I'm never quite sure what this film was aiming for. Is it a critique of war or is it a telling of a real story? The performances are average at best. Jill Bennet is annoying, Peter Bowles has a silly accent and Vanessa Redgrave is pointless. David Hemings does his best with a poor script and Trevor Howard hams it up beautifully. John Gielgud as Raglan is, unsurprisingly, excellent but again suffers from a poor script. In my humble view Tony Richardson was entirely the wrong director and gives far too much screen time to Redgrave's character Clarissa. The final product is boring and has not lasted at all well whereas the 1936 Flynn version is just as inaccurate but great fun.
Review of The Charge of the Light Brigade
