The General Died at Dawn (1936)

The General Died at Dawn 
Directed by Lewis Milestone
Written by Clifford Odets based on a story by Charles G. Booth
1936/USA
Paramount Pictures
First viewing

[box] O’Hara: I like people too much to shoot. But it’s a dark year and a hard night.[/box]

This film has beautiful cinematography and art direction but takes itself a bit too seriously.

O’Hara (Gary Cooper) is an idealistic American who is working for the oppressed by helping the opposition to cruel warlord General Yang (Akim Tameroff).  His mission is to deliver a large sum of money to Shanghai where it will be used to buy arms for the rebels. He is warned to travel by plane only and to exercise extreme caution.  General Yang’s men employ Peter Perrie (Porter Hall) to help them part O’Hara from the money and to take it to Shanghai to rearm General Yang’s forces..

Perrie, who is ill and dreams of escaping China, enlists his very reluctant daughter Judy (Madeleine Carroll) to lure O’Hara onto the train.  Yang intercepts O’Hara on the train and gives the money to Perrie.  But Perrie has no intention of using it to buy arms …

I was really looking forward to this film as I have enjoyed the other Gary Cooper Paramount pictures from the 30’s.  Cooper was fine as was most of the rest of the cast.  The problem was with the screenplay which was full of little speeches about the rights of man.  This significantly slowed the pace of the action.  Also, the character actor Porter Hall has a much bigger than usual role here and used the opportunity to overdo things.  It’s worth a look but could have been so much better.

Fan trailer