Grant Taylor

Betty Bryant

Chips Rafferty

Pat Twohill

Joe Valli

Harvey Adams

Eric Reiman

Albert C. Winn

Kenneth Brampton

John Fleeting

Harry Abdy

Norman Maxwell

Pat Penny

Charles Zoli

Claude Turton

Theo Lianos

Roy Mannix

Edna Emmett

Vera Kandy

Iris Kennedy

Joy Hart

Michael Pate

Robert Arthur Robson

Charles Chauvel

William Shepherd

Eric Nunn

Elsa Chauvel

George Heath

Drama

Forty Thousand Horsemen

Australia

CinemaSerf

This is quite a poignant take on a story of three young Australian lads who joined the Allied forces during the Great War and ended up serving in a Middle East replete with Bosch, scheming and plotting locals and a British high command that sadly wasn’t as sharp as their lances. Yep, they were horse soldiers in a signals corp who actually still used signals. It’s “Red” (Grant Taylor) who leads this band of irreverent and outwardly undisciplined “individuals” but as the lively vernacular gives way to some courageous and shrewd wartime activities, they soon prove to be more than a small thorn in the sides of their rather pompous and arrogant opponents who just assumed that these ex-con colonialists were a symbol of a British empire on it’s knees and scraping the bottom of the barrel. The special effects, particularly the battles and the shelling, are really quite well directed and framed here, giving us a true sense of just how indiscriminate the attacking was and at just how perilous it was for these, and other, young men who had come to take part in a war for King and country that had precious little to do with the security or prosperity of their own nation. It’s on that score that this is perhaps a little jingoistic. That’s only to be expected, though, given it was made just as the Nazis were starting their own attempt to conquer Europe, but it’s quite sophisticated in it’s approach and not just a feel-good flag waving exercise. It portrays decent and ordinary men who were hard as nails when called for, but human and considerate of their colleagues when the chips were down. There is room for a soupçon of romance, courtesy of “Red” being rescued by the equally heroic “Juliet” (Betty Bryant), but it still manages to focus more on the spirit of those engaged here and in the end delivers predictably, but still quite effectively.

English

40,000 Horsemen

Brian Trenchard-Smith on FORTY THOUSAND HORSEMEN

FORTY THOUSAND HORSEMAN TRAILER