Cooper v. Chinese Warlords
The General Died at Dawn (1936) An Action Oddity
Gary Cooper continually exposes himself to
mortal danger for no reason other that his love of democracy, so he says, and
often, in The General Died at Dawn, a lethal dose of Clifford Odets as
screenwriter and recent Communist Party member. Didn't he realize that soldiers
of fortune were supposed to be after fortunes first, maybe a woman next, then
revenge, something or other, politics/principles at end of a
long motivating list? Audiences were cynical enough, certainly by
the mid-30's, to know that self-interest guides us all, let alone ones that
hire out to Chinese peasants wanting to rid themselves of warlords. Cooper
seems a chump for all time with his speechifying on behalf of downtrodden we
hardly see, let alone get to know or care about. Still, being Cooper, there's at least dangle
of Madeleine Carroll to keep him in an otherwise sucker's game, something to
thank her for more than Odets. Would the author himself have gone to China and risked
all for faceless hordes? To hear him tell it, via Cooper as mouthpiece, sure.
General's script was one that a Howard Hawks
would have tossed out and started over.
Certainly there would have been humor, which The General Died at Dawn has
little of, other than oddity of Cooper carrying a monkey inside his suit coat.
This may have been Coop's embellishment, as he was known to bring mini-apes
home from safari here and there. Lewis Milestone directs, his signature lateral-moving camera an opener tip-off to who is in charge. Milestone gives
General visual distinction second only to what Jo Sternberg might have
envisioned. How much of Paramount's
30's look was thanks to Sternberg? His style must have had huge influence, like
Murnau at Fox, Welles later on at RKO. Lewis Milestone latterly claimed that it was his idea to pit an American "representing
democracy" against a Chinese general "representing
authoritarianism," and that this would work, "provided we got a
writer who understands the political setup." That would be Odets.
Milestone and Odets' political setup was really
no more political than Sternberg's had been for Shanghai Express, as neither
take on Chinese government policy, idea being that China really had no
government, just killing and chaos. Populace as victims of marauding bands would
segue neatly to treatments of same as prey for invading Japanese. Had The
General Died at Dawn been made two or so years later, there might have been
dose of that, for newsreels by then were laden with account of atrocities that
presaged our own war with Japan.
You could call Cooper's much-contested money belt, fought over by both sides, a
McGuffin of a sort Hitchcock would have had more fun with than Milestone
and Odets here. Attitude is the make or break of movie adventuring. Play straight and heaviness results, downerism an outcome no paying onlooker wanted. 1936 was early, too early, for us to emotionally invest in far-off oppression, other than to be entertained by exoticism inherent in the setting. To that end, The General Died at Dawn succeeds, if less completely than Shanghai Express.
Recalling the scene in "Adventures of Robin Hood" where Robin leads Marian away from the Merry Men's rollicking feast to what looks like a refugee camp a short distance away. These glum folk, dispossessed by King John, are presented as the grateful beneficiaries of Robin's robbing but seem to be on shorter rations. The Merry Men are nobly risking their lives, but not depriving themselves. Still, Marian is convinced of Robin's virtue.
ReplyDeleteIn popcorn films, the oppressed are oft obliged to be weak and semi-generic, and abjectly grateful to their heroic betters. In many ways they're like the heroine, except that they're rarely allowed feistiness.
Sometimes the heroine is one of the oppressed, better looking than most of her people, and expressing gratitude in the form of romance. She might also be upper class, maybe even one of the oppressors, like Maid Marian, waiting for the hero to enlighten her (or occasionally be enlightened by her.). Either way, she protects the hero from having to mingle too much with the objects of his heroism.
Had not considered this aspect of ROBIN HOOD, Donald. You're right that Robin does sort of keep his distance from the "glum folk" he is protecting.
DeleteUpon reflection, it seems that perhaps 19th Century pulp fiction and the movies made in the first part of the 20th Century themselves created the very idea of the 'exotic'; perhaps as a way to increase the latitude and freedom of the story-tellers to depict social situations very far from what their audiences had come to expect from their own experiences of life.
ReplyDeleteIt could also be that in 2026, that idea has run its course, at least in its earth-bound sense; and, as the general knowledge of people as to how other people in other places live has increased, with our use of electronic communications since the early years of the 20th Century, to continue to use the setting of "the exotic" as a story-telling mechanism of this kind, the writers have had to resort to flat-out fantasy and irrealism - also known as 'sci-fi' - to achieve the same story-telling effect.
