds of ammo from the British to whom it "properly" belongs.
Nowhere in the movie is there any attempt to make sense out of the fact that the British are fish out of water in Afghanistan. None of the characters ever says to each other, "Why are we here in the first place?" They just act like it's their duty to save Asia from itself--the white man's burden. That said, Cooper and Tone have tremendous chemistry together, like Newman and Redford, only more or less the same age range. But as British soldiers? I don't think so!
Why didn't they just say they were Americans? Richard Cromwell makes a strong impression--he was the fellow who married Angela Lansbury without telling her he batted for the other team (they divorced after a year or so). Here he's fresh, vigorous, very much the tenderfoot to Coop's strawfoot. The casting works here, and he even sounds a bit more British than the others, even though he was born about two miles from the studio where they shot this super action adventure. Another who makes a strong impression is the one and only "Panther Woman" from ISLAND OF LOST SOULS--Kathleen Burke, whose mysterious and exotic beauty always got her cast as something "special." She was the pride of Hammond, Indiana, a suburb of Chicago and at one time one of Indiana's largest industrial centers. The Doublemint Twins are from there, and also the famous Xmas movie A CHRISTMAS STORY is laid in Hammond.
LIVES OF A BENGAL LANCER became a classic in its day, even though people were wondering, what about that plural "lives" in the title. Shouldn't it have been "LIVES OF SOME BENGAL LANCERS"? Others were sure it evoked the specter of reincarnation. It is one of director Henry Hathaway's perennial crowd pleasers and now, at last, it is available on DVD!
3 out of 3 people found this helpful.
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Another great NW Frontier Movie!!
Added 7/17/2005
If this is your cup of tea i.e. "The Natives are up and the Regiment marches at Dawn". I think that you will be very happy with this film. I just wish that it would come out in DVD!
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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Hollywood Raj classic: The Lives of a Bengal Lancer
Added 7/28/2007
The title of this 1935 Hollywood Raj classic was actually taken from the memoire book of Francis Yeats-Brown a British journalist that described his military life as a Lancer in Bengal but also many other military experiences, together with his love and discovery of Indian religion. Like in Gunga Din, the title is there to sound "familiar" and entice the spectators of those times.
A classical product of the Hollywood Raj, this movie is not as well known as Gunga Din and Beau Geste, but it still has a particular fascination.
The Regiment of the 41st Bengal Lancers is quatered in the North Western Territory (Bin Laden country!). Some fishy buisness is going on because Mohammed Khan (Douglas Dumbrille) is stealing amunition and supplying it to natives. Lieutenant McGregor (Gary Cooper) is a Scotch-Canadian that believes in action and initiative (his character is very "American" in this situation compared to the others that are more "Brit") and when his Captain gets killed in an action he disobeys orders of non aggression and stands up to the attackers. He is punished for this by Colonel Stone (Sir Guy Standing). In the mean time new soldiers arrive, among which the experienced Lieutenant Forsythe (nicknamed Fort by McGregor) (Franchot Tone) and the Colonel's son, fresh from the Sandhurst military college. Major Hamilton (C.Aubery Smith) has arranged this substitution without telling the Colonel of his son's arrival. The Colonel is not pleased even if he loves his son, fearing to show a preference toward the timid and insecure young soldier. Donald Stone (Richard Cromwell - Angela Landsbury's first husband) is quatered with Lt McGregore and Forsythe and the three become close friends. The scenes of their living together are the most hilarious, expecially that of the rivalry between McGregor and Forsythe with the prank of the snake.
