10. The Life of Emile Zola (1937)

Plot Intro

In the late-1800’s, Emile Zola (Paul Muni) was a hugely prolific and successful writer. The French equivalent of Charles Dickens, many of his novels were dedicated to exposing corruption and hypocrisy in society at the time. Then, in 1894, a Jewish-French soldier named Captain Alfred Dreyfus (Joseph Schildkraut), is wrongfully found guilty of providing military secrets to (wait for it…) GERMANS! He was banished to French Guiana, despite clear evidence of his innocence. Zola springs to Dreyfus’ assistance and risks his career and his liberty to save him.

Paul says...

This was a tough DVD to track down. The only freely available copy that could be played in the UK (and cost under £25) was on eBay, shipped over from China, and had a full Chinese menu (kudos to me for working out how to put on the English subtitles!) The subtitles were also fraught with spelling and grammar mistakes. But The Life of Emile Zola has turned out to be exactly the film I’ve been waiting for in this project- an obscure, little-known winner which turns out to be a hidden gem. 

On one level, it’s the “One just man against a corrupt society” tale. I’m a sucker for similar films such as Mr Smith Goes to Washington, Twelve Angry Men, A Man for All Seasons and Philadelphia, so it’s no surprise that Emile Zola had a knee-jerk liberal like me completely enthralled.

But on another level, it’s a stark warning against blind populist hate towards a particular people or person just because the authorities say they are bad. An admonition against letting social injustice happen due to your fear of speaking out. In 1937, with Hitler fully in power, and a post-Depression disenfranchised Europe falling into the onslaught of war, no film could have been more pertinent. Cavalcade discussed these topics in 1933, but Emile Zola attacks with full force. It’s stirring stuff, and Paul Muni’s lead performance is impassioned and transcendent. I gave a mental cheer after his big climactic speech in a courtroom (and who DOESN’T love a big climactic speech in a courtroom?!).

I couldn’t help but make comparisons to today’s society too. Dreyfus’ Judaism is hinted at (“Jew” is seen in writing once, and never spoken), but would have contributed towards society’s bias against him. We have a similar problem today in the far-right’s excessive condemnation of Islam. Also, the military’s desperate attempts to hide their corruptions and misjudgements which would humiliate and expose them can be easily likened to Trump’s blustering administration. Emile Zola became a poignant viewing not only in light of the society who lauded it at the time, but in light of the current political climate too. It has what, in my opinion, every Oscar winner should have- important lessons that still strike a chord today.

Politics aside, however, this is an inspirational film. I now have an inexplicable desire to write a best-selling series of novels about society and then rescue a victim of injustice from imprisonment. It’s the first film in our Oscars tour that has sent me through an entire spectrum of emotions, from anger, to sorrow, to total jubilation (leaving me almost exhausted). It’s slick, coherent and momentous, but above all, it’s relevant, unlike the patchier films of the ’30’s. 

Watch it, I implore you.

Highlight

Zola’s big courtroom speech, exposing corruption and desperately appealing to the authorities’ sense of honour. It’s long, but it’s immense and important to be listened to.

Lowlight

Some awkward subtitle work from whoever put this DVD together.

Mark

10/10  

Doug says...

This is not a very good film. The film footage is grainy and stilted, the language trite and over-exaggerated, and the courtroom scene is a poor foreboding of the superb courtroom scenes yet to come over the next decades (think Scent of a Woman, A Man For All Seasons). In fact all the facets of it add up to what is a slightly ponderous and certainly overwritten two hours. 

What saves it is the story. Because it’s actually a cracking, and most importantly - true, story. Emile Zola is a French author of a series of hugely important novels that reflect the worries of his time, just as Dickens did over in London. We see him travel through his times of poverty to his rich and successful lifestyle which he abandons to fight this particular cause of injustice. Coming as it does during the rise of anti-Semitism and Hitler’s power in Germany, the fact this is about a Jew who is unfairly attacked by the military, legal courts and the State does not go unnoticed. 

