The Charge of the Light Brigade

First, it should be noted that Tony Richardson's "The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968) is not a remake of the Errol Flynn classic adventure film of 1936; rather it is based on the Cecil Woodham-Smith work of military history, "The Reason Why". Both book and film are a debunking of the Tennyson poem. And hard as it is to believe, Richardson's film actually tones down the absurdities of the three principle figures responsible for the debacle at Balaclava. And these three stooges thoroughly deserve the censure of history, for never were the lives of six hundred brave men thrown away more senselessly than with the charge of the Light Brigade.

Richardson depicts the insanity of the Crimean War and Victorian society's glorification of militarism with a death's head sense of humor which makes the horrors of the conflict all the more potent. And he is unsparing in his condemnation of the culture that could glorify so unmitigated a disaster as Balaclava. The film was made at the height of America's involvement in the Vietnam War and it is an implicit critique of that conflict and war in general in that all countries regardless of time and place indulge in the pastime of National Lying. The greater the calamity, the greater the need to lie or glorify, for always the dead must count for something. In that sense the film is universal as well as timeless.

Using animation in the style of the Victorian newspaper caricaturists, during the opening credits, the film quickly details the events that led up to the war. This is also one of the few films to hold the media, in this case the English newspapers of the time, accountable for their actions. Instead of calling for deliberations and a halt to the madness that must inevitably lead to war, the press is shown whipping the British nation into war frenzy. These animated sequences which appear throughout the film to forward the exposition are both wonderfully inventive and wickedly delicious.

Throughout the film which is satiric and misanthropic in tone, the lower classes are shown to be stupid, ugly, and easily led, while the upper classes are shown to be stupid, beautiful, and utterly incapable of leading. Indeed the only decent individuals portrayed are either destroyed or trampled under foot by events and/or the arrogant stupidity of their superiors. Yet Richardson is never judgmental; rather he takes a Kubrickian detached point of view, allowing the viewers to observe the era and its foibles/morals and judge for themselves. And England of the mid-nineteenth century is beautifully recreated here. Hairstyles and uniforms and sets are rendered in exquisite detail. It takes its rightful place along side "Barry Lyndon" and "The Duelists" as among the most successful period recreations.

The film also uses a lot of period colloquialisms such as, "My cherry-bums!" and "All this swish-n-tits has made me randified!" and "You tell that stew-stick of a brother-in-law, that Brudenell to fetch off!" Wonderful, though some first time viewers may have difficulty understanding exactly what has just been expressed. And what a cast! Trevor Howard, Harry Andrews and especially John Gielgud give career topping performances. Gielgud as Lord Raglan, the slightly befuddled commander-in-chief, steals every scene he is in. Aging, tired in mind and body, missing one arm, continuously mistaking the French, ("Our allies, My Lord...") for the enemy, never quite grasping the situation whether in his office or on the field of battle, ("England is pretty, babies are pretty, some table linen is very pretty!") Its a delightful comic turn. And who wouldn't feel sorry for anyone unfortunate enough to be caught between Trevor Howard as the choleric Lord Cardigan, ("The melancholy truth was that his golden head had nothing in it.") and Harry Andrews as the equally bilious Lord Lucan? From the moment we see his saturnine countenance striding up the marble steps of the War Office we know this is a humorless, flint-hearted martinet. Both Lords had a long running personal feud which they quickly placed on an official level as well with unfortunate consequences for the Light Brigade.

David Hemmings and Vanessa Redgrave are the young romantic leads. Hemmings is Captain Lewis Nolan, a forward thinking career officer with very definite ideas how war should be conducted. He has returned to England after service in India to join Cardigan's regiment, and quickly runs afoul of the Lord in the affair of the "Black Bottle". In reality it involved another officer, who Cardigan placed under arrest for serving porter, (it was actually Moselle) when he had given strict orders that only champagne be served at the mess. Nolan the professional is unstinting in his criticisms or the three amateur Lords conduct of the war, and yet he too will play an unwitting part in the final destruction of the Brigade. A man of honor, whose honor however does not prelude having an affair with his best friends wife. Redgrave as the wife is as always, luminescent. The supporting cast sparkles as well. Mark Dignam as General Airey, Raglan's Chief of Staff, ("Speak up Nolan, he's a bit hard of hearing, and that statue doesn't help!") Howard Marion-Crawford as Lt. General Sir George Brown, Peter Bowles as Captain Henry Duberly, Norman Rossington as Sergeant Major Corbett, ("Right foot, straw foot!") and especially Jill Bennett as a lascivious Fanny Duberly all are very effective. This was also one of the last appearances of the great English classical actor, Sir Donald Wolfit, who would die later that year.

