The Four Feathers is a Technicolor spectacle which examines imperial, masculine codes of honour and chivalry. Although the film is about Faversham’s conversion to heroism it is important that the means whereby he achieves the title of the ‘bravest Faversham’ are unconventional. At the beginning of the film the expectations placed on him to demonstrate his bravery in the military are depicted as rigid and unyielding. At the dinner table General Burroughs repeats the same story of his bravery in the Crimean War time and time again. We later learn that Burroughs’ supposed heroic act was in fact an accident: he led an important charge at a key moment because his horse was startled, not because of his own ingenious timing.

In contrast Faversham’s bravery is anonymous and not associated with such boastful exaggeration. His masquerade as the mute tribesman delays the revelation of his true identity until a white feather is found on each of the men he has saved. So, rather than prove his bravery in the conventional way, he chooses to flout military structures, reject the pomp and pageantry of military ambition and instead pursue a personal quest to redeem himself by returning the white feathers to the individuals who despised him for failing to perform his imperial duty. On a more personal level, the character Durrance also demonstrates bravery and self-sacrifice in his decision at the end of the film to facilitate Ethne and Harry’s reunion in spite of his own love for Ethne.

The film therefore rejects a straightforward celebration of imperial codes by privileging bravery that is not self-aggrandising or overtly exploitative. The strain of pacifism which the film represents is confirmed when Harry describes the Egyptian campaign as ‘madness’. Chapman and Cull suggest that this is a result of screenwriter R.C. Sheriff’s anti-war views (2009: 26). On the other hand, the Khalipha and Dervishes are represented as backward and cruel. The Battle of Omdurman is depicted as an exciting and necessary triumph for the British forces which take advantage of inter-tribal conflict to bargain for support from pro-British local factions. As such the film promotes the view of the British as bringing order to warring tribes in strategically placed territories. In spite of Harry’s personal rejection of the pomp and circumstance of empire, validation of the British cause is thus ultimately supported, in keeping with producer Korda’s imperialistic beliefs. 

While the majority of the locations are in the Sudan, the technique of intermittently showing London accentuates the impact of the contrasting spectacular Egyptian landscape where the action sequences are suspenseful and dramatise the narrative of imperial adventure. Harry’s masquerade provides an example often found in the empire genre of westerners disguising themselves as locals, in this case as a member of the Sanghali tribe. The pretence is seldom questioned by locals, whereas for audiences it is obvious. This inevitably communicates a sense of western superiority since the local people in the narrative are apparently unable to see through the masquerade, a strategy which arguably aligns the audience with the western characters by sharing the same insight. In this and other instances, The Four Feathers relates to the themes of other 1930s British films in the empire genre by suggesting that although the empire is profoundly unstable and dangerous, British military intervention and the endorsement of particular codes of masculine chivalry are necessary to keep order.

Sarah Street