It’s a universal story of power and corruption being beaten by truth, which is the basis of many great films. But what it has in story, it lacks in pretty much everything else. The acting isn’t particularly wonderful - and the acting styles are so outdated that I found myself cackling at the dramatic poses they elongate themselves into. It’s not terrible, but it’s not hugely engaging, and there’s far too many speeches all through the thing. 

The film builds to a courtroom speech which was kind of expected, and I was pushing for it to be a real corker, with lots of fire and brimstone. But what we got was Paul Muni (famous for starring in biographies) doing some shouting about truth and freedom which could have been edited down to about two minutes and retained all the information given. I see in it the trail being laid to far more powerful court scenes through the years, but this one isn’t a winner. Nor is the film itself. 

It’s fun to notice the Hollywood actors of the time weaving their careers around each other. Paul Muni starred in a film (the same year as he did this) with Luise Rainer - who you may remember was in last week’s The Great Ziegfeld. And we’re seeing actors names appear in each other’s films, rendering the idea that 1937’s Hollywood wasn’t that big a pool of talent. I’m interested to see how this carries on as we go into the ‘40s. 

My overall impression is that it’s not awful - and it’s not dull - but it is overwritten and the scenes that are intended to stun you into awe and anger actually come over as so on-the-nose that they’re almost comedic (when the innocent captain is captured he’s actually playing soldiers with his kids, for God’s sake).

Highlight

The fact that Hollywood produced a film directly challenging anti-semitism in response to Hitler’s rise is pretty awesome.

Low light

The fact that it pointlessly replaced Zola’s INFAMOUS headline ‘J’accuse’ with ‘I Accuse!’ because apparently cinema-goers couldn’t work that one out. Huh. 

Mark

4/10

9. The Great Ziegfeld (1936)

Plot Intro

The film is essentially a whistle-stop biopic of Florenz Ziegfeld Jr (William Powell), from his struggles as a manager of sideshow entertainers, through to the creation of his infamous musical revues known as Ziegfeld’s Follies; from his first marriage to singer Anna Held (Luise Rainer), to his second marriage to Billie

Doug says...

Florenz Ziegfeld is a legend, albeit one that people aren’t particularly aware of these days. Ziegfeld’s Follies was a series of stage shows dripping with opulence, grandeur and showgirls all posing prettily with masses of silk curtains wafting everywhere, based on the famous Parisienne Folies Bergere. This film not only sets out to tell the story of Ziegfeld’s rise to fame, but also to display the acts of the Follies themselves, capturing the excessive sets and costumes on celluloid forever. Do they succeed? Well, yes - to an extent. 

It’s the acts themselves that make this film stand out. Without them, it’s the general story of the wheeler-dealer Ziegfeld who uses his charm and wit to convince various people to lend him money, their talents and their theatres. He appears to be a marketing genius, getting women’s hearts pumping by asking them to touch his weightlifter act’s biceps, and creating rumours that one of his stars bathes daily in milk. It’s a tribute to how people are often far more interested in the details around an act than in the act itself. 

I particularly liked how we got to see a few actual Ziegfeldians appear - the Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz Ray Bolger actually began his career in the Follies and appears as himself here, doing some nifty splits and acrobatics, while (perhaps most interestingly for all musical theatre fans), Fannie Brice - a comedienne and stage performer) plays herself performing on stage and being hired by Ziegfeld. Brice herself went on to be the subject of a pretty well known musical called Funny Girl, starring none other than Barbra Streisand. All we need is for the Barbra Streisand musical to kick off and we have ourselves the making of a wormhole. 

It’s worth noting that no bank account was spared in the making of this film. One scene - an onstage Follies song - A Pretty Girl Is Like A Melody - features hundreds of performers, a wedding-cake-tier style staging, and according to Wikipedia, a cost of several million dollars for one scene alone. It’s nothing if not spectacular. 