"Long long ago and far far away there once lived good and evil, and this is how they were...."
Hard to seek or find "exoticism" in the world we now live in, I suppose, everything having become too readily accessible.
DeletePolitical speechifying aside, The General Died At Dawn has always worked for me as an "exotic" Oriental adventure. What '30s or '40s film, aside from Shanghai Express, is so rich in atmosphere, thanks to sets, costumes and photography. Not a coincidence, I suppose, that both films were from Paramount.
ReplyDeleteSome may chuckle today at Akim Tamiroff's Russian accented Chinese warlord but Gary Cooper and Madeliene Carroll were conceivably never more beautifully photographed (and, in her case, that's saying something). I don't want to overlook the effectiveness of Werner Janssen's musical score either.
Melodramatic as it may be, in what other film have you seen an ending quite like this one? All pure pulp fiction stuff, of course, but it adds to the overall haunting effect that this unjustly little remembered film has had upon me.
Tom, you have made me want to get out THE GENERAL DIED AT DAWN and watch it again.
DeleteGlad to hear it, John. I just watched it again earlier this year.
ReplyDeleteMadeliene Carroll will probably always be best remembered for her pairing with Robert Donat in The 39 Steps. But she brings, along with her stunning good looks, an anguish to the lost soul she plays in The General Died At Dawn. I find it believable, in that final scene, when she turns to Cooper hoping for rescue, not just from the Chinese general and his death squad followers, but from that life of desperation she's been living in that war torn land.
The most impressive scene in this film is when Madeleine Carroll begins to cry shortly after Gary Cooper kills her father. The film may be artificial and not a believable story if you think about it, but such a moment is extremely moving.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of that moment when Madeliene Carroll weeps, sometimes it's small truthful moments like that that stay with you, even if the film around it doesn't match up.
ReplyDeleteDan Mercer appreciates Gary Cooper:
ReplyDeleteThe Paramount publicity department was beating the drum for “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town,” the big hit Gary Cooper had for Columbia Pictures on loan-out earlier in the year. He was great in it, but two pictures could hardly have been more different than “Deeds” and “The General Died at Dawn.” “Deeds” burnished Cooper’s reputation ever after, so that he has become fondly remembered as a kind of “American Every Man.” He made a few such pictures afterwards—another one for Capra at Columbia, “Meet John Doe,” maybe “Sergeant York,” and the much later “Friendly Persuasion” come to mind—also some of his westerns, before and after—but “General” was more typical of the romantic hero roles that made his stardom.
Cooper had an almost astonishing masculine beauty—tall, slender, and with patrician features--seemingly honed by the sun and wind of Montana—and a marvelous voice, deep and resonant, that was perfect for the man of action roles he played, with its suggestion of rugged strength. It was a quality of stardom, once sound came in, that so many of the stars appearing then had such distinctive voices. In “General,” he was very much as his audience would have wanted him to be, someone who could master difficult situations or difficult women, and someone who conveyed great depth of meaning—or of soul—with a few words or a glance of those marvelous eyes. In contrast, “Deeds” made good use of that soulful quality, with its tender vulnerability, but seemed to diminish his masculine authority.
One woman infatuated with Cooper was Ayn Rand. An emigree from Russia, she worked at Paramount in the late twenties and early thirties, first as a stenographer and then a reader, and would have seen him on the lot. Certainly, she saw him at the movies. When she wrote her second novel, “The Fountainhead,” it was Cooper she modeled its hero, Howard Roark, after, with his gaunt beauty.
Years later, with “The Fountainhead” a fabulous success and having become a screenwriter at Warner Bros. under producer Henry Blanke, she wrote the screenplay for the studio’s production of her novel. The director, King Vidor, wanted Humphrey Bogart to play Roark, but Rand insisted that Cooper be given the role. Cooper was available, having signed a significant contract with the Warner Bros., so Henry Blanke, who was producing the film, allowed himself to be persuaded by her.
It proved to be good choice, but the initial scenes showed the actor as he was at the time, still handsome but not without the wear and tear of his years. He was 47 when filming began. However, he had begun an affair with the beautiful and much younger Patricia Neal, who was playing Dominique Francon in the film, and between the challenge of his role and the exultation of being with such a woman, he responded by training himself down to a superb degree of fitness. He looked better than he had in years, appearing very much as once he had been. It was, in a sense, a last farewell of the Cooper of old, but a grand one.