The Light That Failed (1939) User Reviews

The Light Fails, but the Performances Shine

[sunlily · 8/10 · 10 June 2007]

"Painting is seeing, then remembering better than you saw." So says Dick Heldar (Ronald Colman), the painter in The Light That Failed.The movie is in the grand old Hollywood style, starring Ronald Colman and a bravura supporting cast that includes Ida Lupino in her first important role, dependable character actor Dudley Digges (who also co-starred with Colman in Condemned.),and a solid performance by the wonderful actor Walter Huston.

The title and opening sequences of the film pretty much give away the fact that Dick will lose his sight. He's blinded by gun powder discharge as he and childhood sweetheart Maisie (Muriel Angelus) are playing with a pistol. Later a wound while fighting in the Sudan is the catalyst for his blindness. He becomes a famous painter, but he's already blinded by ambition, and doesn't really reach his full potential until the point that his sight is leaving him. Enter bad girl Bessie (Ida Lupino), and his self destruction is set in motion. Lupino is very powerful in this role and plays off Colman very well. Her evil tart reminds me of Bette Davis in Of Human Bondage.

Well acted and well directed, this is one of my favorite Colman melodramas.

The Tragic Life Of Richard Heldar

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 27 August 2011]

The Light That Failed was the second of a two picture deal Ronald Colman made with Paramount after getting shed of his contract to Sam Goldwyn. Hard to choose between this and If I Were King the other film that was part of the deal as to which was better. I won't even try.

Colman essays the part of Richard Heldar who, but for a tragic accident might have gone on to be acclaimed one of the great artists of the 19th century. The film is based on the first published novel by Rudyard Kipling and according to the Citadel Film series book The Films Of Ronald Colman, this film stayed truer to the story that Kipling told than two previous silent screen versions.

While a pictorial correspondent covering the British war in the Sudan against the Mahdi, Colman is accidentally cut on the forehead by a blade wielding Walter Huston during a battle. A slow moving injury to the optic nerve degenerates Colman's vision, but he's determined to paint on while he can.

Two women are involved with Colman, long time childhood sweetheart Muriel Angelus and tart in every sense of the word Ida Lupino who serves as a model for Colman. Lupino had to battle for this part, director William Wellman wanted her, Colman wanted Vivien Leigh. As much as I like Vivien Leigh, I can't see her doing this part better than Lupino did.

The film really is a personal vehicle for Ronald Colman who typifies the British ideal, it's how they see themselves, it's the image they like to convey to the world. Colman does dominate this film as he usually does in his films.

And as entertainment it holds up well after more than 70 years, don't miss The Light That Failed if you are a fan of Ronald Colman.

One of Colman's best performances.

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 14 July 2017]

"The Light That Failed" is among Ronald Colman's best films....though I must warn you that it's also among his most depressing. The story is based on Rudyard Kipling's first full- length novel of the same name.

The story begins with two children playing with a gun. There's an accident and Maisie discharges the gun near Dick's eyes. This is foreshadowing what you next see in the film. Dick is a man now and fighting for the British army in Sudan. During an encounter with the enemy, he receives a sword slash across the eyes. He recovers his sight but doesn't realize that severe damage to his optic nerves has occurred and one day he'll go blind. In the meantime, the war ends and Dick spends his time painting and drawing while he tours the Middle East. When he learns that the public back in Britain love his work, he returns. His work is good but when Dick realizes he's going blind he wants to get one final masterpiece completed. The problem is his model, Bessie (Ida Lupino) is a coarse and awful woman...why is something you'll just have to see for yourself as well as how Dick deals with his eventual blindness.

The acting is superb in this one...especially Colman. It also helped that he had Lupino and Walter Huston on hand to provide support. Overall, a quality film in every way. My only caveat is that if you dislike sad, depressing stories you might want to skip this one....though I sure wouldn't!

A Wonderful Movie But It Misses The Novel.

