The Four Feathers

Harry Faversham, son of a military family, resigns just before his regiment is sent to Sudan. Three friends and his fiancee send him four white feathers as a mark of cowardice. He goes to Sudan in disguise and sets out to return them one by one. Zoltan Korda directed, his brother Alexander produced. The source is A.E.W. Mason's novel. The cast includes John Clements, Ralph Richardson and C. Aubrey Smith. It was shot in Technicolor, with the desert sequences filmed in Sudan itself, in the region where the events took place, and large crowds used in the battles. The story is among the most frequently refilmed in cinema history, and this 1939 version is the most remembered for its visual scale. Seen now, its problem is clear: the story is told entirely from the empire's side and the Sudanese exist only as a mass. Ralph Richardson's officer, blinded in the desert, carries the film's best passage. Who it is for: viewers who like classic adventure and imperial-era films. Who it is not for: anyone troubled by the colonial gaze.