- Actors: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Patric Knowles, Henry Stephenson, Nigel Bruce
- Directors: Michael Curtiz
- Writers: Alfred Lord Tennyson, Michael Jacoby, Rowland Leigh
- Producers: Hal B. Wallis, Jack L. Warner, Samuel Bischoff
- Language English
- Classification: PG
- Studio: Warner
- VHS Release Date: 26 Jan 2000
- Run Time: 115 minutes
- Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
- ASIN: B00004CIH5
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 4,536 in Video (See Top 100 in Video)
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Format:VHS Tape
This is truely a great film.
Telling the story of Captain (later Major) Vickers of the 27th Lancers, who experiences the horrible massacre of women and children at a garrison city in British India. You can feel your blood boil as you watch the unarmed women and children being shot to pieces as they try to escape and the horrors the remander of the garrison finds when it returns.
After this the film moves to the Crimea for the last 30 - 20 mins of the film, although the film sadly devotes little to the war of 1854 the showing of the charge is fantastic, being played along with the poem which was soon wrote after the event.
Overall a great film which has a satisfying ending ...
I would recommend this film to all people who enjoy a good action film and it is certainly the better of the two films made on the suicidal charge.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Warner Bros. and Michael Curtiz faced a real challenge with their 1936 epic The Charge of the Light Brigade: how to solve the problem of turning the biggest fiasco in British military history into a heroic adventure? Why, ignore history entirely and make it all up instead, of course! Unfortunately, it doesn't quite pull it off, because no matter how entertaining the first hundred minutes are, there's no getting around the stupidity of Donald Crisp's commanding officer or the criminal irresponsibility of Errol Flynn's actions in the last reel, no matter how `noble' his intentions. Nor is it easy to accept the truly vicious horsefalls in the final charge, no matter how spectacular the sequence, although at least the huge number of horses killed in the sequences (along with one stuntman) led to laws being passed to protect animals in films.
Despite the title, the film takes its lead from the previous year's The Lives of a Bengal Lancer and is more interested in revolting natives on the Indian frontier than it is in the Crimean War, with Flynn's dashing cavalry officer surprisingly losing Olivia De Havilland's hand to his brother Patric Knowles while failing to avert a massacre masterminded by C. Henry Gordon's treacherous Surat Khan. The Charge itself is here an act of revenge rather than a ghastly blunder, and is portrayed as the turning point in the war rather than a wasted heroic gesture. But then, when Tony Richardson offered a more historically accurate version in 1968, audiences stayed at home in droves, so the studio clearly knew what they were doing by going for romantic hokum, and darn entertaining hokum at that.
(Incidentally, the theme of animal cruelty is continued in the 1936 Porky Pig cartoon Boom Boom included on the DVD, a bizarre, tasteless - but in an unfunny way - spoof of WW1 that delights in killing animals with high explosives for the first half of its running time!)
The extras on Warners' Region 1 NTSC DVD are good but a little unsatisfying compared to other Errol Flynn titles: this is one film where a documentary would have been particularly useful, but aside from the Warners Night at the Movies selected shorts and an audio commentary, the only extra relating to the film itself is a reissue trailer - a pity since even the original four-minute theatrical trailer included a lot of behind-the-scenes footage.
Despite the title, the film takes its lead from the previous year's The Lives of a Bengal Lancer and is more interested in revolting natives on the Indian frontier than it is in the Crimean War, with Flynn's dashing cavalry officer surprisingly losing Olivia De Havilland's hand to his brother Patric Knowles while failing to avert a massacre masterminded by C. Henry Gordon's treacherous Surat Khan. The Charge itself is here an act of revenge rather than a ghastly blunder, and is portrayed as the turning point in the war rather than a wasted heroic gesture. But then, when Tony Richardson offered a more historically accurate version in 1968, audiences stayed at home in droves, so the studio clearly knew what they were doing by going for romantic hokum, and darn entertaining hokum at that.
(Incidentally, the theme of animal cruelty is continued in the 1936 Porky Pig cartoon Boom Boom included on the DVD, a bizarre, tasteless - but in an unfunny way - spoof of WW1 that delights in killing animals with high explosives for the first half of its running time!)
The extras on Warners' Region 1 NTSC DVD are good but a little unsatisfying compared to other Errol Flynn titles: this is one film where a documentary would have been particularly useful, but aside from the Warners Night at the Movies selected shorts and an audio commentary, the only extra relating to the film itself is a reissue trailer - a pity since even the original four-minute theatrical trailer included a lot of behind-the-scenes footage.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:VHS Tape
A classic British Empire film set in the backdrop of India and the Crimea. The story begins with a brutal massacre of soldiers in a British garrison in Colonial India. Then the story drifts into the Crimea and in the beautifully shot, Light Brigade charge!
This film is one of the last remaining that makes the British Empire look heroic. The battles are superb and are shot in the way like old western film shootouts!
This film is one of the last remaining that makes the British Empire look heroic. The battles are superb and are shot in the way like old western film shootouts!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
reviewv film
always like the origanal copy and film i did serve in the forces at the time was on exercise with the the what are now tank regiment and wear skull and crossbones as a badge
Published 11 months ago by paul
Great film, but only 20 minutes of the movie is set in the Crimea War
Don't get me wrong, this film is a pure classic and it's still very good, even today. But the only two things I found disappointing was that only the last 20 minutes was set in the... Read more
Published 13 months ago by Mrs. Marilyn A. Rice
Cracking entertainment
As a historian, I should not like this film, and I have attacked Elizabeth:The Golden Age and Culloden for such inaccuracies. Read more
Published on 8 Jan 2010 by Junius
The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936)
Although its purpose in 1936 was to raise a spirit of military self-sacrific in America's young men prior to WWII; this film is still one of both Errol Flynn's, and Hollywood's all... Read more
Published on 25 Dec 2008 by C. W. Bradbury
A stunning travesty
A thrilling action film starring two of the most romantic film actors before or since with the added bonus of the inclusion of David Niven in a magnificent cast. Read more
Published on 22 Sep 2007 by M. Gray
Action and Romance
THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE is an excellent movie with a star-studded cast and plenty of action. Read more
Published on 10 Sep 2003 by Peter Kenney
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