But that’s the thing. This is the first film I’ve seen where I’ve cheated and Wikipedia-ed to find out when the bloody thing would end. It’s three hours and it feels like five. And while there’s some good performances (Luise Rainer is particularly noticeable as Ziegfeld’s impassioned first wife and Lisa Kudrow lookalike Virginia Bruce has a lot of fun as the drunkard chorus girl Audrey), it drags. Spectacular? Without a doubt. In need of quicker editing? Desperately. 

Highlight 

The Ziegfeld Follies scenes, where we get to see these spectacular stage pieces in full Golden-Age glory, are spectacular. 

Lowlight

The Ziegfeld Follies scenes. Once you’ve seen two, you don’t really need the next seventy four. They also add a very unneeded hour or so onto the running time. 

Mark 

5/10

Paul says...

According to Wikipedia (yeah, I know), The Great Ziegfeld was a colossal hit in 1936. It cost $2 million to make, a phenomenal number at the time. So large, in fact, that the original production company, Universal, had to sell the rights to MGM before it all became too much for them. In the end, it earned over $4 million, which works out to a roughly $40 million profit in today’s money. However, Wikipedia then goes on to point out that critical revisions of the film have found it to be not as wonderful as audiences of the 1930’s apparently believed.

And this is a pretty fair assessment. Ziegfeld is spectacular, there’s no denying that. Masses of extras, costumes that would make a drag queen gasp, and musical numbers so extravagant that they look like Eurovision has vomited violently on them. All of these make this film a treat for the eyes, even if it’s still in black and white. It’s also worth noting that we’ve now reached a point in our Oscars journey where production values are much more slick and smooth, and acting styles more naturalistic- gone are the rusty, patchwork, over-acting of The Broadway Melody and Cimarron.

The trouble with these huge musical set pieces is that they don’t advance the plot. There’s none at all during a ponderous first hour (in which several over-written dialogue scenes could have done with some ruthless editing- preferably with a scythe), and then several in quick succession, which grinds the plot to a sudden halt in place of pure visuals. Not only does this make for a stodgy, stop-and-go structure, but it also draws attention to the fact that these wonderful re-enactments of Ziegfeld’s Follies are entirely style and absolutely no substance. The first big one, involving a wedding-cake structure and a full one-take sweeping shot of it, is magnificent. The next seven are lovely but they get old very quickly when you realise that they’re just taking up time. 

Also, we really need to discuss Luise Rainer. She acts like she’s been injected with full-sugar Coca Cola mixed with Speed. Arms, facial expressions and tears are thrown about liberally. True, this is the character she is playing, but I was struggling to decide whether I liked it or not. Like the musical numbers, on the one hand it’s a delightful contrast to the vacuous dialogue that opens the film. On the other, I felt nothing for it. It’s fun, it’s impressive, but where hard-hitting, nuanced emotions should be apparent, all I saw was a big black hole. Luise Rainer may have won the Oscar for Best Actress for this (and, if the Oscar was based solely on enthusiasm, she might as well be MADE into a statuette rather than merely win one), but she ain’t no Meryl Streep.

I didn’t outrightly hate The Great Ziegfeld. It could be delightfully decadent and it made me want to go to a real Ziegfeld Follies show to witness the scale of it with my own eyes. This proves why it was such a big hit at the time. With the Great Depression still fresh in the heads of its audience, fictional opulence and decor would be the perfect escapism. Trouble is, with colourful epics such as Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz just around the corner, and The Sound of Music, Oliver!, Moulin Rouge and Chicago contributing to the musical genre over the next century, it’s no surprise that Ziegfeld has become overshadowed. 

Highlight

The “wedding cake” set during one of the Follies. The director wisely allows the visuals to do the work, and just films the whole thing in one, steady camera shot. I defy anyone not to be impressed.

Lowlight

The opening hour. Far too much dialogue and too much time on characters and plot points that are barely explored again. Yawns-ville.

