''General Crack'' is a 1929 American

pre-Code Pre-Code Hollywood was an era in the Cinema of the United States, American film industry that occurred between the widespread adoption of sound in film in the late 1920s and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorship gui ...

sound all-talking historical costume

melodrama A melodrama is a Drama, dramatic work in which plot, typically sensationalized for a strong emotional appeal, takes precedence over detailed characterization. Melodrama is "an exaggerated version of drama". Melodramas typically concentrate on ...

with

Technicolor Technicolor is a family of Color motion picture film, color motion picture processes. The first version, Process 1, was introduced in 1916, and improved versions followed over several decades. Definitive Technicolor movies using three black-and ...

sequences which was directed by Alan Crosland and produced and distributed by Warner Bros. It was filmed and premiered in 1929, and released early in 1930. It stars John Barrymore in his first full-length talking feature. The film would prove to be Crosland and Barrymore's last historical epic together. It was based on the 1928 novel '' General Crack'' by the British writer Marjorie Bowen, published under the name George Preedy, one of her several pen names.

Plot

The film takes place in the 18th century Austria and revolves around Prince Christian, commonly known as General Crack (John Barrymore). His father had been a respectable member of the upper ranks of the nobility but his mother was a gypsy. General Crack, as a soldier of fortune, spent his adult life selling his services to the highest bidder. He espouses the doubtful cause of Leopold II of Austria (Lowell Sherman, reigned 1790-1792) after demanding the sister of the emperor in marriage as well as half of the gold of the

Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire, also known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation after 1512, was a polity in Central and Western Europe, usually headed by the Holy Roman Emperor. It developed in the Early Middle Ages, and lasted for a millennium ...

. Before he has finished his work, however, he meets a gypsy dancer (Armida) and weds her. Complications arise when he takes his gypsy wife to the Austrian court and falls desperately in love with the emperor's sister (Marian Nixon). The court sequence was originally in Technicolor and proved to be Barrymore's last appearance in color.

Cast

* John Barrymore as Duke of Kurland / Prince Christian * Philippe De Lacy as Young Christian * Lowell Sherman as Leopold II * Marian Nixon as Archduchess Maria Luisa * Armida as Fidelia * Hobart Bosworth as Count Hensdorff * Jacqueline Logan as Countess Carola * Otto Matieson as Col. Gabor * Andrés de Segurola as Col. Pons * Douglas Gerrard as Capt. Sweeney * Wilhelm von Brincken as Capt. Schmidt (credited as William von Brincken) *General Lodijensky as Capt Banning (credited as Theodore Lodi) *Nick Thompson as Typsy Chieftain *Curt Rehfeld as Lt. Dennis * Julanne Johnston as Court Lady *Guy Schact as Pietro * Carrie Daumery as Madame Frump (credited as Madame Daumery)

Box office

According to Warner Bros records the film earned $919,000 domestic and $401,000 foreign.

Preservation

The visual (i.e., film) portions of the sound version of ''General Crack'' are lost although the soundtrack survives complete on a set of the

Vitaphone Vitaphone was a sound film system used for feature films and nearly 1,000 short subjects made by Warner Bros. and its sister studio First National Pictures, First National from 1926 to 1931. Vitaphone is the last major analog sound-on-disc sys ...

discs at UCLA. The silent version of this film, with Czech intertitles, survives, but does not have any of the original color sequences. Copies are located in the Czech archive and the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

.Film details
books.google.com.pe; accessed January 20, 2016. Although the complete soundtrack for the sound version survives on

disks, the silent version was either a "B" negative or an alternate take with intertitles. So while this is a legitimate version of the film, it does not match up with the Vitaphone soundtrack.

References

External links