The Charge of the Light Brigade (VHS)

Alfred Tennyson's epic poem of the British charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclave during the (1853-56) Crimean War was brought to the screen in 1936. This is a fictional portrayal about the events which led to the loss of 600 British calavarymen who apparently engaged in a suicidal charge against an obviously overwhelming Russian artillery battlion of 25,000.

Errol Flynn plays Major Geoffery Vickers, a gallant officer who led the 27th Lancers in India, on a dangerous mission to capture Surat Kahn (C. Henry Gordon). Vickers joins Russian forces after he massacres innocent Indian women & children.

Olivia de Haviland plays the gorgeous Elsa Campbell. Patric Knowles plays the Major's brother, Captain Perry Vickers, Elsa Campbell's fiancee'. The Major's mettle will be tested again when he becomes involved in a turbulent love triangle between them.

Michael Curtiz directs this classic & Max Steiner provides the Oscar-nominated musical score.

Although this is definitely fictional, Tennyson wrote another poem called, "The Charge of the Heavy Brigade," after survivors protested his original version. They bear no resemblance. The first, however, includes the famous line, "Their's is not to reason why; Their's is to do or die"~