Word: raglans
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...equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington being drawn through the misty streets of London like a pagan idol. They've had it made, and now they don't know where to put it, someone explains. The statue later comes to rest outside the window of the senile Lord Raglan (John Gielgud), who complains that "it is very much in my light; I wish they'd take it away." But the shadow of Wellington and his age fell upon all of English society, and above all, upon England's pride and joy, the army--which Raglan will soon lead...
...Charge of the Light Brigade includes a disconnected, listless affair between an officer (David Hemmings) and his best friend's wife (Vanessa Redgrave). Scenarist Charles Wood (How I Won the War) overloads the script with totally unsubtle pacifist propaganda. "It will be a sad day," intones Lord Raglan, Britain's supreme commander in Crimea, "when England has officers who know what they're doing . . . it smacks of murder...
Still, the film is not without its incisive moments. Sir John Gielgud as Raglan, puttering about in senescence, flashes a glimmer of the haughty ineptitude that substituted for authority in the Blimpish days of Empire. In one robust, hilarious scene, reminiscent of Richardson's Tom Jones, Cardigan (Trevor Howard) and his lady (Jill Bennett) rush to get undressed. She races ahead-then turns back to help him put of his girdle. And the charge itself is almost entirely successful. The rigid troops move forward like wind-up toy soldiers, under the hypnotic spell of unquestioned tradition. The firing begins...
...castles from the Rhine or old British ocean liners. A case in point is Mrs. Florence Barry, 57, owner of a Manhattan thrift shop called Encore. No sooner did she read in the newspaper that the Paris police force was about to discard its famed capes for raglan-sleeved overcoats than she decided that police capes were just the thing for her customers...
...producer as "a cross between Tom Jones and Goldfinger," the new picture is a bitter, debunking black epic. It is based on Historian Cecil Woodham-Smith's book The Reason Why, a cold indictment of the military caste system that produced such rank incompetents as Lord Raglan (played by Gielgud), the general who gave the fateful order. At the time, he was so confused that he thought he was fighting the French. Another fact that the film exploits is the bravery-and arrogance-of Lord Cardigan (Howard), the general who led the charge. He penetrated the first lines...