Mulheres e Homens

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.

This film has long been maddeningly elusive on both home video and even television, where it would seem like a natural for AMC or TCM. It's directed by the legendary Cecil B. DeMille, features a solid cast in William Gargan, Herbert Marshall and Mary Boland, and best of all lets us see the most beautiful woman to grace the screen in the 1930s, Claudette Colbert, undergo an alluring transformation from prim, mousy schoolteacher to a self-assured jungle woman in a midriff baring leopardskin.

Not that DeMille gives us a picture of the jungle as a totally idyllic Paradise. The story, which focuses on four people who have escaped a plague outbreak on their ocean liner and who are trekking through hundreds of miles of jungle to reach civilization, shows them going through many travails from snakes to ugly insects to hostile natives etc. Along the way, DeMille mixes in comic relief, intense drama and character studies, philosophical and religious musings, and a generous amount of Claudette showing off her magnificent form. In short, he gives us exactly what he also served up in his spectacle pictures, without the spectacle itself. That absence of spectacle may account for why the picture ultimately failed and is forgotten today. Too bad, because it's quite fascinating to watch.

DeMille obviously enjoyed showcasing Colbert in revealing outfits, since he would do so two more times in the next year, first in "Cleopatra" and then in "Sign Of The Cross."

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.

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.

I am relating a great deal of this film's content because I know it is nearly impossible for potential viewers to find. So if you don't want to know specifics of the plot, please stop reading! I was lucky enough to enjoy it through a university preservation film festival.

First, the four main characters are introduced:

Mary Boland - interested in reducing the birth rate of the country; Herbert Marshall - an "unimportant" rubber chemist "too quiet and shy to shake the world's foot from his neck", Claudette Colbert - an insignificant Chicago geography teacher, and William Gargan - an egotistical journalist whose articles "New York" is just waiting for. (Those are some of the film's words, not mine).

In the first few minutes, you see Colbert dressed in a very prim fashion with her hair pulled tightly back and glasses always on. This was reason enough to pay admission! The three other main characters are trying to escape from their plague-infected ship. She has screamed, so they have to abduct her in order to slip away unnoticed.

Soon their little boat dies and they must rely on a native (Leo Carillo calling himself "white") to help them find a path back to civilization. This is where their 'fun' really begins. They must traverse through an ominous jungle. Colbert only notices the pretty orchid she wants to pick and when they bunk for the night, she is incredibly offended that they expect her to sleep with them (including the men). This is when a truly bit of funny dialogue occurs: Marshall says something like, Neither one of us thinks of you as a woman so stop turning everything into a sex problem and join the group! It was very amusing to hear a proper-sounding man blurt this out angrily. She insists on being alone until she hears a lion. Then she races over on all fours and is in between the men while they're attempting to sleep. Her hair is hanging down and the impression is that she is getting prettier. The two men roll over though and ignore her.

Soon they are lost in a maze of unnavigable branches. Colbert tries to reason which way is north. No one wants to listen to her, but they're ready to play with the extra set of cards she handily has in her purse. Under a makeshift roof, they play at night while Gargan barely saves Colbert from a snake. Feeling indebted to him, she dries his wet shoes over a fire but only succeeds in burning out the soles. He is infuriated, and now she is determined to go on alone. After all, her great great grandfather was John Paul Jones.

Now a real native tribe finds the lost wanderers and will not leave them in peace unless one of the women stays with them. They choose Boland because she's heavier than Colbert and they like that. Soon the two men who never liked each other start arguing, especially over the less inhibited Colbert who now attractively wears bathing suits made from leaves and bathes luxuriously under a waterfall. She starts making the decisions much to the men's chagrin. She becomes enamoured of the more sensitive Marshall, who we learn is a hen-pecked husband. Eventually, the group survives the death of their leader and Marhsall's being hit with an arrow. Back in civilization, we see Marshall and Colbert in their separate environments. For those who like to see their characters happily paired though, this film won't disappoint you.

If you like Colbert and Marshall, this film is one to search for. It is also fun to see Boland younger and playing an unmatronly character. This is a more subdued DeMille picture which presents a different aspect of him as a director. The film may be a little silly and unrealistic, but it was not a spectacle. I wish it was available for people to see more readily.