Charge Of The Light Brigade (1936)

In 1854 India, a young British officer (Patric Knowles) and his brother's fiancee (Olivia De Havilland) are in love. Neither wants to hurt the brother's (Errol Flynn), also an officer in the Indian army, feelings but an insurrection lead by a local rajah (C. Henry Gordon) puts personal issues aside. The film uses the title of the famous poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson but not much else. Even the film makers state in an opening foreword that what follows is fiction. Historical inaccuracies aside, it's a fairly agreeable hokum and the famous charge itself is extremely well done (though apparently enough horses were killed that even the U.S. congress protested). Still, Tennyson's poetic sentiments aside, it's hard to find much to cheer about such "bravery" when the disastrous charge at Balaklava seems the result of military ineptitude. The trite score is by Max Steiner. Directed by Michel Curtiz. With David Niven, Donald Crisp, Spring Byington, Nigel Bruce, Henry Stephenson, J. Carrol Naish and Scotty Beckett.