[theowinthrop · 14 August 2004]

In 1891 Rudyard Kipling was best known for his short stories about the British army in India and his excellent poetry (THE BARRACK ROOM BALLARDS). He decided to write a novel, set in the Sudan in the Mahdi revolt (slightly older than contemporary time - about 1884 - 1889). His hero, Dick Heldar, is a war correspondent artist who is wounded in the head by a Sudanese soldier (who is killed by Heldar's friend Torpenhow a moment later). Heldar is invalided to England, where he expands his reputation as a war artist into a military genre painter. He meets a girl (Maisie) who he romances. But then he learns his eyesight (which has been giving him problems since he was wounded) is fading. Heldar determines to paint his masterpiece - the painting to give him immortality. Rather than a military subject it is a painting of a woman as personifying "Melancholy". The painting's model is Betty Broke, a young Cockney girl who Torpenhow has been living with. But Betty is attracted to Heldar, and hopes to become his girl. Then she learns of Maisie, and she destroys the painting. Heldar has gone blind just before this, and reveals the painting to Torpenhow and Maisie thinking that it is the brilliant work he completed. When a vengeful Betty tells him she destroyed it, Heldar...seeing his life is over, returns to the Sudan and his friends, and dies leading a charge against the enemy.

This is the basic story of THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. The William Wellman film from 1939 is basically following this story, and tells it well, having a cast headed by Ronald Colman as Helgar, Walter Huston as Torpenhow, Ida Lupino as Betty, and Murial Angelus as Maisie. Dudley Digges, Ernest Cosart, Halliwell Hobbes, and a host of other Hollywood character performers give excellent support to the leads. It is an ultimately tragic story, well done, well told.

But the film, ironically, fails to have the impact of the novel. That is because Kipling made the story a study of one element that the movie just examines one trend of - it is a novel about failure. Every person, every institution, every impulse in the story fails to be achieved. It's not just Heldar...it's everyone!

First, although at the time the novel was written the events in the Sudan (although a still continuing war) seemed destined to bring about the eventual result - the collapse of the Mahdist Revolt. It did eventually fail at the battle at Omdurman in 1898 (which is shown in the movie versions of FOUR FEATHERS), but it was slowly being squeezed to death in the campaigns in Egypt and the Northern Sudan from 1884 onward. The death of Gordon (the subject of the film KHARTOUM) showed that the Mahdists were capable of beating the British, but the Mahdi died of plague within six months, and the Khalifa was not his equal as a charasmatic leader. So the fact that the Sudanese soldier gives such a crippling injury to Dick is worthless - a fact brought home by his death immediately afterwards at the hands of Torpenhow. However, it is a long and arduous road to the defeat of the Mahdists. The great British Empire (reeling from the early defeats of Hicks and Gordon) also can suffer failure.

Torpenhow's action only avenges Dick (and only in that he is protecting Dick from injury). He thinks he saved Dick's life. He hasn't succeeded - Dick's injury is a damaged optic nerve which leads to his blindness. Torp's action just delays the inevitable. Torpenhow is also unable to save Dick's masterpiece from Betty, and has to watch as Dick dies in battle in the end.

Dick returns to England and starts making his artistic name as a genre painter. And a successful one. But Torpenhow and the Nilghai (Dudley Digges, in the movie) point out that Dick was original at first, when he showed the grit and dirt of real military life - now he is prettifying it. Dick has been selling out. His artistic abilities are beginning to fail. Also the public, fully "supportive" of their men in the armed forces, don't want the real dirt and blood to appear - it's unpleasant. Their sense of realism is sacrificed by their hypocrisy. It too fails.

Dick's artistic independence (in the novel) is gained at the expense of the news agency that used his talents for their news reports from the front. When they try to browbeat him into returning to the front he rejects their attempts - so much for the power of capitalism.

The relationship with Maisie is due to her ability as a painter - she is trying to be one. But she is a mere dabler. In fact, she becomes very self-concious of her inferiority and it affects her romance with Dick. Also (Kipling is ironical here) Maisie has a really talented female roomate who draws and paints as well as Dick, but Dick only has eyes on Maisie - her roomate is too timid to tell him how much she likes him! She fails as does Maisie.

Civilization in England is in for a knockout too. As his sight starts troubling him, Dick goes to a great Harley Street physician for help. The doctor (representing science and knowledge) can't prevent his losing his eyesight.

