- The General Died at Dawn
Infobox Film
name = The General Died at Dawn
image_size = 200px
caption = Promotional movie poster for the film
director =Lewis Milestone
producer = William LeBaron
writer =Charles G. Booth Clifford Odets
starring =Gary Cooper
Madeleine Carroll
Akim Tamiroff
music =Werner Janssen
cinematography =Victor Milner
editing = Eda Warren
distributor =Paramount Pictures
released = flagicon|USSeptember 2 ,1936 (premiere)
flagicon|DenmarkOctober 30
flagicon|JapanNovember 8
flagicon|FinlandNovember 12
runtime = 98 min.
country = USA
language = English
amg_id = 1:19343
imdb_id = 0027664"The General Died at Dawn" is a 1936 film that tells the story of a
mercenary who meets a beautiful girl while trying to keep arms from getting to a viciouswarlord in war-tornChina . The movie was written byCharles G. Booth andClifford Odets , and directed byLewis Milestone .It stars
Gary Cooper ,Madeleine Carroll ,Akim Tamiroff , and Dudley Digges. Director Milestone has acameo role .The movie was deservedly nominated for
Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Akim Tamiroff ), Best Cinematography and Best Music, Score. There are several scenes in the film that show startling originality at the time. At one point, the camera focuses on a white door knob, and then dissolves to a white billiard ball to connect disparate scenes. In another scene, two characters have a conversation in which they speculate about the fates of other characters in the drama. The answers to their questions appear in screen segments in the corners of the screen, marking an unusual use of split screen to join narrative.The main character, O'Hara, is based on the real-life adventurer Morris Abraham "Two-Gun" Cohen. During the early 1930's, Cohen ran guns for various warlords in mainland China.
References
In
1938 an animated spoof version, called "The Major Lied Till Dawn ", was produced by Leon Schlesinger Productions. Also, a third-season episode of the TV show, "M*A*S*H" was entitled "The General Flipped at Dawn " (broadcast 9/10/74). In the episode,Harry Morgan appears as Major General Bartford Hamilton Steele, a batty General who is convinced that the4077th needs to move closer to the front lines, to be near the action. [Morgan joined the cast of "M*A*S*H" in Season Four as the much-sanerColonel Sherman T. Potter .]External links
* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0027664/ "The General Died at Dawn"] at the
Internet Movie Database
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