The Charge of the Light Brigade

The desperate charge of 1854, immortalised by Tennyson, is etched deep in our national psyche as a blunder of heroic proportions. Tony Richardson's film of the event was a failure on release, but is now regarded as a masterpiece, filled with extraordinary set pieces and chillingly funny performances, notably from John Gielgud and Trevor Howard. It is a blistering satire on the British establishment - those bickering, blithering aristocrats who paid for their commissions and then picnicked as their men were mown down by Russian cannons. Richardson and his writer Charles Wood are less concerned with the "reason why" than with the social context, a theme mirrored by Richard Williams's witty cartoon sequences. And the charge itself, brilliantly edited by Kevin Brownlow and Hugh Raggett, evokes the terrible carnage as pure chaos. A stunner in every way.