STACK #161 Mar 2018

EXTRAS FEATURE

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A “Glorious” British Box-Office Blunder

truthful onscreen depiction of the charge. Richardson and his scriptwriter, John Osborne, were major anti-establishment figures who had made their names during the British new wave theatre and cinema in the late 1950s/early 1960s. Their anti-authoritarian politics were vividly expressed in their films Look Back in Anger (1959), The Entertainer (1960) and the social satire Tom Jones (1963).  The bawdy comedy romp Tom Jones , financed by United Artists, had been a huge success in the US, winning four Academy Awards including Best Film and Best Director. Following the film’s critical and commercial triumph, Hollywood studios fell over themselves, offering Richardson finance to develop and make whatever films he liked. He chose United Artists again, who now backed his Crimean epic to the tune of $6.5 million ($47.5 million in today’s money) – one of the highest ever budgets for a British film at that time.

The Charge oftheLight Brigade (1968) Directed by Tony Richardson

T he charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava during the Crimean War is probably the most famous military disaster in history. On the 25th October 1854, an ambiguously worded order caused five regiments of British light cavalry – 660 men led by Lord Cardigan – to charge down a valley headlong into massed Russian artillery. When the survivors returned to their lines they had left 245 cavalrymen and over 400 horses dead and wounded strewn across the floor of the valley. Was it a monstrous blunder, officer incompetence, plain stupidity, or

Tony Richardson on location in Turkey filming the Charge

all of those? Military historians still argue over “the reason why?” to this very day. Director Tony Richardson’s flawed epic The Charge of the Light Brigade – when released in 1968 – was equally as controversial as the event it depicted. Today, it still remains one of the most misunderstood British films of all time. In 1936, Warner Bros. production of The Charge of the Light Brigade featured a plotline that was historically ludicrous even by Hollywood standards. Some thirty years later, Tony Richardson decided it was time for a more

Osborne based his script on Mrs. Cecil Woodham-Smith’s scathing expose of the Balaclava fiasco, The Reason Why . It would also reflect the strong opposition to the ongoing Vietnam war which was staunchly supported by Osborne, Richardson and their peers. Meanwhile, Richardson had put together a stellar cast of British actors. John Gielgud, Trevor Howard and Harry Andrews were cast in the major roles of, respectively, Lord Raglan, Lord Cardigan and Lord Lucan. He balanced these renowned elder actors by casting a few of the young “1960s Swinging London” acting set, such as David Hemmings and Mark Burns. Location filming in Turkey began in May 1967 using 4,000 Turkish soldiers as extras, and then it was back to England to complete the earlier scenes of the film. Osborne’s original screenplay, later revamped by Charles Wood, firmly depicted that the gross mismanagement of the Crimean War stemmed from the absurdities of the Victorian British class system. In particular the senior commanding officers, who had purchased their commands rather than earning them through experience and merit. This basically led to inept amateurs leading professional soldiers into battle. The campaign is led by the woefully ineffectual, 65-year-old one-armed Waterloo veteran Lord Raglan – a superb performance from Gielgud. His decision to place Lord Cardigan’s Light Brigade under

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MARCH 2018

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