The 7th Dawn (1964)

hyped garbage

Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

It's sad how little the U.S. has learned from the British Empire that preceded it. But that's the politics and it's somewhat interestingly presented here. The biggest problem with this movie is it opens as a love triangle: Holden/Tambo/Capucino. Before the first scene is over Tambo wander off to become a commie revolutionary and in wanders Susannah Can't Act York. So it's a different love triangle. Except Holden and Capucino aren't in love; they seem to have more of a roommate-with-privileges relationship. A few people get blown up real good. Holden does some dashing things we've already seen in Bridge...Kwai. Snore. This movie is notable for featuring a still-fit Holden, with bags forming under his eyes to show the hard living of the past decade. This might also be the point where he's no longer the cynical individualist with a smile and a wink to the cynical survivor with a bitter smirk. He's closer to the bitter washed-up Pyke of The Wild Bunch at this point. I want some UCLA film student to write his doctoral thesis on Holden's career and life as it played out on the screen. For now I might just have to read Stefanie Powers' book about him.

Enjoyable and welcome - just shows how few films were made about the end of the British Empire (India being an exception). Well cast and the excellent supports - Sydney Tafler, Michael Goodliffe and Maurice Denham bring added credibility. Nice to see Tafler in a role other than his usual line in club managers and assorted crooks. Likewise, Goodliffe shows a gravitas contrasting from his normal parts - the seedy (Jigsaw 1962) through to various officer types and police inspectors.

The 7th Dawn (1964)The best of this movie is an attempt to show the politics of Malaysia after WWII. There are lessons here that apply to our own time, with European powers facing rising anger in developing countries. Here it's the British who are facing horrors from the Malaysians because they own so much of the good land and maintain typical colonial class and monetary power (even though it was no longer an official colony). A little like half the world, I suppose, in mid-Twentieth Century, including South Africa and Vietnam.The movie is stiff and forced in other ways, and often feels like a movie that might have been made a decade earlier. It plays with clichés and uses convenient movie tricks that are false even to the uninitiated. The leading man hasn't that worn well over the years--William Holden. I generally like him, but here I can feel him acting too often. Some of the charming ticks in his face, or his dry delivery, now seems fake and even smarmy, like the letch in him can't hide beneath his acting, or the "leading man" in him is all he has. I have a feeling these quirks were attractive at the time, fifty years ago.It's not a total train wreck of a movie. Susannah York is stunning in a way that avoids the stereotyping she often reluctantly fit into, the Pop British flower-child. Unfortunately York isn't a terrific actress here, and at first is merely the serious woman to put against Holden's character. She does have an important role, but it's extremely limited (you'll see why) and she can be sculptural without pretense. But then next to York is the "other" woman to whom Holden (46 years old here) is attracted (which by itself is absurd, York playing the less desirable woman). This is played by the younger and unconvincing Capucine. (She went by one name, but was born with the usual allotment.) It's not that she's a bad actor really, but that she's a frivolous object with so little awareness of what surrounds here. I'm sure people like her were in Malaysia, but to make her a centerpiece of the movie brings everything down a couple notches.If we can absorb the stilted (at times) style and the improbable aspects in the subplots (Holden with the young tart slashing through the jungle with machetes) we are able to go back to the political facts. The details are fictional, for sure, but the broad outline, the fear of Westerners in a land where they are not at all welcome, is believable. And the film doesn't paint it completely as a bunch of innocent English richies being killed and tormented by the rabble, though there is a little of that. It's more about a the real conflict of histories and ways of life. And a sticking to principles. I think a more potent idea here, without York by this point, is whether personal friendship can hold up through huge differences of culture and loyalty. This might be the best part of the movie, and in those sections you'll at least feel depth to the idea and even the acting, even if the outcome is a bit beside the point. In one later scene the woman at this point (the tart) asks, "How can you believe him?" Exactly! The question of trust in the mind of the audience is obvious to the characters, too, and so it's the final large theme, taking us from the first scene to almost the last.Everything outside shot on location, which adds authenticity not only on the plantations (rubber) but later in the raw jungle. If you watch this you'll find things to like for sure. But it's not constructed very well, and the clunky parts will overwhelm you at times. You'll also find that people who should be freaking out (on death row, or a man seeing his daughter likely to die) calmly proceed instead. Or when someone takes a prisoner after a huge fight, they then let down their guard and trust him to walk away with his weapon.It's too bad. A lot was pointed in the right direction at first. There are more recent movies that take the realism of their periods seriously and to probably better results (blockbusters like "Gandhi" or "The Last Emperor" and more perceptive if imperfect films like "Lust Caution" and the weirdly chilling "Disgrace"). But the theme is really one of the largest in the history of movies, actually, if you start looking at everything from "The Rains Came" to "The Letter" both from the classic black and white Hollywood years. "The 7th Dawn" fits into this picture somewhere.

The communist uprising in Malaysia following WWII lasted for many, many years and many people were killed. Yet, oddly, it's seldom the subject of films--as if it never took place.The film begins at the end of WWII---as a MODERN helicopter brings word of the Japanese surrender. Jump forward a decade and two comrades in the struggle against the Japanese have gone on very different paths. One (William Holden) is now a hugely successful plantation owner. The other (Tetsurô Tanba) is now a communist revolutionary--leading the revolt against the interim British government. As for Holden, he's pretty apolitical but his girlfriend (Capucine) is appalled by the stupidity of the British government--she is sympathetic towards the revolutionaries. When she is captured and accused of smuggling weapons for the communists, Holden is finally compelled to take sides.The film is pretty good, but there is another character that was a bit uneven and a bit annoying. Susanna York plays the daughter of the new governor. She appears a bit kooky and flighty for much of the film--even though everything is deadly serious. Only later in the film does she show her pluck--but this is only after she COMPLETELY inexplicably surrenders herself to the revolutionaries. Had her character been written better, the film could have earned an 8. As is, it's still pretty good and worth a look.