Mark

4/10

8. Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)

Plot Intro

It’s 1787, and the HMS Bounty sets sail from Portsmouth, bound for Tahiti to stock up on exotic fruits. The crew consists of its leader, Captain Bligh (Charles Laughton), the lieutenant, Fletcher Christian (Clark Gable- again!), a midshipman named Roger Byam (Franchot Tone), and collection of criminals and young men forced into a life at sea by press gangs. Bligh, however, quickly turns out to be the ultimate in tyrannical, unjust leaders, submitting many innocent men to flogging, imprisonment, starvation and keelhauling. This prompts an increasingly discontent Fletcher to stage a mutiny- and face the consequences of such extreme an action. It’s a true story, but many historians contend the accuracy of this version.

Paul says...

Here’s a film you can really get your teeth into. On the one hand, it’s a cracking good yarn on the high seas (lots of waves, but no pirates). On the other hand, it’s a parable about oppressive leadership, as well as the dangers of rising up against it. In both instances, it succeeds by doing most of the work for its audiences (i.e. characters’ motivations and the consequences of their actions are explained clearly) but it doesn’t patronise them by turning the whole thing into a Jerry Bruckheimer-esque effects-laden action flick. 

The inimitable Charles Laughton, the ultimate character actor in the early days of film, steals the show as the villainous Bligh. Bligh would have been an easy allegory for Hitler in 1935 but the writers don’t resort to portraying him as basically the Devil himself. When Bligh and his followers are evicted from the Bounty, Bligh becomes their only source of survival. His determination and resoluteness make him weirdly admirable (shame about the old underlying sadism but hey! Nobody’s perfect). For me, he overshadowed Clark Gable entirely. Gable plays far more engaging characters in the previous year’s winner, It Happened One Night, and the gargantuan Gone With the Wind. Here, he’s a pretty basic handsome hero and proclaimer of justice. 

It’s Franchot Tone’s Roger Byam that interested me the most because he seems to represent the pendulum that swings between the villainous Bligh and heroic Fletcher. Whilst he disapproves of Bligh’s ruthless and corrupt leadership styles, he also attempts to prevent the mutiny itself, pointing out that this, also, is illegal and would be considered treacherous in a court of law. By the end of the film, we realise that the entire tale is about him, as the script concentrates almost solely on his attempts to prove his detachment from the mutiny despite his lack of allegiance to Bligh. A complicated situation proving that, in a court of law, sometimes concepts of “innocent” and “guilty” are not as clean-cut as they seem.

The film’s not perfect- the natives we meet on Tahiti are distinctly non-South Pacific and are written as simple-minded, blank-smiling island folk (ahem, slightly racist, cough); the film’s last 20 minutes feel rushed and almost demanded an extra half hour in which Byam defends himself in a court of law; also, the characters who stay loyal to Bligh after the mutiny remain unexplored and I would have liked some insight into why they remain with their captain out of choice when he has acted so abominably. 

These are minor quibbles though, I’d recommend this film to most and, for us, it’s been refreshing to have a romantic comedy, then a sea-faring adventure after weeks of epic humanity-pondering in the very early Oscar winners.

Highlight

You can’t help but cheer during Byam’s final scene in the courtroom towards the end of the film. He exposes Bligh, and lectures the court on the perils of sea-faring and corruption and it’s stirring stuff.

Lowlight

The Tahiti islanders had almost nothing to do except be massive racial stereotypes. Even the director of King Kong is shaking his head.

Mark

7/10  

Doug says...

Pirates! Villainous Captains! Over-use of the word ‘Seamen’! The poster alone insists that this is a swashbuckling epic of a film, brimming with heroes and dastardly baddies, all set against the sweepingly romantic background of the roaring sea. It’s got all the ingredients of a superb flick: dashingly handsome hero Clark Gable, excellent character actor Charles Laughton, blonde dimpled ingenue Franchot Tone and some mildly racist stereotypes of frighteningly happy island-people - what more could one ask for? 

Plot-wise it doesn’t do much more than the age-old formula of ‘Dickhead Character Gets His Comeuppance’ in that Charles Laughton is pretty flat-out horrid and then gets chucked off his own boat by the heroic Clark Gable. One main point of discussion between me and Paul was whether Gable looks better with a moustache (see It Happened One Night) or clean-shaven (Mutiny on the Bounty). I think moustache but so far we disagree. 

