Storm over the Nile (1955)

It has been a while since I saw the 1939 version of The Four Feathers, but as my predecessor already mentioned, this is a remake of it, not only with the same director (now together with Terence Young) but apparently also based on exactly the same script, and even including shots and scenes from that older film to save costs and effort, with the embarrassing consequence that during the final battle the image suddenly lacks sharpness because those are apparently "old" shots on different film material. In fact, therefore, only the cast has changed, now starring the weakling Anthony Steel, Laurence Harvey (fine) instead of Ralph Richardson, and the beautiful Mary Ure (who is now suddenly called Mary instead of Ethne) replacing June Duprez.
The story remains captivating, the scene at the table where Mary finds the white feather in the envelope of Jack's letter is very well acted and directed, Geoffrey Keen is a likeable Dr. Sutton, and the Arabs simply speak Arabic (without subtitles), but otherwise this is a totally unnecessary remake, so for anyone who wants to see this story on the big screen or small screen, I recommend Korda's original (or Shekhar Kapur's 2002 version). Now, time to put on the DVD with the 1939 film again soon.
From Anthony Steel's IMDb trivia page: "In the late 1940s and early 1950s he was, along with Dirk Bogarde, the Rank Organization's (and the UK's) highest paid actor." Incomprehensible.

Translated from Dutch · View original