1934 was a big, important year for rising Hollywood star Claudette Colbert. She appeared in four pictures that year--"Four Frightened People," directed by Cecil B. de Mille (her second picture for him, after 1932's "The Sign of the Cross"); "It Happened One Night," for which she won her only Oscar; "Cleopatra," also by de Mille; and "Imitation of Life," which many of us still prefer to the 1959 Lana Turner remake. Of this quartet, the film in question, "Four Frightened People," is easily the weakest, but still manages to entertain.
The picture begins promisingly enough, and indeed wastes scant time in introducing us to the frightened four of the title. In a lifeboat, escaping from a plague-stricken tramp steamer off the Malay coast, we meet Stewart Corder, a he-man newspaper columnist (William Gargan); Arnold Ainger, a downtrodden rubber chemist (Herbert Marshall); the flibbertigibbet, chatty wife of a British official, Fifi Mardick (her purpose in the Far East being to foster birth control among the natives, and played by Mary Boland); and an incredibly mousy, bespectacled schoolteacher from Chicago, Judy Jones (our Claudette). Once on shore, the four, along with pidgin-talking guide Montague (Leo Carrillo), trek through the virgin jungle, during which time they encounter wildlife of all sorts: water buffalo, cobra, centipede, several tribes of nasty natives...and Judy herself, who, once the glasses come off and the hair comes down, morphs into some kind of nature goddess/Sheena of the Jungle type of knockout!
"Four Frightened People," sadly enough, though it admittedly might sound smashing in synopsis, is something of a failed picture, despite its many merits. The film has been nicely shot and features gorgeous-looking B&W photography by Karl Struss. The outdoor locales were "photographed in the strange jungles on the slopes of Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea in the South Pacific," and they DO look mighty impressive. The acting by one and all, especially Claudette, is first rate, and de Mille's direction is sturdy as always. So what's the problem? Well, the picture is waaaaay too light in tone, verging at times on the silly, even the ridiculous. This could have been a tremendous action film, or a study of disparate types under stress, but no. Instances of silliness include Corder and Ainger trekking through the tropical jungle wearing white formal dinner jackets; the fact that Judy never realized before that she doesn't need glasses to see; the seemingly inevitable monkey shenanigans; and Fifi's domination of the jungle tribe. (I would like to think that the film's source novel, by somebody named E. Arnot Robinson, was a bit more serious in tone.) And how could these men possibly not see past Judy Jones' eyeglasses and hair bun to discern what an incredible looker she is?!?!?! It would take a LOT more than mere dowdiness to disguise Claudette's beautiful face, which indeed stayed with her all her life, till her death at 92. Judy's transformation into a child of the forest is not half as incredible as this failure on the part of these two supposed men of the world! Anyway, these bits of silliness seriously undermine an otherwise entertaining film, which might have been a bit edgier had it been made a few years earlier, during the pre-Code era. Still, it affords us the invaluable opportunity to witness Claudette Colbert bathing nude under a waterfall, and I suppose that IS something....
The picture begins promisingly enough, and indeed wastes scant time in introducing us to the frightened four of the title. In a lifeboat, escaping from a plague-stricken tramp steamer off the Malay coast, we meet Stewart Corder, a he-man newspaper columnist (William Gargan); Arnold Ainger, a downtrodden rubber chemist (Herbert Marshall); the flibbertigibbet, chatty wife of a British official, Fifi Mardick (her purpose in the Far East being to foster birth control among the natives, and played by Mary Boland); and an incredibly mousy, bespectacled schoolteacher from Chicago, Judy Jones (our Claudette). Once on shore, the four, along with pidgin-talking guide Montague (Leo Carrillo), trek through the virgin jungle, during which time they encounter wildlife of all sorts: water buffalo, cobra, centipede, several tribes of nasty natives...and Judy herself, who, once the glasses come off and the hair comes down, morphs into some kind of nature goddess/Sheena of the Jungle type of knockout!
"Four Frightened People," sadly enough, though it admittedly might sound smashing in synopsis, is something of a failed picture, despite its many merits. The film has been nicely shot and features gorgeous-looking B&W photography by Karl Struss. The outdoor locales were "photographed in the strange jungles on the slopes of Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea in the South Pacific," and they DO look mighty impressive. The acting by one and all, especially Claudette, is first rate, and de Mille's direction is sturdy as always. So what's the problem? Well, the picture is waaaaay too light in tone, verging at times on the silly, even the ridiculous. This could have been a tremendous action film, or a study of disparate types under stress, but no. Instances of silliness include Corder and Ainger trekking through the tropical jungle wearing white formal dinner jackets; the fact that Judy never realized before that she doesn't need glasses to see; the seemingly inevitable monkey shenanigans; and Fifi's domination of the jungle tribe. (I would like to think that the film's source novel, by somebody named E. Arnot Robinson, was a bit more serious in tone.) And how could these men possibly not see past Judy Jones' eyeglasses and hair bun to discern what an incredible looker she is?!?!?! It would take a LOT more than mere dowdiness to disguise Claudette's beautiful face, which indeed stayed with her all her life, till her death at 92. Judy's transformation into a child of the forest is not half as incredible as this failure on the part of these two supposed men of the world! Anyway, these bits of silliness seriously undermine an otherwise entertaining film, which might have been a bit edgier had it been made a few years earlier, during the pre-Code era. Still, it affords us the invaluable opportunity to witness Claudette Colbert bathing nude under a waterfall, and I suppose that IS something....