Four Frightened People

Four Frightened People is an interesting, if badly named, survival thriller from the 1930s. It was somewhat ahead of its times, with a brief nude sequence and a muted feminist theme, with an active heroine by the standards of its time.

The film follows four people who flee a cruise ship that has been infested by the bubonic plague. They land in a jungle portion of Malay and have to travel through the wilderness to get back to civilization. Along the way, they confront wild animals and hostile indigenous people.

This film takes some unexpected turns that make it more interesting. At the beginning, we assume the heroine will end up romantically attached to the brash leader of the group. However, DeMille takes the plot in a much different and more satisfying direction, making good use of character development to defy our expectations.

Four Frightened People also defies expectations through its treatment of Claudette Colbert's heroine. Initially a whiny, easily pushed around schoolmarm, she becomes arguably the most influential member of the group, pushing the men to become more proactive. Although the film's ending and a few damsel in distress scenes undermine the proto-feminist theme, the film is still quite progressive for 1934.

The film's content is also surprisingly risqué. At one point, we see Claudette Colbert's character showering nude, and the supporting female character gets Malay women to deny their husbands sex.

One aspect that does date the film is an undercurrent of racism. The depiction of the indigenous people is definitely patronizing, particularly the character of Montague. Still, the film is far better in those terms than other old jungle films such as White Pongo.

Utter balderdash with the DeMille touch, although it is missing a big set piece which in his later films was standard, has to do with people stranded on an island fending off man and beast. Somehow going through the rigors of the jungle makes Claudette more attractive rather than less, she even has an indistinct but very definite nude scene under a waterfall. Herbert Marshall is fine as usual but the real standout is Mary Boland doing her best fluttery nincompoop, the periods when she disappears from the film it really suffers because of it. A notorious flop in its day this is enjoyable if you are a fan of DeMille's excesses but he's definitely made better films.

This relatively small-scale adventure drama from Cecil B. DeMille has its attractions: A sterling cast, lush on-location photography by Karl Struss, and an interesting plot premise: four modern Westerners forced to trek together across the jungles of Malaya when bubonic plague strikes the crew of their steamer as it "perspires" down the Malay coast. These Westerners are: Claudette Colbert as a sheltered and timid young geography teacher; Herbert Marshall as a rubber industry chemist; William Gargan as a news correspondent; and Mary Boland as the chirpy, self-confident wife of a British colonial official.

The first five minutes are an exercise in the art of the silent cinema. Each main character is introduced with a descriptive caption; further titles explain the overall situation in heightened language. In an artful sequence showing the ship's telegraph operator tapping out a call for help we see the translation of his Morse code as ghostly white words floating across the screen. We are then jolted by the sight of Claudette Colbert in close-up – bespectacled, without her trademark bangs and almost makeup-free as well – struggling to scream but prevented from doing so by Herbert Marshall's hand over her mouth. He, along with fellow Anglo passengers Gargan and Boland, are escaping the doomed ship in a lifeboat and are taking Colbert along for her own good. When the quartet discovers that the plague has also struck the natives on land they have no choice but to cross the peninsula on foot in hopes of finding a ship on the other side that will carry them home.

In stories of this kind the characters usually undergo deep transformations under the pressures of survival in the wild, revealing previously hidden dimensions and emerging as either heroes or villains, leaders or followers, corpses or survivors. Here, however, the focus is on the sexual and sartorial awakening of the Colbert character who evolves from prim and virginal wallflower in a dowdy dress to lusty and assertive tropical siren whose jungle- ravaged Western street clothes are conveniently swiped by a chimpanzee while she is bathing in a waterfall, forcing her to improvise first a sort of sarong made of jungle leaves and eventually a form-fitting leopard skin in the Tarzan-Jane style. She wears both well. In all three of the movies she made for DeMille she was dressed to kill.

There are some genuinely gripping scenes as well as comedy, chiefly from Boland who tramps through the muck in evening gown and high heels without ever entirely losing her essential fun-loving good nature. Even when she is taken prisoner by a tribe of cannibals she manages to turn their village into her private country club. It's the females who shine here, as Colbert gets a chance to show off her acting chops as well as her splendid physique and Boland gets to be Boland in an uncharacteristic setting.

Interesting Cecil B. DeMille film about four passengers fleeing a plague-infested ship and having to fight their way through the jungle. William Gargan is a pompous reporter who's the he-man of the group, pointing his gun at everything that moves and barking orders. Mary Boland is a talkative middle-aged socialite who provides most of the movie's humor and is pretty much the highlight. Herbert Marshall is a sarcastic chemist who discovers his masculinity through the ordeal. Claudette Colbert plays a mousy geography teacher with pinned-up hair and glasses. As the film progresses, she lets her hair down, loses the glasses, and wears less clothes. So naturally she becomes increasingly sexy and self-confident! The two men, of course, start to notice her more. Leo Carillo is an English-speaking native guide who is terrible at his job and gets the group lost!

As I said, it's an interesting film for DeMille, who is known as a director of epics. This is a smaller, more character-driven story. It's a nice little film, if a slight one. Corny at times but enjoyable enough. The cast is good and the direction solid. Colbert is lovely and makes the most of a silly part. Try not to take it too seriously and I'm sure you'll enjoy it more.

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.