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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Blood on the Sun Meets The Maltese Falcon.,
By Doghouse King "eddie_denman" (Omaha, NE United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: General Died at Dawn [VHS] (VHS Tape)
Pretty good Eastern intrigue made before Hollywood had decided how exactly they were going to do it. Therefore it is driven more by character than by plot, unlike the fun but mass-produced programmers that began to follow when the rumblings of world war got louder. TGD@D is sometimes slow, but always atmospheric and well-shot, with indistinctly noirish tension and nifty direction by Lewis Milestone (All Quiet on the Western Front, Halls of Montezuma) bailing it out most of the time. The atmosphere throughout the film is dark and uneasy, not unlike the early portions of Lost Horizon. It captures well the uncertainty of a country in conflict. It also is an excellent example of how dark and mysterious, exotic and almost spooky that we thought China was in the mid-30's era, when Fu Manchu was at his most popular and our own country was none-too secure, within or from without.The plot has to do with mercenary Gary Cooper initially failing in his mission to secure guns for local Chinese rebels battling warlord Akim Tamiroff, and then trying to rectify the situation. Along the way there are captures and escapes, duplicitous motives, romance, redemption and death. The downbeat ending is probably the best-known part of the movie and underscores Hollywood's cautious fascination with Chinese ritualism. It's a spy noir, and a reasonably enertaining one. Also reference: The movies mentioned earlier; Spy in Black; Night Train To Munich; Cloak and Dagger (1946).
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"A deadly game of double cross!" -- (trailer),
By
This review is from: General Died at Dawn [VHS] (VHS Tape)
In THE GENERAL DIED AT DAWN, the unlikeliest of heroes accidentally inflicts fatal stab wounds on despotic Gen. Yang (Tamiroff), but before this occurs, an American mercenary (Cooper) trying to aid a peoples' resistance movement is betrayed by other Occidentals and given over to Yang.
Playwright Clifford Odets' first movie (as writer) was Oscar nominated for Supporting Actor (Tamiroff), Music and Cinematography. Odets also has a cameo here. This film's director, Lewis Milestone, and author John O'Hara have minor roles as reporters. Parenthetical number preceding title is a 1 to 10 IMDb viewer poll rating. (6.8) The General Died at Dawn (1936) - Gary Cooper/Madeleine Carroll/Akim Tamiroff/Dudley Digges/Porter Hall/Bill Frawley/J.M. Kerrigan/Philip Ahn/John O'Hara (uncredited: Sarah Edwards/Russell Hicks/Lewis Milestone/Clifford Odets)
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Far too much wordy preaching by Cliff Odets, but some interesting performances by the secondary characters,
By
This review is from: General Died at Dawn [VHS] (VHS Tape)
I was looking forward to this movie. The General Died at Dawn has a great title and seemed to have great potential...money smugglers in a noble cause for freedom, an exotic villain, the possibility of a dangerous nighttime rail journey through China, a tough, good-guy hero and a luscious femme fatale who might have a conscience. I should have known better as soon as I saw the screenplay was by Clifford Odets.
The film has its moments. O'Hara (Gary Cooper) is on a dangerous mission to bring money for arms through territory controlled by the warlord General Yang (Akim Tamiroff) to Shanghai. The money will be used to buy arms and overthrow the General, freeing the peasants he treats like animals. But Yang's agents find out about the money and use a weak, dying man with no moral fiber, Peter Perrie (Porter Hall), and his daughter, Judy (Madeleine Carroll), to lure O'Hara onto a train. The train is stopped; the General and his men board and capture O'Hara. He realizes he was set up by Judy, and Judy realizes she loves O'Hara more than she loves her father. The General gives the money to Perrie with instructions to deliver it to a gun seller who will then deliver vitally needed arms to the General. But Perrie has other ideas. From then, it's a long slog centered on the money. The General wants it back. O'Hara wants it back. Judy's father wants to keep it and has hidden it cleverly. Mr Wu (Dudley Digges), who is working against the General and who had employed O'Hara, wants it. The obnoxious, often drunken gun seller (William Frawley) wants it. A smarmy opportunist, Mr. Leach (J. M. Kerrigan), wants it. With all these possibilities for action, adventure, double crosses, clever repartee and romance, however, we only get Odets' words. Here's a sample: "I'd do anything I could to give you a kick in the pants," says O'Hara to the General on the train after the General has captured him. "To my jaundiced eye you're a social disease. I don't like your disposition. I don't like your friends. I don't like your politics and I don't like your hat. Your faithful dozen [guards] may stick with you, but you're still a small noise at the end of a parade." "I have a great destiny," the General says. "So have I," says O'Hara, "but mine's tied up with millions of people. Yours is tied up with yourself and the power of machine guns. Your belief is in your own very limited self. Mine is in people. One day they'll all walk on the earth, straight, proud; men, not animals, with no fear of hunger or poverty. That's not so bad to die for, sweetheart." With this kind of self-conscious wordiness, the movie grinds to a halt just as quickly as the train did. By the end of the Thirties, Clifford Odets was considered one of America's greatest playwrights. He wrote Waiting for Lefty, Awake and Sing and Golden Boy, all Broadway smashes loaded with social conscience. It's not by chance that they are rarely revived except as interesting historical artifacts. I've seen Golden Boy in a solid, professional production. It's obvious stuff now. He later did a handful of screenplays (this was his first, to earn serious money). The best is probably The Sweet Smell of Success in 1957. For all of his wordy passion for social justice, he was one of those who, when hauled before the Congressional committees investigating commies in Hollywood, named names. He just slowly drifted into irrelevance. Every time the General Died at Dawn looks like it might start moving it gets bogged down in exposition. Still, the secondary performances give it a good deal of interest. Dudley Digges doesn't sound like an elderly Chinese man at all, but he projects a nice combination of avuncular toughness. Akim Tamiroff with fake eyelids seems to be enjoying himself. Porter Hall with that weak chin and large eyes is perfect for spinelessness and he carries it off with skill. William Frawley, unfortunately, overacts the drunken, loudmouthed arms seller to the point where he's just irritating. The prize, however, goes to J. M. Kerrigan as Mr. Leach, the opportunist. He plays a sweaty, fat little man in a dark straw hat, with a bow tie and a boutonniere, who wears his pants pulled way above his belly. He steals every scene he's in. And Gary Cooper and Madeleine Carroll? They do the best they can considering she has to look lovingly at Cooper while Cooper has to say lines like these: "We could have made wonderful music together. We could have worked and made ourselves a circle of light and warmth." The movie is out on VHS and is part of the DVD package The Gary Cooper Collection. The DVD is clean but a little soft. There are no extras.
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