The General Died at Dawn (1936) on Netflix
O'Hara carries a money belt to Shanghai to buy weapons for Mr. Wu's fight against the warlord General Yang. Judy Perrie and her father, desperate for money, ride the same train.
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Trailer
Plot summary
General Yang rules one of China's twelve provinces and means to take the rest, cornering the trade in silk, rice and opium. Mr. Wu leads a rebellion against him, knowing Yang's hold depends on men who could desert to a rival warlord. Wu recruits O'Hara, a soldier of fortune, to carry money raised by the peasants to Shanghai and buy guns from Brighton, a gunrunner who sells to the first bidder. The money travels in a belt O'Hara wears. In O'Hara's way are Peter Perrie, in poor health and desperate to return to the United States, and his daughter Judy, who reluctantly agrees to a plan of her father's.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The General Died at Dawn (1936)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The film's main character, O'Hara, is based on the real-life Anglo-Canadian Jewish adventurer Morris Abraham "Two-Gun" Cohen, who ran guns for various warlords in mainland China during the early 1930s.
- The film is reported to be the first to use foam latex prosthetics, with makeup artist Charles Gemora applying sponge rubber eyelids for one of the actors.
- Two scenes were startlingly original for 1936: a dissolve from a white doorknob to a white billiard ball links disparate scenes, and two characters' speculation about other characters' fates is answered in screen segments in the corners of the screen, an unusual use of split screen.
