Review of The Four Feathers

A first rate adventure set in 1898 against the backdrop of Lord Kitchener's re-conquest of the Sudan culminating with the battle of Omdurman. The somewhat improbable story involves an officer and gentleman who, for some vague moral reasons, refuses to leave with his regiment for the campaign. He is given four white feathers by his friends and fiance as symbols of his cowardice. He redeems himself and his honour by disguising himself as a Sudanese and infiltrating the enemy capital. The rest is, as they say,history. Terrific supporting performances by Sir Ralph Richardson and C. Aubrey Smith. Director Zoltan Korda employed many Hadendoa tribesman(Kipling's "Fuzzy-Wuzzies") who had fought at the actual battle as extras. On the whole this is an excellent period piece capturing the flavor of a bygone colonial era.