Film-wise it’s fine. What annoyed me particularly was that the scrolling text at the beginning stated that the Bounty’s mutiny actually led to changes in how the naval forces behaved towards their crew. However after two hours of fairly simple plot, we don’t get any sense of how or what changed - and how the Bounty played any part in it. It feels a bit like they missed a trick, focusing too much on Laughton (who is, to be fair, splendidly nasty) and Gable (who is not quite up to his previous year’s performance). The whole thing doesn’t really have much of a pay-off, for all the shots of ships crashing through storms while sailors are being whipped. 

I think - as Paul says - they are trying to display a layered plot, with Franchot Tone  becoming the focal point, representing the struggle between duty and what is right. But not enough is made of this to actually have much of an impact, and it also happens in the last half hour which is rushed through whiplash-fast (one second he’s in court, the next he’s making a speech, the next the King is writing a letter, the next he’s on another boat looking chirpy). There’s so many plot holes and unanswered questions that I’m left wanting to google it to find out what actually happened. 

That said, it’s a fun Sunday afternoon picture and while I don’t feel it really deserves a Best Picture win, it’s got sailors and people rushing purposefully around boats while storms rage on in the background. 

Highlight

Charles Laughton wandering around just generally being awful to everyone.

Low light

Answers to how the Bounty’s mutiny actually changed naval practices are sadly lacking. 

Mark

4.5/10

7. It Happened One Night (1934)

Plot Intro

Sassy, strong-headed heiress Ellie (Claudette Colbert) has married a rich bloke that her domineering millionaire father disapproves of- so he pretty much imprisons her in Miami whilst her beloved is in New York City. Like any angry white girl, Ellie escapes and flees, with her father and various police officers in hot pursuit. On her road trip to NYC, Ellie finds herself struggling with life on a shoestring outside of her pampered bubble, so along comes temperamental unemployed journalist, Peter (Clark Gable) who works out who Ellie is, and therefore accompanies her to NYC to gain the story that will save his career. As the road trip progresses, the two leads discover where their real priorities and affections lie. 

Doug says...

We’ve reached the mid ‘30s and the first Oscar-winner not to be split over two years, but awarded for 1934 alone. History-wise, the world is in a bit of a state. The Wall Street Crash of 1929 is still affecting the lives of Americans everywhere, while over in Germany a certain Adolf Hitler is firmly in power as Chancellor and only five years away from initiating the Second World War. 

So it is a great surprise that the winner of ‘Best Picture’ 1934 is not a dark and depressing film with a heavy moral attached (see last week’s Cavalcade), but instead the first example of a Screwball Comedy. Screwball is a very particular genre, being a bit daft and with a romance central in a plot full of farcical happenings. This one features Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable (his first appearance in this list, but certainly not his last) as a rich heiress on the run from her father and a newspaper writer trying to scrape two pennies together being thrown together in fateful circumstances, hating each other, and then slowly falling in love through their various adventures. 

Sound familiar? It’s only the plot of 90% of all decent romcoms. This is the precursor of great romantic - slapstick filled - light entertainment. And It Happened One Night is not attempting at anything more than being greatly entertaining. For me one of the best things about it is the two leads who have crackling chemistry and Colbert in particular has a deadpan delivery that had me and Paul in stitches. Famously both leads disliked this film intensely and Colbert (who died in the 1990s) never understood its popularity - which to me makes the fact they seem to be having hilarious fun on set only more impressive. These actors are thoroughly professional. 

And while I’m going on about how funny it is (and it is still so funny), the film alludes quietly to the darker things without ever letting them overshadow the comedy. A woman nearly dies of starvation on the bus to New York - her weeping son says they haven’t been able to afford food for days - and the Great Depression looms briefly before Colbert’s character gives the woman the last of her own money. 

The heroes are intensely likable and both very funny. The humour is still fresh despite being 83 years old, and there isn’t a single boring moment in it. But more than that - the acting is extraordinarily natural and full of gestures and reactions that you are sure are pure improvisation by the actors. This is a truly flawless example of screwball comedy at its finest. 

