From the 1920s onwards, virtually every Cecil B. DeMille picture treads a fine line between the spectacular and the ridiculous. Usually this doesn't matter because DeMille was, if nothing else, a master at making style compensate for lack of substance. But by the 1930s the line had become particularly fine, thanks to his hiring some of the most inept screenwriters of the era. The guilty parties here are Lenore J. Coffee and Bartlett Cormack, this time churning out an exotic romantic drama in a similar vein to Red Dust and Bird of Paradise.
Although factual accuracy and plausibility tended to be limited resources in DeMille-land, he always insisted on authenticity of locations, costumes and so forth. Hence Four Frightened People is filmed in mountains and jungles of Hawaii, and this prevents it suffering from the studio-bound look of many contemporary "outdoor" pictures. The renowned Karl Struss' photographs the forest effectively with plenty of contrast, and DeMille frames the protagonists (with his usual distant objectivity) surrounded by overhanging leaves, making the most of the dense undergrowth.
Unfortunately this is as far as DeMille goes with credibility, and among the less kosher sights are a rubbery-looking cobra, a ferret being eaten by a plant and Leo Carillo as a buffoonish tie-wearing native guide. This being DeMille, and it being the early 30s, there is also a touch of gratuitous nudity. While Colbert takes a shower under a waterfall, her clothes are conveniently stolen by a cheeky ape (a long way from its native Africa – perhaps it escaped from a zoo?) forcing her to spend the rest of the picture in a Raquel Welch-style fur bikini.
The eponymous Four are one-note stereotypes, their dialogue trite and their relationships boring. The actors turn in appropriately uninspiring performances. Claudette Colbert was at her best when playing sassy, assertive women; she can make nothing out of the dowdy caricature she is given here, and even when she is made-over she doesn't really get a chance to shine. William Gargan snarls his way through his part, managing to make his character even weaker on screen than it is on paper. The best I can say of Mary Boland is that she is at least suited to her role. The one stand-out is Herbert Marshall, a fantastic yet largely forgotten actor, kind of like a more human George Sanders. His world-weary delivery gives some depth and likability to his character that is absent in the leaden script.
This picture bears a fair few similarities to Male and Female which DeMille made in 1919. Quality-wise however they are poles apart (I regard Male and Female as possibly his greatest picture ever, and Four Frightened People is among his worst), and the difference is because DeMille seems to have forgotten how to do drama. Take away the spectacle, and all you have left is daftness. The only spectacles here are the ones worn by Colbert, and even the exotic location can't breathe any life into the paper-thin plot. Interestingly, DeMille himself acknowledged this as a failure, and in what was effectively a public apology announced to moviegoers that from now on he would make nothing but epics. If it weren't for his commercial sensibilities, he might just have sunk without trace.
Although factual accuracy and plausibility tended to be limited resources in DeMille-land, he always insisted on authenticity of locations, costumes and so forth. Hence Four Frightened People is filmed in mountains and jungles of Hawaii, and this prevents it suffering from the studio-bound look of many contemporary "outdoor" pictures. The renowned Karl Struss' photographs the forest effectively with plenty of contrast, and DeMille frames the protagonists (with his usual distant objectivity) surrounded by overhanging leaves, making the most of the dense undergrowth.
Unfortunately this is as far as DeMille goes with credibility, and among the less kosher sights are a rubbery-looking cobra, a ferret being eaten by a plant and Leo Carillo as a buffoonish tie-wearing native guide. This being DeMille, and it being the early 30s, there is also a touch of gratuitous nudity. While Colbert takes a shower under a waterfall, her clothes are conveniently stolen by a cheeky ape (a long way from its native Africa – perhaps it escaped from a zoo?) forcing her to spend the rest of the picture in a Raquel Welch-style fur bikini.
The eponymous Four are one-note stereotypes, their dialogue trite and their relationships boring. The actors turn in appropriately uninspiring performances. Claudette Colbert was at her best when playing sassy, assertive women; she can make nothing out of the dowdy caricature she is given here, and even when she is made-over she doesn't really get a chance to shine. William Gargan snarls his way through his part, managing to make his character even weaker on screen than it is on paper. The best I can say of Mary Boland is that she is at least suited to her role. The one stand-out is Herbert Marshall, a fantastic yet largely forgotten actor, kind of like a more human George Sanders. His world-weary delivery gives some depth and likability to his character that is absent in the leaden script.
This picture bears a fair few similarities to Male and Female which DeMille made in 1919. Quality-wise however they are poles apart (I regard Male and Female as possibly his greatest picture ever, and Four Frightened People is among his worst), and the difference is because DeMille seems to have forgotten how to do drama. Take away the spectacle, and all you have left is daftness. The only spectacles here are the ones worn by Colbert, and even the exotic location can't breathe any life into the paper-thin plot. Interestingly, DeMille himself acknowledged this as a failure, and in what was effectively a public apology announced to moviegoers that from now on he would make nothing but epics. If it weren't for his commercial sensibilities, he might just have sunk without trace.