Betty does have a moment of evil triumph over Dick, destoying his painting, but it costs her. In the novel Betty actually reveals the truth to Dick at a moment that he is seriously considering living with her for the rest of his life. She suddenly realizes that in telling him of what she did to his work his offer is dead...and since she is little better than a whore, the last chance for her to have a decent life has just collapsed. Her life is set for a downward trend of poverty - it too is a failure.

Dick's final act is his only constructive action to achieve some posthumous fame - by dying in battle. But it is fame based on death, not on achievement. A final acceptance of his failure as well.

The theme of failure is a real downer, and the film may have wisely jettisoned most of this by concentrating only on Heldar. But it even soft-pedalled it with Heldar's tragedy. In the novel the painting of "Melancholy" was his one chance at artistic immortality. Instead, in the process of developing his reputation as a genre artist, Dick paints a picture of a riderless horse of a dead soldier. This picture is widely exhibited, and well received (and, ironically, it mirrors his own horse, as he lies dead in the Sudan - at the feet of Torpenhow in the movie's conclusion). But it reminds the audience that even if the "Melancholy" was maliciously ruined by Betty, Dick lived long enough to paint another masterpiece that will live. The painting forshadowing his own end is a brilliant idea, but it cheapens the actual effect of Kipling's novel's tragedy.

My Cruel Lady

[st-shot · 7/10 · 6 September 2017]

There is more than a hint of misogyny in this Rudyard Kipling story where both educated careerist (Marie Angelus) and streetwalker (Ida Lupino) are placed in less than complimentary light while artist (Ronald Colman) loses his. Colman gives one his finest performances but it is Lupino who remains memorable.

Aspiring conscripted artist Dick Heldar is wounded in Africa saving Topenhow's (Walter Huston) life. Mustered out he moves in to Topenhow's adjoining studio a starving artist and emerges a famous illustrator of the horrors of battle that gain recognition but then as now realizes medium cool is what the public wants and sells out. He becomes insufferable then begins to lose his sight. He takes on the conniving Betsy Broke (don't you just love it) to model and then to complete the portrait of the love of his life who rejected him who briefly returns to once again disappoint.

Powell is outstanding as he stretches from his usual noble self at first to an arrogant, obnoxious successful artist and into decline as a terrified man losing his sight. Marie Angelus as an ambitious driven artist wanting nothing to do with the traditional 19th century women comes across both selfish and immature. Huston delivers his usual well crafted performance as the kindhearted, generous, truly loyal writer as the self serving Kipling character perhaps revealing more than he thinks while Duddley Digges makes no bones about being a male chauvinist pig. It is Lupino's Ms. Broke who really raises the emotional tenor in most scenes first at the abuse of Healder and then while exacting cruel revenge in which Ida serves it like a French chef, coldly.

Opening and closing with some rousing battle scenes,( the first an impressive overhead of the battle square, the last a powerful reoccurring image realized) the film is basically a stage play with half a dozen characters moving between a few rooms which might make it claustrophobic were it not for the sonorous voices of Colman and Huston in discussion or Lupino's raging Eliza Dolittle raising the roof.

See this AFTER you read the book

[richard-1787 · 6/10 · 1 August 2010]

This is a fine movie. Not a great one by any means, but a very fine one.

It is remarkable mostly for a very fine script, which condenses Kipling's text by saving the most telling, essential moments, often using Kipling's dialog. When you have read the novel, you will marvel at how well it is done, and how faithful it is.

Therein, I suppose, lies its real weakness as well. The movie doesn't add a lot of its own to show what movies can do. Perhaps the best of what little there is comes in the last scene, where Heldar participates in the charge of the British forces against the natives in the Sudan. It is the sort of exciting charge that Hollywood used to do so well in a day when war was still glorious. The final touch, original to the movie, when Heldar's horse comes back to find him after he has been shot off it and killed, isn't very realistic - it's unlikely a horse that barely knew its rider would bother - but it makes a striking, if sentimental, last image.

