Good, polished Flynn-De Havilland film, though not a patch on the likes of Captain Blood and The Adventures of Robin Hood. Flynn is heroic and dashing as Major Geoffrey Vickers, but De Havilland's young maiden Elsa Campbell inexplicably prefer's Flynn's on-screen brother Patric Knowles to him. What were the scriptwriters thinking?? Who would choose Knowles over Errol Flynn? And as it was the team's second film together, you would have thought that the pair would get more romantic scenes together, not virtually none. De Havilland is also rather annoying as Elsa, probably because she doesn't go for Errol! But the love triangle is really the sub-plot to the story of the charge of the British lancers who Flynn leads into battle against Surat Khan (a deliciously villainous C.Henry Gordon). Curtiz gives his usual well-paced direction, and the directing and editing in the final charge sequence is superb (though unfortunately 600 horses were killed). I also really liked how the pain and tragic human cost of war is shown in a number of affecting moments. With a literate script that only occasionally veers off into melodrama, and a solid supporting cast in Dinald Crisp, David Niven, Henry Stephenson and Nigel Bruce, this is worthwhile entertainment.
Review of The Charge of the Light Brigade
