Clive of India **** (1935, Ronald Colman, Loretta Young, Colin Clive) – Classic Movie Review 8114

Director Richard Boleslawski’s 1934 Clive of India stars Ronald Colman, as Robert Clive, who starts as a humble clerk and moves up to building the British Empire as leader of the troops in India, but endangers his marriage to his unhappy wife, Margaret Maskelyne (Loretta Young).

Boleslawski’s film is a stirring, ultra-costly and ambitious adventure-romance epic that, in true Hollywood fashion, does not let the facts get in the way of a good story in the screenplay by W P Lipscomb and R J Minney, based on the novel and play Clive by R J Minney.

Darryl F Zanuck’s spectacularly grand 20th Century Pictures production (before their merger with Fox), with thrilling battle sequences and superb black and white cinematography by J Peverell Marley, along with the totally reliable turns of the British cricket-playing contingent in Hollywood (Colman, Colin Clive as Captain Johnstone, Leo G Carroll as Mr Manning and C Aubrey Smith as the Prime Minister), all still impress all these years later.

Also in the cast are Francis Lister, Montagu Love, Robert Greig, Mischa Auer, Ian Wolfe, Vernon Downing, Peter Shaw, Neville Clark, Etienne Girardot, Lumsden Hare, Wyndham Standing, Douglas Gerrard, Connie Leon, Ann Shaw, Doris Lloyd, Cesar Romero, Ferdinand Munier, Gilbert Emery, Ferdinand Gottschalk, John Carradine, Olaf Hytten, Don Ameche, Herbert Brunston, Ely Maylon and Leonard Mudie.

Colin Clive was actually a descendant of Robert Clive of India.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8114

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