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 by | Jack Dennis |
Music by | Bernhard Kaun William E. Lynch Milan Roder Heinz Roemheld |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 76 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
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]
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.
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.
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]
Cary Grant was an English and American actor. Known for his Mid-Atlantic accent, debonair demeanor, lighthearted 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, received an Academy Honorary Award in 1970, and received the Kennedy Center Honor in 1981. He was named the second greatest male star of the Golden Age of Hollywood by the American Film Institute in 1999.
William Claude Rains was a British-American 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).
George Randolph Scott was an American film actor, whose Hollywood career spanned from 1928 to 1962. As a leading man for all but the first three years of his cinematic career, Scott appeared in dramas, comedies, musicals, adventures, war, horror and fantasy films, and Westerns. Out of his more than 100 film appearances, more than 60 of them were Westerns.
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.
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.
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.
Houseboat is a 1958 American romantic comedy film directed by Melville Shavelson. It was presented in Technicolor and VistaVision.
B. P. Schulberg was an American pioneer film producer and film studio executive.
The siege of Khartoum took place 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.
Patric Knowles, born Reginald Lawrence Knowles, was an English film actor. Born in Horsforth, West Riding of Yorkshire, he later changed his name to reflect his Irish heritage. 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.
Kathleen B. Burke was an American movie actress of the 1930s and former model.
The Littlest Rebel is a 1935 American musical drama film directed by David Butler. The screenplay by Edwin J. Burke was adapted from a play of the same name by Edward Peple.
Family Classics is a Chicago television series which began in 1962 when Frazier Thomas was added to another program at WGN-TV. Thomas not only hosted classic films, but also selected the titles and personally edited them to remove those scenes which he thought were not fit for family viewing. After Thomas' death in 1985, Roy Leonard took over the program. The series continued sporadically until its initial cancellation in 2000.
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. This was the final film directed by Clyde Bruckman.
Forever and a Day is a 1943 American drama film, a collaborative effort employing seven directors/producers and 22 writers, with a large cast of well-known stars.
Colin Edward Livingstone Tapley was a New Zealand actor in both American and British films. Born in New Zealand, he served in the Royal Air Force and an expedition to Antarctica before winning a Paramount Pictures talent contest and moving to Hollywood. He acted in a number of films before moving to Britain during the Second World War as a flight controller with the Royal Canadian Air Force.
Lillian Gertrude Michael, sometimes nicknamed Beck Michael, was an American film, stage and television actress.
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.
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.
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.