The Last Outpost (1935 film)

Last updated
The Last Outpost
The Last Outpost (1935 film).jpg
Cary Grant and Gertrude Michael in the DVD cover for The Last Outpost.
Directed by Charles Barton
Louis J. Gasnier
Screenplay by Charles Brackett
Frank Partos
Philip MacDonald
Produced by E. Lloyd Sheldon
Starring Cary Grant
Claude Rains
Gertrude Michael
Kathleen Burke
Colin Tapley
Billy Bevan
Cinematography Theodor Sparkuhl
Edited byJack Dennis
Music by Bernhard Kaun
William E. Lynch
Milan Roder
Heinz Roemheld
Production
company
Distributed byParamount Pictures
Release date
  • October 11, 1935 (1935-10-11)
Running time
76 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

The Last Outpost is a 1935 American adventure film directed by Charles Barton and Louis J. Gasnier and written by Charles Brackett, Frank Partos and Philip MacDonald. It is based on F. Britten Austin's novel The Drum. The film stars Cary Grant, Claude Rains, Gertrude Michael, Kathleen Burke, Colin Tapley, Margaret Swope and Billy Bevan. The film was released on October 11, 1935, by Paramount Pictures. [1] [2]

Contents

Plot

In Kurdistan during World War I, Captain Michael Andrews is a British officer captured by Kurds, imprisoned, and awaiting execution. The local Turkish commander helps Andrews escape and confides that he is a British intelligence officer (initially "Smith," later named as John Stevenson) in disguise. The two set out to warn friendly villagers of a pending Kurdish attack. After a difficult river crossing, and after Andrews flirts with a married tribal woman, Stevenson returns to espionage. Andrews, who has hurt his leg, goes to Cairo for medical treatment. There, Andrews falls in love with his nurse, Rosemary Haydon, who ultimately refuses Andrews by saying that she is secretly married to a man who she had known briefly a few years before.

Andrews transfers to the Sudan, where his patrol takes over a fort after finding that its troops had been massacred. Meanwhile Stevenson goes back to Haydon—revealed as his wife—who confesses her love for Andrews. Stevenson requests a transfer to the Sudan to confront Andrews. Shortly after Stevenson reaches the fort, thousands of African tribesman attack it. Realizing that a handful of men can't hold the fort, Andrews, Stevenson, and their troops set out over sand dunes and eventually enter the jungle with the tribesmen in hot pursuit. British troops appear out of nowhere, deus ex machina , defeat the tribesmen, and rescue Andrews. Stevenson, mortally wounded in the battle, dies a hero's death, presumably leaving Andrews free to marry widow Haydon.

Cast

Production

Nomadic footage

The Last Outpost borrows stock footage from earlier productions, notably Merian C. Cooper's 1925 silent ethnographic documentary Grass—A Nation's Battle for Life . The spectacular river-crossing and mountain-climbing scenes are a genuine record, filmed by Cooper, of traditional Bakhtiari migrations in Iran.

Critical response

Writing for The Spectator in 1935, Graham Greene gave a mixed review, describing the first half-hour of the film as "remarkably good" and the remaining 40 minutes as "quite abysmally bad". Greene praised the direction and camerawork of the first part as employing a "fine vigour to present a subject which could not have been presented on the stage", and he praised the acting of both Rains and Grant. The second part of the film (after Grant's character descends the mountain pass to Cairo and Rain's character returns to fight the Kurds) Greene described as "padded out [...] by the addition of a more than usually stupid triangular melodrama of jealousy and last-minute rescue". [3]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cary Grant</span> English-American actor (1904–1986)

Cary Grant was an English-American actor. He was known for his Mid-Atlantic accent, debonair demeanor, light-hearted approach to acting, and sense of comic timing. He was one of classic Hollywood's definitive leading men. He was nominated twice for the Academy Award, and was honored with Academy Honorary Award in 1970, and the Kennedy Center Honor in 1981. He was named by American Film Institute the second greatest male star of the Golden Age of Hollywood in 1999.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Claude Rains</span> British actor (1889–1967)

William Claude Rains was a British actor whose career spanned almost seven decades. After his American film debut as Dr. Jack Griffin in The Invisible Man (1933), he appeared in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), The Wolf Man (1941), Casablanca (1942), Kings Row (1942), Notorious (1946), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), and The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Randolph Scott</span> American actor (1898–1987)

George Randolph Scott was an American film actor whose career spanned the years from 1928 to 1962. As a leading man for all but the first three years of his cinematic career, Scott appeared in a variety of genres, including social dramas, crime dramas, comedies, musicals, adventure tales, war films, and a few horror and fantasy films. However, his most enduring image is that of the tall-in-the-saddle Western hero. Out of his more than 100 film appearances over 60 were in Westerns. According to editor Edward Boscombe, "...Of all the major stars whose name was associated with the Western, Scott [was] most closely identified with it."