Mohammed Khan has a woman Tania (Kathleen Burke), who is a beautiful Russian spy, that intrigues Donald and contributes to his capture. Colonel Stone does not want to go to the rescue of his son because the Regiment is in a difficult political position with the Emir of Gopal, but the two buddies McGregor and Fort decide to go alone. Disguised as merchants they head toward Mogala, where Donald is emprisoned. Unfortunately they are recognized and imprisoned as well and tortured. And here we have Mohammed Khan's famous phrase "We have ways of having men talk", that used to send shivers down the spine of our fathers. By the way my father saw this movie translated into Italian before WWII and today that he is 80 he still remembers the torture with burning slivers of wood under the fingernails! Only Donald, because he is weak or because he hates is father reveals the information the Khan wants. However the Regiment is coming to the rescue, while the three buddies with acts of heroism stop single-handed the Khan. Donald redeems himself with his courage and stabs the Khan. McGregor is the most practical and heroically sacrifies himself so that the English may win the day.
Henry Hathaway directed this now old fashioned Kiplingesque tale with the idea of showing men in desperate situations that are willing to die for their country and friends at a moments notice. But the main themes are "honor, loyalty and courage". Naturally as in all movies of that period (think of Gunga Din) humor was not denied and there are some really delightfull witty scenes. There is no "love-story" to distract from the soldierly message and the only woman is a real "dark-lady".
Personally I liked this movie because of its atmosphere, for the fantastic manly character of Gary Cooper (there is one image of him with the high uniform of the Lancers that is really impressive) and because as I said, talking to its intended public (those that saw it from 1935 to the years just before WWII) I understood how it influenced their "immaginary thinking".
The film was shot as others of the same kind in California (Paramount Ranch) and the set was also used for Cecil B. DeMille's "The Crusades". The same plot was utilized for "Geronimo" in 1939. Gary Cooper really became a star with this movie.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
For the Men and the Women
Added 10/5/2006
Lives of a Bengal Lancer is a film about strength, integrity, comradory, and intelligence. It has plenty of all of it. Set in British occupied India, the Bengal Lancers are striving to protect the area from aggressive Indians. Col. Stone (Guy Standing) orders together a group of men very different from each other to be his main defense against the enemy. Alan McGregor (Gary Cooper) is a strong man with a true allegiance to his country. He dislikes the colonel and expects his son to be the same, but Donald Stone (Richard Cromwell) turns out to be quite the opposite from his father and in constant need of his father's approval. The third and final piece to the group is a clever, sarcastic man, Lietenant Forsythe (Franchot Tone). The three become friends despite scuffles here and there, and they become part of an intense situation with the enemy in which their disobeying orders has good and bad results.
This film has something for everyone. Men can enjoy the male-dominated atmosphere and the strong tendencies toward morality and fearlessness in spite of danger. Women have a wonderful and diverse cast of characters to stare at. Cooper is rugged and sexy despite how different he looks with a moustache. Tone is smooth and sleek as always even in military garb. Cromwell is boyish and youthful, an underrated actor.
This film won two Oscars both for Assistant Directors.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
No...NOT THE PIGSKIN...Anything But the Pigskin!!!
Added 12/4/2005
If you made a major movie like this 1935 classic today you'd be skewered alive by the 'Politically Correct' establishment. But this is actually a movie that instils values of comradeship, heroism, and self-sacrifice...AND WHAT'S WRONG WITH THAT?
Gary Cooper plays a rough-round-the-edges Canadian Scottish officer called McGregor, who is lumbered with two new officers - Forsyth, a suave smug type from a fashionable regiment who rubs McGregor up the wrong way, and Stone, a wet-behind-the-ears Sandhurst graduate who just happens to be the commanding officer's son.
Despite their differences (mainly class but also a touch of Anglo vs. Celt tension), they all work together to stop an evil khan raising havoc on the North West Frontier (now renamed Bin Laden Country).
The very thing I like about these old films, besides their strong masculine values, is their complete lack of political correctness. When a Muslim prisoner won't talk, they threaten to kill him and bury him in a pigskin, thus preventing him from reaching Islamic paradise. This works a treat.
Interestingly a similar tactic was successly used by the Israeli army to curb suicide bombers until PC condemnation from the US stopped it.
I recommend everyone watch this movie to see what we have lost as a culture and a civilization in the last 70 years.
2 out of 4 people found this helpful.
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