My one problem with the movie is that it makes Maisie's standing as an artist in her own right even more ambiguous than Kipling does in the novel. In the novel she is as devoted to her art, if not more so, than Heldar, and for that reason refuses to give it up and marry him, which would mean becoming the mother of his children, etc. Kipling's novel suggests that she has the makings of an Impressionist painter, struggling for acceptance in an art world that still won't accept the triumph of color, a gift that she has, over line, which is what the art establishment prized. If, in fact, she is a good artist, her devotion to her art over everything would justify her refusal to give it up for Heldar. In the movie, unlike in the novel, Maisie dismisses her own work and we are left with the feeling she is, in fact, just being selfish, though why she should be so devoted to something that she herself does not esteem we never find out. In the movie Maisie becomes a less important character, so her motivations evidently don't matter.

Had the part been given to a better actress - Greer Garson would have been ideal - they might have given it more importance and more development, even though Garson was just starting her career in American films that year.

Coleman gives his usual wonderful performance, as does Walter Huston. Ida Lupino is also very good as the stereotypical cockney, the sort of role Angela Lansbery will do even better 5 years later in Gaslight, and win an Oscar for.

So, a movie to watch. You will appreciate some of its better points more if you read Kipling's novel first. And you will also enjoy Kipling's novel.

Moving drama

[searchanddestroy-1 · 8/10 · 27 April 2022]

I just discovered this drama from Bill Wellman which I did not know at all. Ronald Colman is terrific here, as he was in TALE OF TWO CITIES too. A real moving, poignant and sad drama which grabs you to the guts. It seems to hesitate between drama, romance and adventure story, as many Paramount film of this period were: THE LIVES OF A BENGAL LANCER, BEAU GESTE and a film that I commented yesterday: LAST OUTPOST. A very unknown gem from Wellman the great, one of the most awesome director from Hollywood.

To die with my boots on.

[ulicknormanowen · 7/10 · 24 March 2022]

The dignity of man was one of the main concerns of the great Wellman : "heroes for sale" "wild boys of the road " and later the harrowing "ox-bow incident" ,one of the best westerns ever made .

That explains the ending,which may seem implausible to some ;a blind man ,fighting in a Far -East war ? But as his horse ride away without the rider , you say to yourself he had the death he longed for , among his brothers in arms :camaraderie is not an empty word for the director (see also "wild boys of the road" "beau geste ")

Ronald Colman is true to form ; Ida Lupino (later a great director) gives a very modern performance: the "laughing" scene belongs to her and she effortlessly blows the other female actress off the screen.

Ronald Colman was great

[jewelch · 7/10 · 21 November 2020]

Well worth watching, James Welch Henderson, Arkansas 11/2020

Misogynistic Kipling Tale

[dcole-2 · 5/10 · 22 December 2004]

This movie puts forth the idea that men can love dogs and they can love (or at least prefer the company of) other men -- but don't trust those women! They'll ruin you! One woman makes a lifelong commitment to our hero (later played by Ronald Colman)which she quickly breaks when they meet as adults. The other is a prostitute who is ignorant and mean -- and ruins his greatest painting. So the only proper thing for our hero to do is go back into battle and end his life with MEN! Fighting other MEN! Only there can life be pure and true! Anyway, this is about painter Ronald Colman who is injured in a battle in a Sudan (the opponent natives are rather racistly called 'fuzzies') but makes a friend of Walter Huston (in one of his more mannered, annoying performances). He becomes a big, successful artist but is arrogant about it -- so it's telegraphed that he's going to have a big fall. And he does -- he goes blind from the war injury and that darned prostitute (Ida Lupino in a lively performance) destroys his masterpiece. Still, he has the love of his dog... and he can go back and die bravely in battle. What else would you want? Way too talky and precious and sentimental for me. But Colman is good, no denying that. The scene where he finally goes blind still retains its power.

It had potential, but it's lousy

[HotToastyRag · 2/10 · 22 September 2018]

There are two sides to Ronald Colman: the likable side and the unlikable side. In his unlikable phase, Ronnie acts like he couldn't care less about anyone around him, the women especially. It's not a very attractive look. If you want to see him in and fall in love with him, rent A Tale of Two Cities. If you don't care, rent Random Harvest. If you rent The Light That Failed, you won't like him, but you also won't like the movie. It's pretty terrible.

The beginning of the movie shows the romance of childhood sweethearts shooting a gun. The girl accidentally shoots the boy in the face. Isn't that nice? Don't you just hope they get together when they're grown up? When they do grow up, they're both artists. Ronnie's paintings get critical acclaim, but Muriel Angelus's paintings haven't been discovered yet. She's jealous of his success, and there's no believability that they've been pining away for each other all those years. In the meantime, Ronnie's roommate and army buddy Walter Huston falls for Cockney beauty Ida Lupino.

