Four passengers escape their bubonic plague-infested ship and land on the coast of a wild jungle. In order to reach safety they have to trek through the jungle, facing wild animals and attac... Read allFour passengers escape their bubonic plague-infested ship and land on the coast of a wild jungle. In order to reach safety they have to trek through the jungle, facing wild animals and attacks by primitive tribesmen.Four passengers escape their bubonic plague-infested ship and land on the coast of a wild jungle. In order to reach safety they have to trek through the jungle, facing wild animals and attacks by primitive tribesmen.
Chris-Pin Martin
- Native Boatman
- (as Chris Pin Martin)
Joe De La Cruz
- Native
- (as Joe de la Cruz)
Delmar Costello
- Sakais
- (uncredited)
E.R. Jinedas
- Native
- (uncredited)
Minoru Nishida
- Native
- (uncredited)
Teru Shimada
- Native
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaAccording to "Cecil B. DeMille's Hollywood" by Robert S. Birchard, the 96-minute version of the film was only shown at a test screening in Huntington Park, California, on December 15, 1933. That version, including Claudette Colbert's nude scene, was seen by a test audience composed mostly of kids who were there waiting to see the war aviation movie Ace of Aces (1933). Audience feedback stated the movie was too long by ten minutes, and that further character set-up was necessary. To accommodate this DeMille added in the opening blurb that the movie was filmed on real locations and he included brief bios for each of the four frightened people. DeMille then screened the movie and decided that the test audience was correct, and cut a "thousand feet" from the film, resulting in the 17 minutes cut from the test version. So then the 96-minute "longer" cut was never actually shown to a mass audience; the only certain thing about it was that it included sequences with Ethel Griffies, who played the mother of Arnold Ainger (Herbert Marshall).
- GoofsJudy is seen in an outfit of leaves then is next seen in a leopard skin but she's never seen trapping, or killing the animal or preparing the the skin. Later Gargan is also seen in an animal skin.
- Quotes
Mrs. Mardick: It's not the heat really, it's the humidity.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Claudette Colbert: Queen of Silver Screen (2008)
Featured review
DeMille Goes Hawaiian
According to Cecil B. DeMille's autobiography, Four Frightened People was the last film he made that both lost money and was not of an historical nature. Seeing it today, especially in the edited 78 minute version of it, I can see why. Not even Paramount splurging for location shooting in Hawaii to stand in for the Malay jungle and DeMille's eye for spectacle could save this one.
Our Four Frightened People are spinster geography teacher Claudette Colbert, newspaper correspondent William Gargan, chemist Herbert Marshall and the wife of a British colonial official Mary Boland. Believe me this is not four people you would want in a foxhole.
The bulk of the cuts to Four Frightened People seem to come at the beginning of the film where in the short version we see the radio operator requesting help because plague is on board the ship. Gargan who is a take charge sort, commanders a lifeboat and takes Marshall, Boland, and an unwilling Colbert on board to land, lest the plague outbreak become known in the steerage where a lot of Chinese coolies are packed in like on a slave ship. The next thing we know is that the four find Leo Carrillo, a mixed blood native to help guide them to safety.
A whole lot of introductory material to the characters is lost here. My guess is that because Four Frightened People came in before the Code, Paramount made drastic cuts to try and salvage the film in a re-release which occurred the following year. As far as the story narrative was concerned it made it incoherent.
Not that I think there was much there to begin. The two men of course end up fighting over Colbert and Mary Boland just goes about in her usual oblivious way to the dangers. As for Claudette she turns from a woman frightened of life, to Sheena Queen of the Jungle as she parades around in a leopard skin outfit that must have been borrowed from Maureen O'Sullivan at MGM. The transformation is not terribly convincing.
Color might have salvaged this somewhat we were two years away from the modern Technicolor process that Paramount did in its first outdoor film in The Trail Of The Lonesome Pine. Curiously enough DeMille for all his mastery of the technical side of film making did not do a color feature until Northwest Mounted Police in 1941. The Hawaiian scenery looks beautiful, far more convincing than some standard jungle set on a studio back lot.
One other story DeMille told was that Claudette Colbert had a strong aversion more than most to little creepy crawly critters and in Hawaii many unusual ones thrive. On the first day of shooting she sat down on a centipede and became hysterical. How she got through the film God only knows. But the very next film Claudette did was It Happened One Night and that was her Oscar winning part. Good recompense for going through Four Frightened People.
I wasn't crazy about this film and neither was its director.
Our Four Frightened People are spinster geography teacher Claudette Colbert, newspaper correspondent William Gargan, chemist Herbert Marshall and the wife of a British colonial official Mary Boland. Believe me this is not four people you would want in a foxhole.
The bulk of the cuts to Four Frightened People seem to come at the beginning of the film where in the short version we see the radio operator requesting help because plague is on board the ship. Gargan who is a take charge sort, commanders a lifeboat and takes Marshall, Boland, and an unwilling Colbert on board to land, lest the plague outbreak become known in the steerage where a lot of Chinese coolies are packed in like on a slave ship. The next thing we know is that the four find Leo Carrillo, a mixed blood native to help guide them to safety.
A whole lot of introductory material to the characters is lost here. My guess is that because Four Frightened People came in before the Code, Paramount made drastic cuts to try and salvage the film in a re-release which occurred the following year. As far as the story narrative was concerned it made it incoherent.
Not that I think there was much there to begin. The two men of course end up fighting over Colbert and Mary Boland just goes about in her usual oblivious way to the dangers. As for Claudette she turns from a woman frightened of life, to Sheena Queen of the Jungle as she parades around in a leopard skin outfit that must have been borrowed from Maureen O'Sullivan at MGM. The transformation is not terribly convincing.
Color might have salvaged this somewhat we were two years away from the modern Technicolor process that Paramount did in its first outdoor film in The Trail Of The Lonesome Pine. Curiously enough DeMille for all his mastery of the technical side of film making did not do a color feature until Northwest Mounted Police in 1941. The Hawaiian scenery looks beautiful, far more convincing than some standard jungle set on a studio back lot.
One other story DeMille told was that Claudette Colbert had a strong aversion more than most to little creepy crawly critters and in Hawaii many unusual ones thrive. On the first day of shooting she sat down on a centipede and became hysterical. How she got through the film God only knows. But the very next film Claudette did was It Happened One Night and that was her Oscar winning part. Good recompense for going through Four Frightened People.
I wasn't crazy about this film and neither was its director.
helpful•113
- bkoganbing
- Feb 19, 2011
- How long is Four Frightened People?Powered by Alexa
Details
- Runtime1 hour 18 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1
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Top Gap
By what name was Four Frightened People (1934) officially released in India in English?
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