The General Died At Dawn (1936)

A dumb American hunk (Gary Cooper) who thinks with his crotch instead of his brain is entrusted to deliver money to buy guns for a group of revolutionaries hoping to defeat a corrupt Chinese war lord (Akim Tamiroff). But he gets waylaid by a femme fatale (Madeleine Carroll) which begins a chain of dire consequences for all involved. Directed by Lewis Milestone (ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT), the screenplay (co-written by Clifford Odets) is unusual for an adventure movie in that all the characters are highly flawed and often downright unlikable. Cooper is pretty dumb for a hero, which might be amusing if this had any comedic elements but it doesn't and his irresponsible behavior is often irritating. Madeleine Carroll's dubious heroine has a weak moral center, acting as a shill for her scumbag father (Porter Hall). Despite his Oscar nomination, Akim Tamiroff is unconvincing as the Chinese war lord, one of the worst Caucasian as Asian performances I've seen. The film's highly imaginative cinematography by Victor Milner (THE FURIES) received a well deserved Oscar nomination as did the film's score by Werner Janssen. Director Milestone keeps the action to a minimum while keeping the attention on the film's idiosyncratic characters. With William Frawley in a shockingly bad performance, Dudley Digges, Philip Ahn, Leonid Kinskey and John O'Hara (yes, the John "BUTTERFIELD 8" O'Hara as a newspaper reporter.