For some reason, everyone in this movie feels entitled to criticize everyone else's life choices and tell them what to do. Walter tells Ronnie he's selling out, Ronnie tells Walter to kick Ida to the curb. With friends like those, who needs enemies? The Light That Failed had the potential to be a real tearjerker, but it just wasn't a good movie. There's no poignancy, no romance, no likable character, and no real reason to watch it.

Well done, beautifully acted, and as melodramatic as possible

[otter · 1 August 1999]

Authors just don't have the nerve to write melodrama any more. They're afraid of big issues and larger-than-life emotions, they're afraid that if they put any real passion or sentiment on the page, they'll make fools of themselves. They're probably right, but when a story as sappy as this works, it really, uh, "tugs at the heartstrings" as they used to say.

Rudyard Kipling's war horse story works because it's well acted and directed. Ronald Colman is even more wonderful than usual as a Victorian artist who finds he's going blind, and has just enough time left to paint a masterpiece. Never was an actor more admirable, earnest, and lovable as Colman. Ida Lupino got her big break as the model for "Melancholy". Oh, she's wonderful; a mean, vicious, petty little tart, never again would anybody dismiss her as just another pretty face. This part established her as one of the all-time great Bad Girls, beautiful and strong enough to make over-the-top hysteria seem like bravura acting. She's great.

The direction is as lively as can be for what's largely two characters in one room, and the B&W photography is beautifully expressive. Recommended for when you want some old-fashioned unashamed emotion.

the Voice that Lights up the Screen

[jerieg · 26 January 2002]

In this movie, Colman picks up a little dog, stares into his eyes, and says "I love you." The fur practically melts right off the dog.

This is a shameless old-fashioned love story - but the kind Rudyard Kipling wrote - a strictly for men love story - the women are all heartless or useless, and all that a man really needs to justify his existence is a war, a dog, a horse, a rifle, and his faithful army buddies - but you can forgive all that tripe because of Colman's persuasive persona and performance, Ida Lupino's brave, unsympathetic portrayal, and the trite story that will get to you and leave tears in your eyes, no matter what you believe.

If Colman picked me up and spoke to me the way he spoke to that little dog......

The Voice

[GManfred · 2 April 2010]

Another reader beat me to it ,but first and foremost, was there ever in Hollywood a more mellifluous voice than Ronald Colmans'? He could read a phone book and it would sound like poetry.

Well, that's the main reason to see "The Light That Failed", as it comes perilously close to a potboiler. The story is not compelling and is slow-paced, and for todays audiences it is a tad chauvinistic as well as racist, with talk of the "Fuzzy-Wuzzies", the native enemies in this tale set in Englands'late-Victorian Colonial period.

This picture does not do justice to, in my opinion, America's greatest actor Walter Huston, who is given a supporting role to Colman and does not upstage him in any of their scenes together. Ida Lupino turns in an excellent performance but does not steal the picture with her cockney accent, as reported by Leonard Maltin (does he see any of these old films or just read old reviews?).

I did not read the book but the movie is worth your time to see (and mostly to hear) Ronald Colman, as well as the other fine acting performances which harken to a day when movies were more substance than form instead of vice versa.

Out of Judging

[alvar777 · 17 March 2009]

I don't know how some people could express anything over the original story, and with all the signs in evidence of not having read the story at all. First of all, Bessie is somehow in love with Torpenhow, not Dick Heldar. She actually never managed to meet Maisie, being unaware of her existence. Bessie tears apart Dick's painting over the rage of being insulted day after day by Dick, in order to get the main character of the "Melancolia". Dick met Maisie during his childhood, his first love, being both orphans, and as well expressed by Sunlily, during a shooting session with an old revolver, Dick gets gun powder burning close to his eyes (his cheek, Kipling states), etc and etc. The story adapted in the film is a totally different matter. Oh, by the way, since there are things in this world like marriage and lawyers, the "The more I see of men, the more I love dogs" of Diogenes of Sinope could be even more valid today. Cheers