AllMovie

While time has made much of The General Died at Dawn feel a bit dated, it's still a thoroughly enjoyable "exotic" thriller. Probably the biggest obstacle of General doesn't lie in the script or story but in the then-habitual casting of Caucasian actors in Asian roles. Those willing to accept this practice will enjoy General much more than those for whom this presents a problem. General is pure pulp, an adventure movie filled with typical dangerous situations, hissable villains and truly delicious tough guy dialogue. In other words, realism (despite some of writer Clifford Odets' leftist insertions in the dialogue) is not the order of the day: thrills and danger and narrow escapes and just enough romance to keep things interested are. Odets' screenplay crackles and pops delightfully, and Lewis Milestonedirects with a very sure hand, capturing the faux-exotic atmosphere of Hollywood-ian China brilliantly and filling the screen with action. The effort is aided enormously by the cast and by Victor Milner's superb, at times beautiful cinematography. Gary Cooper is aces as the mercenary American hero, more complex than some of Cooper's more well-known roles, and Madeleine Carroll also benefits from having a bit more dimension to her character than she often got. Akim Tamiroff, as the ultimate Chinese villain, walks off with the top acting honors in a wonderfully evil performance that skirts with comedy without falling prey to it, and there's also good work from William Frawley.