The beginning of the new year brought us a fresh set of public domain films. This was one of them. It was directed by John Ford, a man notable for being involved in numerous John Wayne films. This particular film starred Victor McLaglen, a man who I've seen in a lot of things, but there was a particular movie I was trying to think of. After some digging, he was in The Quiet Man.
A Scottish regiment called The Black Watch is being deployed to France. Donald has been asked to head to India instead. There's a woman who has the potential to rile up the natives in the hills. She's thought of as the fulfillment to a prophecy, so the rebels (?) will do whatever she asks.
This movie was so strange. Two things saved it for me. One was Mohammed. His epic line he'd speak asking for forgiveness right before harming someone was great. The other was the drummer of the pipe band. I hate bagpipe music (there's a backstory to that, but no one cares), so I found some fun watching the bass drummer twirl his mallet. Other than that, Donald was too busy falling in love with the super white Indian woman (they tried to explain that, but I wasn't buying it) to care about his mission. I was kinda glad when she died, and I normally like Myrna Loy.
The "chemistry" between those two was awkward. Their lines sounded like they were written by a man who'd never talked to a girl before. Anyway, at least they showed me what happened to Malcolm, because I actually cared about that. I didn't care one bit that they just mentioned Donald's medal from India, and everyone was so happy to have him back in The Black Watch. Thanks, Mohammed and Drummer Man for making the hour and a half not as bad. And side note: they needed to stop asking David to sing. It's not that the man couldn't sing, he just really looked like he was over it at the end. He's wounded - start your own sing-a-long!
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