CLIVE OF INDIA (1935)

Almost everything wrong with this undernourished historical epic can be summoned up by imagining LAWRENCE OF ARABIA remade as a 90-minute TV movie with Tom Selleck in the title role. Selleck is fine when he sticks to his strengths (light adventure and romantic comedy), but he would be quite at sea as Lawrence; similarly, Ronald Colman, excellent as a man of quiet authority in movies like LOST HORIZON and THE LATE GEORGE APLEY, has no business playing the real-life Baron Robert Clive, an impetuous, eccentric empire builder. At the start, we see him as a common clerk with the East India Company in 1748, and, over the following decades, he rises in the company by joining its militia and helping to bring about major victories against the French (and, I assume, the natives) in colonizing India for the British Empire. After one particularly important victory, he installs a "puppet" ruler (Cesar Romero, playing the kind of ruler that George Bush would undoubtedly like to have in Iraq); in gratitude, Romero gives Colman a small fortune and this leads to a scandal back home in which Parliament votes to censure him, casting a shadow over his twilight years. Colman never comes across realistically as the kind of feisty oddball that Clive is written to be. Loretta Young does fine as his long-suffering wife, who seems a bit happy with his disgrace, since it means he'll be retiring and not journeying off to India whenever he feels adventurous. Mischa Auer, Colin Clive and Leo G. Carroll play supporting roles. Aside from Colman's miscasting, the other big problem is the production, or lack thereof. Though there are a couple of interesting set pieces, including a brief look at the infamous "Black Hole of Calcutta" incident, most of the action is kept offscreen. There are long scenes of dialogue in which characters explain things to us and each other, then, over a montage of indistinct action scenes, we get title cards which tell us about the exciting events we don't actually get to see. The climactic battle of Plessey comes off looking like a tableau of Washington crossing the Delaware. Potentially exciting material that never comes fully to life. [FMC]