The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1962) is a remake of the silent film version, directed by Rex Ingram in 1921. The remake has only a little in common with the 1921 version. Both films have the same characters, and the same intricate network of relationships between them. Otherwise, almost everything has been changed. The setting has been moved up from World War I to War World II, and a new anti-Nazi theme has been added to the story. The two versions have few scenes in common. Far from being the sort of close remake that is fashionable today, the Minnelli film is a complete reworking from the ground up.

Minnelli originally wanted Alain Delon for the playboy protagonist of the film, but was forced to use Glenn Ford instead. Delon would have been far closer to the irresponsible playboy of the novel. Ford has an innate nobility that does not really express the character. Delon would have been much closer in personality to Rudolph Valentino, who created the role in 1921, and would also have been another of Minnelli's gentle young men. Still, Ford has always been one of my favorites. If he is miscast, he is certainly worth watching, too.

Minnelli's hero is an affable, apparently genial young man, who has social entree into all circles. This entree plays an increasing role in the plot through the course of the picture, being used by other people for hidden ends. In this, he is much like the heroine's brother Lon in Meet Me in St. Louis, another young man of apparent total conventionality, but who also has hidden ambiguities in his allegiances and inner identity. Just as Lon used his social acceptability to help his sisters make an end run around the patriarchy who ran their society, so here is the hero's social entree exploited by another oppressed group, the French Resistance, against the sinister men who run their society, the Nazi occupiers.

Excerpt from The Films of Vincente Minelli website located HERE