The Last Outpost (1935 film)

The Last Outpost
Cary Grant and Gertrude Michael in the DVD cover for The Last Outpost.
Directed by	Charles Barton Louis J. Gasnier
Screenplay by	Charles Brackett Frank Partos Philip MacDonald
Produced by	E. Lloyd Sheldon
Starring	Cary Grant Claude Rains Gertrude Michael Kathleen Burke Colin Tapley Billy Bevan
Cinematography	Theodor Sparkuhl
Edited by	Jack Dennis
Music by	Bernhard Kaun William E. Lynch Milan Roder Heinz Roemheld
Production company	Paramount Pictures
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date	October 11, 1935 (1935-10-11)
Running time	76 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

The Last Outpost is a 1935 American adventure film directed by Charles Barton and Louis J. Gasnier and written by Charles Brackett, Frank Partos and Philip MacDonald. It is based on F. Britten Austin's novel The Drum. The film stars Cary Grant, Claude Rains, Gertrude Michael, Kathleen Burke, Colin Tapley, Margaret Swope and Billy Bevan. The film was released on October 11, 1935, by Paramount Pictures.

Plot

In Kurdistan during World War I, Captain Michael Andrews is a British officer captured by Kurds, imprisoned, and awaiting execution. The local Turkish commander helps Andrews escape and confides that he is a British intelligence officer (initially "Smith," later named as John Stevenson) in disguise. The two set out to warn friendly villagers of a pending Kurdish attack. After a difficult river crossing, and after Andrews flirts with a married tribal woman, Stevenson returns to espionage. Andrews, who has hurt his leg, goes to Cairo for medical treatment. There, Andrews falls in love with his nurse, Rosemary Haydon, who ultimately refuses Andrews by saying that she is secretly married to a man who she had known briefly a few years before.

Andrews transfers to the Sudan, where his patrol takes over a fort after finding that its troops had been massacred. Meanwhile Stevenson goes back to Haydon—revealed as his wife—who confesses her love for Andrews. Stevenson requests a transfer to the Sudan to confront Andrews. Shortly after Stevenson reaches the fort, thousands of African tribesman attack it. Realizing that a handful of men can't hold the fort, Andrews, Stevenson, and their troops set out over sand dunes and eventually enter the jungle with the tribesmen in hot pursuit. British troops appear out of nowhere, deus ex machina, defeat the tribesmen, and rescue Andrews. Stevenson, mortally wounded in the battle, dies a hero's death, presumably leaving Andrews free to marry widow Haydon.

Cast

• Cary Grant as Captain Michael Andrews
• Claude Rains as John Stevenson
• Gertrude Michael as Rosemary Haydon
• Kathleen Burke as Ilya
• Colin Tapley as Lt. Prescott
• Billy Bevan as Cpl. Foster
• Georges Renavent as Turkish major
• Robert Adair as Sergeant in general's office
• Claude King as General
• Olaf Hytten as Doctor
• Frank Elliott as Colonel
• Nick Shaid as Haidar

Production

Nomadic footage

The Last Outpost borrows stock footage from earlier productions, notably Merian C. Cooper's 1925 silent ethnographic documentary Grass—A Nation's Battle for Life. The spectacular river-crossing and mountain-climbing scenes are a genuine record, filmed by Cooper, of traditional Bakhtiari migrations in Iran.

Critical response

Writing for The Spectator in 1935, Graham Greene gave a mixed review, describing the first half-hour of the film as "remarkably good" and the remaining 40 minutes as "quite abysmally bad". Greene praised the direction and camerawork of the first part as employing a "fine vigour to present a subject which could not have been presented on the stage", and he praised the acting of both Rains and Grant. The second part of the film (after Grant's character descends the mountain pass to Cairo and Rain's character returns to fight the Kurds) Greene described as "padded out [...] by the addition of a more than usually stupid triangular melodrama of jealousy and last-minute rescue".

External links

• The Last Outpost at IMDb