The Light That Failed

There is more than a hint of misogyny in this Rudyard Kipling story where both educated careerist (Marie Angelus) and streetwalker (Ida Lupino) are placed in less than complimentary light while artist (Ronald Colman) loses his. Colman gives one his finest performances but it is Lupino who remains memorable.

Aspiring conscripted artist Dick Heldar is wounded in Africa saving Topenhow's (Walter Huston) life. Mustered out he moves in to Topenhow's adjoining studio a starving artist and emerges a famous illustrator of the horrors of battle that gain recognition but then as now realizes medium cool is what the public wants and sells out. He becomes insufferable then begins to lose his sight. He takes on the conniving Betsy Broke (don't you just love it) to model and then to complete the portrait of the love of his life who rejected him who briefly returns to once again disappoint.

Powell is outstanding as he stretches from his usual noble self at first to an arrogant, obnoxious successful artist and into decline as a terrified man losing his sight. Marie Angelus as an ambitious driven artist wanting nothing to do with the traditional 19th century women comes across both selfish and immature. Huston delivers his usual well crafted performance as the kindhearted, generous, truly loyal writer as the self serving Kipling character perhaps revealing more than he thinks while Duddley Digges makes no bones about being a male chauvinist pig. It is Lupino's Ms. Broke who really raises the emotional tenor in most scenes first at the abuse of Healder and then while exacting cruel revenge in which Ida serves it like a French chef, coldly.

Opening and closing with some rousing battle scenes,( the first an impressive overhead of the battle square, the last a powerful reoccurring image realized) the film is basically a stage play with half a dozen characters moving between a few rooms which might make it claustrophobic were it not for the sonorous voices of Colman and Huston in discussion or Lupino's raging Eliza Dolittle raising the roof.

I just discovered this drama from Bill Wellman which I did not know at all. Ronald Colman is terrific here, as he was in TALE OF TWO CITIES too. A real moving, poignant and sad drama which grabs you to the guts. It seems to hesitate between drama, romance and adventure story, as many Paramount film of this period were: THE LIVES OF A BENGAL LANCER, BEAU GESTE and a film that I commented yesterday: LAST OUTPOST. A very unknown gem from Wellman the great, one of the most awesome director from Hollywood.

Well worth watching, James Welch Henderson, Arkansas 11/2020

"The Light That Failed" is among Ronald Colman's best films....though I must warn you that it's also among his most depressing. The story is based on Rudyard Kipling's first full- length novel of the same name.

The story begins with two children playing with a gun. There's an accident and Maisie discharges the gun near Dick's eyes. This is foreshadowing what you next see in the film. Dick is a man now and fighting for the British army in Sudan. During an encounter with the enemy, he receives a sword slash across the eyes. He recovers his sight but doesn't realize that severe damage to his optic nerves has occurred and one day he'll go blind. In the meantime, the war ends and Dick spends his time painting and drawing while he tours the Middle East. When he learns that the public back in Britain love his work, he returns. His work is good but when Dick realizes he's going blind he wants to get one final masterpiece completed. The problem is his model, Bessie (Ida Lupino) is a coarse and awful woman...why is something you'll just have to see for yourself as well as how Dick deals with his eventual blindness.

The acting is superb in this one...especially Colman. It also helped that he had Lupino and Walter Huston on hand to provide support. Overall, a quality film in every way. My only caveat is that if you dislike sad, depressing stories you might want to skip this one....though I sure wouldn't!

Another reader beat me to it ,but first and foremost, was there ever in Hollywood a more mellifluous voice than Ronald Colmans'? He could read a phone book and it would sound like poetry.

Well, that's the main reason to see "The Light That Failed", as it comes perilously close to a potboiler. The story is not compelling and is slow-paced, and for todays audiences it is a tad chauvinistic as well as racist, with talk of the "Fuzzy-Wuzzies", the native enemies in this tale set in Englands'late-Victorian Colonial period.

This picture does not do justice to, in my opinion, America's greatest actor Walter Huston, who is given a supporting role to Colman and does not upstage him in any of their scenes together. Ida Lupino turns in an excellent performance but does not steal the picture with her cockney accent, as reported by Leonard Maltin (does he see any of these old films or just read old reviews?).

I did not read the book but the movie is worth your time to see (and mostly to hear) Ronald Colman, as well as the other fine acting performances which harken to a day when movies were more substance than form instead of vice versa.