Finally enough cannot be said of Charles Wood's wonderful screenplay. With its exquisite use of the period vernacular it does a superb job of combining characters while paring history down to the essential to reconstruct the chain of events that led up to the destruction of the Light Brigade.

We have to wait nearly two hours for the eponymous event which climaxes this film. Prior to this we see a series of apparently unconnected episodes which give the viewer an insight into the workings of Victorian society, including anti-intellectuallism and idleness among the 'upper' classes, and brutality and theft among the 'scum' recruited in the slums.

While almost plot less this section of the film does follow a core of characters whose lives are connected by army service. The main character is Captain Louis Nolan, an idealistic professional in an army of amateurs. "England is looking well" he says in the first scene of the film. The irony is that the country that looks so good is a cruel and mismanaged place. Unlike his fellow officers, who have bought their posts, he has worked his way up the ranks of the Indian Army by merit. He despises them and they feel he isn't a 'gentleman'.

Nolan has very definite views on how war should be fought. Faced with the reality of battle and the inadequacies of the commanders (the senile Raglan and the childish Lucan and Cardigan) his impatience and temper have tragic consequences as he impetuously points the Light Brigade ("There, my Lord, is your enemy, there are your guns!") towards the bloody fiasco of which he is the first victim. The man who seems to know best makes the biggest blunder of all. Eye-witnesses said the hideous scream Nolan gave when he was hit stayed with them all their lives and the film re-creates it in a truly chilling way.

Although the film does reflect 1960's attitudes to war and politics (and I actually prefer these to the attitudes of the 21st Century) its setting is so perfectly realized that it hasn't dated as a '60s film'. In fact it seems better with the passage of time. If you can free yourself from the idea of a narrative history and give yourself up to a series of impressions which add new layers of understanding 'Charge of the Light Brigade' makes a fine historical film.

Anyone who is looking for an historically accurate depiction of the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava, and the events that preceded it, had best leave this one on the video store shelf. Visually, the movie is well done and the cavalry action scenes are nearly as good as those portrayed in Sergei Bondarchuk's "Waterloo" - despite the fact that Bondarchuk had most of the Russian Army as extras. Unfortunately, director Tony Richardson couldn't make up his mind whether he was making a movie or a social commentary and his indecision pervades the story line from beginning to end. I notice that some other commentators here have praised the film for its accuracy. In reality it was anything but - most of the sub-plots were fabricated and some of the actual battle scenes are either gross distortions of what actually happened or improbable speculations. Captain William Morris (17th. Lancers), for example, was not foppish dilettante soldier portrayed - rather he was a tough, seasoned professional who had attended the Royal Military College, served in three previous campaigns and had taken part in the charge against the Sikh guns at Aliwal, India. Nor did he ride back wounded to the British lines after the charge as the movie would have it - in fact he was so badly wounded that he was left on the battlefield and was rescued much later by two of his comrades, both of whom received the Victoria Cross. And Captain Louis Nolan certainly didn't have an affair with Morris' wife (Vanessa Redgrave) as the plot implies - Nolan had never met Morris before they were both sent to the Crimea.

It was much in vogue to make iconoclastic war movies in the late '60s - "Oh! What a Lovely War", was another - probably because of Vietnam. It's a great pity that Richardson choose 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' as his protest vehicle since it leaves an enduring stain on the memory of 700 very gallant men. Yes, there were 700, not 600 - Tennyson got it wrong.

This movie was made in 1968 but I never got the impression from watching it that it was anti war. The movie was made entirely with British actors and a British director and the Brits never had an antiwar movement (because their government gave up its militarism after Suez in 1955). The movie depicts the British army as it existed in 1850. This was a period when one gained advancement in the army by money or title. It was a largely decadent and unprofessional army and the movie I think characterizes it rather well. In fact, Nolan wrote a book complaining about the need to professionalize the army but it took the near disastrous Crimean War to affect any serious changes (it too the British Navy another generation or more to make similar changes). At the time, there was a debate about the effectiveness of cavalry with some believing that no defensive position could withstand the full force of a disciplined cavalry charge--a left over from the Napoleonic Wars--while others thought a charge into artillery was near suicidal. Nolan's roll in the battle remains controversial and whether he delivered inaccurate verbal orders to Acrdigan to charge to prove the effectiveness of cavalry even against artillery or warn the brigade away has not been established because Nolan was killed.

