You can listen to Tennyson reading the poem here: it’s one of the very first recordings of a poet reading their own work (though not quite the first: that honour goes to Robert Browning). Tennyson’s use of the word ‘left’ (‘All that was left of them, / Left of six hundred’) picks up on the word’s use earlier in the same stanza (‘Cannon to left of them’), but shifts the word’s meaning from a spatial sense to one denoting the sacrifice the men have made.Īs the old line attributed to Bertrand Russell has it, war doesn’t determine who is right – only who is left. Why are these men, members of this light brigade, being ordered to charge into the heavy cannon-fire of the enemy?Īfter the charge, not much remains of the ‘six hundred’ who rode into battle – nearly half of them had sustained heavy injuries or been killed, while the other half felt that the whole charge had been a colossal waste of life. The absence of ‘the’ from the line also makes it sound a little odd or unnatural, once again suggesting that there is something wrong here. They will do it and die, for queen and country.Īnother line that is often misremembered is ‘Cannon to right of them’, which is sometimes erroneously rendered as ‘Cannon to the right of them’, which disrupts the rigid rhythm of the line (the poem is written largely in dactylic metre): the omission of ‘the’ makes the line sound slightly curtailed and hurried, evoking the rashness of the charge itself. But Tennyson’s point is that there is no question of whether the soldiers will fail to carry out their military duty, even when presented with such a wrongheaded command to charge. The famous line of the poem, ‘Their’s but to do and die’, is often misquoted as ‘Their’s but to do or die’, which gives the poem a different inflection. Many of Tennyson’s Victorian readers would have found such a message comforting, despite some of them – and Tennyson himself – harbouring doubts over the literal truth of Christianity. Looks good, great garrison sets (actually built for real) amid the scorching heat, costumes are superb as expected and acting is solid from all the cast with solid direction from Warner stalwart Curtiz, its just a bit boring to be honest.As with much war poetry – and ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ is, after all, a war poem – Tennyson uses biblical allusions to bring home the grand sacrifice made by the soldiers: ‘the valley of death’ is from the 23rd Psalm (that’s the one that begins ‘The Lord is my shepherd…’): ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.’Īs well as contributing to the sonorous note of the poem, this allusion also offers comfort: men may make blunders, but the Lord will see that good overcomes evil. This is where it gets more exciting and our swashbuckling hero Errol begins to shine.but not for long.
Despite the fictional sub plots and characters this does play well if you can take all the talking, as with modern films you are waiting for the final big push and charge. The usual contracted players as mentioned, they all go well together and shows why Warner stuck them together for many more pictures. The final charge sequence is very good for a film of the this time but its clear where horses have died for the screen, impressive stunts and action but is it worth it?Īs for the film its pretty dull throughout, much loving between Havilland and Knowles, much war talk with Flynn and plenty of the 'stiff upper lip old boy'. Yes an earlier time for sure, animal rights stepped in to halt filming with the horrendous horse massacre on location but the fact they still got away with it and were able to even start shows a different attitude which does cast a nasty spell over this film. The stunt men must have earned their pay, yikes!! I was surprised how much of the film is quite dark to be honest, the massacre at Chukoti (made up) is not bloody of course but its pretty graphic as is the final charge where horses are clearly throw all over the place (200 actual horses were killed during filming). One of Errol's early films in a time when shooting wild cats or even pretending to was seen as fine and displayed with glee.
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