Gary Cooper was one of the most solid leading men of Hollywood's golden age, giving straightforward performances in films from the 1930's- 1950's, including award worthy work in "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" (1936), "The Pride of the Yankees" (1942), and "High Noon" (1952). Cooper never seemed to take acting very seriously, and like Spencer Tracy was a very naturalistic actor. One of his lesser-known works is the 1936 adventure picture "The General Died at Dawn", which concerns a complicated plot about Chinese warlords, double crossing dames, and a middleman attempting to help the rebels attain the munitions necessary to fight the brutal General Yang.
Cooper plays O'Hara, who is working as an agent to assist the struggling peasants acquire the guns needed to fight against the tyrannical Yang. Madeleine Carroll is the mysterious blonde, Judy, who derails Cooper's plan, but in the end proves her loyalty to the hero. Akim Tamiroff earned a Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his work as Yang, but sadly, it is a somewhat offensive portrayal existing of nothing but an overdone accent and lots of Oriental makeup. Veteran character actor Porter Hall gives a much more impressive supporting performance as Perrie, Judy's father and an associate of Yang who is looking to double cross the General as well as O'Hara. William Frawley (the future Fred Mertz of "I Love Lucy") provides some comic relief as an inebriated arms dealer.
Other than some rather imaginative cinematography, and the performance by Hall, there's not a lot to recommend this chestnut. It's a standard 30's adventure drama, with not a lot of real action when you get right down to it. And, as I said earlier, Tamiroff's performance is such a stereoyped Oriental character that you wonder how on earth he managed Oscar recognition for the role.
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