As for the Crimean War, it also depicts the drum beat to war accurately and the implication that most of the dying was done by commoners and much of the death was caused by disease. It was an ugly war. What isn't shown is that the condition of the Russian army was far worse. The poor Russian peasant soldiers were sent to fight with smoothbore Napeolonic Era muskets with an effective range of perhaps 100 meters while the British and the French was new rifled muskets with a range of over 300 meters. In some battles very small forces of British held off huge numbers of Russians killing hundreds.

The Battle of Balaclave is generally depicted accurately. It was a calamity of errors. Capt Nolan actually lost his head during the charge and witnesses indicate that his horse continued running with corpse in the saddle for some distance before the body collapsed. The charge was initiated by the heavy Brigade led by Lord Lucan. There was a rivalry between Lucan and Lord Cardigan (brothers in law) and both brigades initially made the charge but the Heavies did not enter the Valley of Death. The Light Brigade continued into the Valley and were decimated but not wiped out. In fact they were supported by the French cavalry the Chasseurs d'Afrique and the Russian positions were in fact overrun. I think the charge as depicted in this movie is one of the most exciting I have ever seen captured in the cinema.

The so called Valley of Death has changed considerably since the 1850s. By 1994, it was entirely planted in vineyards and the only way to gain some sense of the battle is to find the famous Tractir Bridge over the Tchernaya River and follow the lines of hills. As for the town of Balaclava...I have a photograph of the town in 1854 with the British fleet anchored in the harbor. I took a photograph of this village in 1994 from just about the same angle as the 1854 image and then compared the two. The place is completely unchanged with even the stone buildings remaining. Of course, the village today is the base of the Ukranian Black Sea fleet and there is a not so secret submarine base cared into the limestone cliffs inside the harbor.

We may think that the Crimean War is ancient history but the people of Crimea do not. They have sort of a living museum called the Panaorma. This is a museum devoted to the siege of Sevastopol. There is a circular path and the visitor is engulfed by the on going battles on both sides of the path. One may wander the hills above Sevastopol and many of the rifle pits and trenches from the war remain (they were reused by the Russians during the unsuccessful defense of the city in 1942). It is a wonderful museum and it exemplifies the Russian attitude that history is alive and they don't forget their past.

This is a historically accurate movie. It moves a little slow at times and it has some amusing cartoonish graphics (almost reminiscent of Monty Python graphics). All the major players obviously have a great deal of fun with their rolls.

Anecdotes: Tony Richardson's two children, Nastasha and Joely are in the film as well is his sister in law Vanessa Redgrave. I think I have these relationships correct. Anyway, they are all related.

So much of the hard part of making a movie about the Crimean War and those who fought there they got right, it's a shame the film-makers couldn't nail the last 30%.

The reenactment of Victorian society is impeccable. In dress, manner, and speech. The battle scenes, too, are remarkably faithful to the original locations and deployments, given the obvious limitations in budget and pre-CGI effects.

The actors playing they major characters, Raglan (Gielgud), Lucan (Andrews), and Cardigan (Howard) all do an excellent job.

And I actually likes the Punch-style animated cut scenes. There was, after all, no way they could show a fleet of several hundred war ships sailing into the Black Sea. Best not try.

So, the problems:

The charge, a comparatively minor screw-up book-ended by major Allied victories at the battles of the Alma and at Inkerman, was the result of a combination of small oversights, fog of war, and bad luck. So while there is a story to tell here there are no clear cut heroes except for the soldiers themselves, and certainly no villains.

So, to make a movie, you can choose either to change history and make larger than life, cartoon characters based on the exaggerated media reports of the day, and the 1950's book which was something of a anti- Cardigan hit piece, ... or you can play it straight, say "this is what it was like" and try to relate the experience, the esprit-de-corps, and yes, the interpersonal tensions, as raw as possible from the top of the command chain to the bottom.

This movie tries to have it both ways, it's cartoony but only for the intention of scoring cheap anti-war satire (all generals are imbeciles!), rather than to actually make the movie more enjoyable or engaging. When the war gets close and personal, it reverts back to just showing events... realistically, but with little or no emotional investment. The mechanics of the charge itself are done well, though.

And then the movie just ends, way too suddenly.

Now maybe, just maybe, Captain Nolan was supposed to be the "hero", the romantic sub-plot (distracting and totally irrelevant to the movie) seems to suggest it, but instead he just comes across as an impatient, vain, inexperienced know-it-all, a thin and unflattering caricature.

So, worth watching, but in better hands it could have been so much more.