<i>Notorious</i> (1946 film) 1946 film by Alfred Hitchcock

Notorious is a 1946 American spy film noir directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, and Claude Rains as three people whose lives become intimately entangled during an espionage operation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph L. Mankiewicz</span> American film director, screenwriter, and producer (1909–1993)

Joseph Leo Mankiewicz was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. Mankiewicz had a long Hollywood career, and won both the Academy Award for Best Director and the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in consecutive years for A Letter to Three Wives (1949) and All About Eve (1950), the latter of which was nominated for 14 Academy Awards and won six.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ann Sheridan</span> American actress and singer (1915–1967)

Clara Lou "Ann" Sheridan was an American actress and singer. She is best known for her roles in the films San Quentin (1937) with Humphrey Bogart, Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) with James Cagney and Bogart, They Drive by Night (1940) with George Raft and Bogart, City for Conquest (1940) with Cagney and Elia Kazan, The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942) with Bette Davis, Kings Row (1942) with Ronald Reagan, Nora Prentiss (1947), and I Was a Male War Bride (1949) with Cary Grant.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reginald Sheffield</span> English-American actor (1901–1957)

Matthew Reginald Sheffield Cassan was an English-American actor.

<i>Rio Grande</i> (1950 film) 1950 film

Rio Grande is a 1950 American romantic Western film directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara. It is the third installment of Ford's "Cavalry Trilogy", following two RKO Pictures releases: Fort Apache (1948) and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949). Wayne plays the lead in all three films, as Captain Kirby York in Fort Apache, then as Captain Nathan Brittles in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, and finally as a promoted Lieutenant Colonel Kirby Yorke in Rio Grande. Rio Grande's supporting cast features Ben Johnson, Claude Jarman Jr., Harry Carey Jr., Chill Wills, J. Carrol Naish, Victor McLaglen, Grant Withers, the Western singing group the Sons of the Pioneers and Stan Jones.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">B. P. Schulberg</span> American film producer (1892–1957)

B. P. Schulberg was an American pioneer film producer and film studio executive.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Siege of Khartoum</span> 1884–85 Mahdist siege in Sudan

The Siege of Khartoum occurred from 13 March 1884 to 26 January 1885. Sudanese Mahdist forces captured the city of Khartoum from its Egyptian garrison, thereby gaining control over the whole of Sudan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patric Knowles</span> English actor (1911–1995)

Reginald Lawrence Knowles, better known as Patric Knowles, was an English film actor. Born in Horsforth, West Riding of Yorkshire, he made his film debut in 1932, and played either first or second film leads throughout his career. He appeared in films from the 1930s to the 1970s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kathleen Burke</span> American actress (1913–1980)

Kathleen B. Burke was an American movie actress of the 1930s and former model.

<i>Man on the Flying Trapeze</i> 1935 film by Clyde Bruckman, W. C. Fields

Man on the Flying Trapeze is a 1935 American comedy film starring W. C. Fields as a henpecked husband who experiences a series of misadventures while taking a day off from work to attend a wrestling match. As with his other roles of this nature, Fields is put-upon throughout the film, but triumphs in the end.

<i>Forever and a Day</i> (1943 film) 1943 drama film

Forever and a Day is a 1943 American drama film, a collaborative effort employing seven directors/producers and 22 writers, with an enormous cast of well-known stars.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gertrude Michael</span> American actress

Lillian Gertrude Michael was an American film, stage and television actress.

<i>Wings in the Dark</i> 1935 film by James Flood

Wings in the Dark is a 1935 film directed by James Flood and starring Myrna Loy and Cary Grant and focusing on a daring woman aviator and an inventor thrust into a desperate situation. Wings in the Dark was produced by Arthur Hornblow, Jr. The film was the first that Loy and Grant made together, although Loy's biographer Emily Leider says that Wings in the Dark "wastes their talents and prompts an unintentional laugh fest." The film remains notable as a rare movie depiction of a blind protagonist during the 1930s, and is also known for its accomplished aerial photography directed by Dewey Wrigley.

<i>Another Dawn</i> (1937 film) 1937 film by William Dieterle

Another Dawn is a 1937 American melodrama film directed by William Dieterle and starring Errol Flynn, Kay Francis and Ian Hunter. It is based on Somerset Maugham's 1919 play Caesar's Wife. It was produced and distributed by Warner Brothers. The film received dismissive reviews.

<i>The Last Train from Madrid</i> 1937 film by James P. Hogan

The Last Train from Madrid is a 1937 American war drama film directed by James P. Hogan and starring Dorothy Lamour, Lew Ayres and Gilbert Roland. It is set during the Spanish Civil War. The film was one of the few contemporary Hollywood films made about the war.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Almira Sessions</span> American actress

Almira Sessions was an American character actress of stage, screen and television. Born in Washington, D.C., her career took her through all the acting mediums of the 20th century. She appeared in over 500 films and television shows. She worked into her 80s, finally retiring shortly before her death in 1974 in Los Angeles.

References

  1. F.S.N. (1935-10-05). "Movie Review - The Last Outpost - At the Paramount". NYTimes.com. Retrieved 2015-03-01.
  2. "The Last Outpost (1935) - Overview". TCM.com. 1935-10-04. Retrieved 2015-03-01.
  3. Greene, Graham (24 November 1935). "The Last Outpost". The Spectator . (reprinted in: Taylor, John Russell, ed. (1980). The Pleasure Dome . pp.  37–38. ISBN   0192812866.)