The Four Feathers has been filmed many times--once before this version--but it was Zoltan Korda who truly excelled in the kind of spectacle that this mad, romantic, somewhat bombastic story calls for. Korda became associated with the “sun-never-sets school of British imperialism” with films like Sahara, Sanders of the River, The Jungle Book and this epic, but he made the sensitive Cry the Beloved Country, as well. The Four Feathers was set and filmed in Egypt, where Lord Kitchener battled to capture Khartoum. The story follows the attempts of a tradition-bound Britisher to regain his good name after being accused of cowardice when he decides that war is stuff and nonsense and quits the army. He is given four feathers (the symbol of cowardice) by his fellow officers and his fiancée. He returns the feathers, one by one, as he performs heroic acts on behalf of each friend. This tortured morality makes an odd combination with the film's lyrical images of the Nile country, and with the savage confusion of its desert battle scenes.