Well, yes. It certainly is. This 1936 Paramount feature, made and released in an era when Hollywood scriptwriters evidently still believed in the Mystery and Inscrutability of the Orient, has pretty good cinematography (by Victor Milner), a fine musical score (by Boris Morros) and, frankly, not much else. That's a fairly damning assessment for a movie that also happens to star Gary Cooper and the lovely Madeleine Carroll, but even those two were unable to bring this turkey to life. Directed by Lewis Milestone and set in war-torn 1930's China, "The General Died at Dawn" works overtime to be a hard-boiled thriller about gun-running and double-crossing, but it doesn't gel. The movie has great, gaping holes in its narrative line, for starters. Several western actors also do impoverished turns playing Asian characters (including Akim Tamiroff playing Chinese war-lord General Yang, and Dudley Digges as the proprietor of a Shanghai hotel). But the single worst feature of the movie is the howlingly bad, overwrought dialogue supplied courtesy of Clifford Odets. As you watch the movie, you may unwittingly find your lips moving, as you try to memorize the worst phrases that Mr. Odets has penned for these characters to speak. It might, however, be even better for you to keep a pad of paper and pencil beside you as you watch; there are so many bad lines to choose from and they follow so thick and fast, one after the other, that you'll have to write them down just to remember them all. The real problem is that Clifford Odets wrote dialogue that nobody would ever say. Lord knows the actors do their best, and aren't to blame... but what on earth was the studio thinking when it released this? There, now -- doesn't that sound like an inducement to watch this movie?
There's sometimes a fascination in watching a truly bad movie (think "Dune" or the Elizabeth Taylor "Cleopatra" or insert your own favorite here: ________________). But "The General Died at Dawn" really doesn't qualify to breathe that rarified air. It's just too cringe-inducing. Don't believe me? Go. Watch. But don't say you weren't warned...
There's sometimes a fascination in watching a truly bad movie (think "Dune" or the Elizabeth Taylor "Cleopatra" or insert your own favorite here: ________________). But "The General Died at Dawn" really doesn't qualify to breathe that rarified air. It's just too cringe-inducing. Don't believe me? Go. Watch. But don't say you weren't warned...