Four Frightened People

1934

Action / Adventure / Drama

4
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 36% · 2 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Spilled 36% · 100 ratings
IMDb Rating 6.1/10 10 878 878

ship waterfall jungle shoe pre-code

Director

Cecil B. DeMille Photo
Cecil B. DeMille

Top cast

Nella Walker Photo
Nella Walker as Mrs. Ainger
Claudette Colbert Photo
Claudette Colbert as Judy Jones
Herbert Marshall Photo
Herbert Marshall as Arnold Ainger
Tetsu Komai Photo
Tetsu Komai as Native Chief
720p.BLU 1080p.BLU
718.41 MB
1280*942
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles
23.976 fps
1 hr 18 min
Seeds ...
1.3 GB
1456*1072
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles
23.976 fps
1 hr 18 min
Seeds 2

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by utgard14 7 / 10

"Shut up! You're beautiful!"

Interesting Cecil B. DeMille film about four passengers fleeing a plague-infested ship and having to fight their way through the jungle. William Gargan is a pompous reporter who's the he-man of the group, pointing his gun at everything that moves and barking orders. Mary Boland is a talkative middle-aged socialite who provides most of the movie's humor and is pretty much the highlight. Herbert Marshall is a sarcastic chemist who discovers his masculinity through the ordeal. Claudette Colbert plays a mousy geography teacher with pinned-up hair and glasses. As the film progresses, she lets her hair down, loses the glasses, and wears less clothes. So naturally she becomes increasingly sexy and self-confident! The two men, of course, start to notice her more. Leo Carillo is an English-speaking native guide who is terrible at his job and gets the group lost!As I said, it's an interesting film for DeMille, who is known as a director of epics. This is a smaller, more character-driven story. It's a nice little film, if a slight one. Corny at times but enjoyable enough. The cast is good and the direction solid. Colbert is lovely and makes the most of a silly part. Try not to take it too seriously and I'm sure you'll enjoy it more.
Reviewed by TheExpatriate700 6 / 10

Good Early Survival Thriller

Four Frightened People is an interesting, if badly named, survival thriller from the 1930s. It was somewhat ahead of its times, with a brief nude sequence and a muted feminist theme, with an active heroine by the standards of its time.The film follows four people who flee a cruise ship that has been infested by the bubonic plague. They land in a jungle portion of Malay and have to travel through the wilderness to get back to civilization. Along the way, they confront wild animals and hostile indigenous people.This film takes some unexpected turns that make it more interesting. At the beginning, we assume the heroine will end up romantically attached to the brash leader of the group. However, DeMille takes the plot in a much different and more satisfying direction, making good use of character development to defy our expectations.Four Frightened People also defies expectations through its treatment of Claudette Colbert's heroine. Initially a whiny, easily pushed around schoolmarm, she becomes arguably the most influential member of the group, pushing the men to become more proactive. Although the film's ending and a few damsel in distress scenes undermine the proto-feminist theme, the film is still quite progressive for 1934.The film's content is also surprisingly risqué. At one point, we see Claudette Colbert's character showering nude, and the supporting female character gets Malay women to deny their husbands sex.One aspect that does date the film is an undercurrent of racism. The depiction of the indigenous people is definitely patronizing, particularly the character of Montague. Still, the film is far better in those terms than other old jungle films such as White Pongo.
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