Highlight 

The scene where Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert improvise being in a fight to get two police detectives to leave them alone is pure brilliance.

Lowlight

I feel like Claudette Colbert’s engagement party dress at the end wouldn’t have been so shiny. 

Mark 

A fully deserved - and my first - 10/10  (cue confetti cannon)

Paul says...

It Happened One Night had all the makings of a flop. Columbia Pictures would often have to “rent” unwanted stars from other production companies, so Gable was allegedly handed over due to an affair with Joan Crawford (according to IMDB anyway). Neither Gable nor Colbert wanted to be in the film, and both apparently made it quite obvious, prompting various re-writes to meet their demands. The film had a low-key release in theatres and was made quickly on a relatively low budget, and Colbert was so convinced that she would not win the Best Actress Oscar that she very nearly didn’t attend the ceremony (when the winner was announced, she was fetched from a train station, and accepted the award in her travelling clothes).

However, It Happened One Night was one of the biggest and most influential smash hits of the ’30s. It was the first film to garner the five most coveted Oscars - Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Director and Screenplay (sweeties will go to anyone who can name the other 2 films to achieve this feat without IMDB-ing it). All of these awards are well deserved. Doug has already lauded the razor-sharp script, endearingly natural bitchiness between the bickering hero and heroine, and general feelings of liberating happiness that the film conjures up. So I will just say that I agree with him entirely and move on to my other point….

….which is about Screwball Comedy! Yay! This film pretty much kicked it all off. It has all the tropes: fast-paced catty dialogue; farcical situations; leads that hate-but-love each other; unsentimental romance; sexual references that may seem tame to us but were outrageous at the time; and, interestingly, a battle against concepts of class boundaries. These films (other examples are Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday and Arsenic and Old Lace) were huge in the ’30’s because it took the horrors of the Great Depression (rich and poor struggling together, unemployment, a scramble for a better life) and made them fun. True, some of these plot points have been seen in entertainment since Shakespeare’s time, but It Happened One Night smushed them all together to make a whole new genre. Just like Bridesmaids re-vamped the chick flick to make something more provocative and cutting edge, It Happened One Night did a similar feat in the mid-30’s.

Screwballs were also a clever way of getting around something called the Hays Code, which was rigorously enforced in 1934. Until now, our films have been part of what is known as the “pre-code” era, when sex and nudity were more freely displayed (ok, it wasn’t as if MGM was releasing hardcore porn, but female legs and male chests could be depicted without reproach). When the Code was enforced, such practices became illicit, so screwball comedies worked around this by heavily suggesting (rather than displaying) sexual urges and chemistry - to greater comic effect. In this film, Gable and Colbert hang a blanket between their beds in motel rooms for privacy. When they finally consummate their relationship, all we see is the blanket being torn down. Clever, eh? 

But enough historical drivel. Yes, I liked It Happened One Night too. After several hard-hitting and reverential Oscar winners, it’s a fun-filled breath of fresh air. I didn’t give it a shiny 10 out of 10 because I personally think the humour is not as uproarious and “Goodness gracious!” as it once was, but it’s funny, fast-paced and touching, and proof that even the most chaotic of productions can create works of art.

Highlight

The famous hitch-hiking scene in which Gable attempts to hitch a ride with his thumb and fails miserably, prompting Colbert to display her leg with tremendous success. Colbert apparently refused to do such an unladylike act at first, but when she saw the body double they’d employed, she changed her mind, saying “That’s not my leg!”

Lowlight

I wanted Colbert’s initial husband to be more villainous so I could support the central romance more. But, in all honesty, this is a minor niggle.

Mark

8/10

6. Cavalcade (1932/1933)

Plot Intro

In the opening scenes we are introduced to Robert and Jane Marryot (Clive Brook and Diana Wynyard), and their two sons, Edward and Joey, on New Years’ Eve, 1899. We know that they are upper class because they say things like “By George!” and “What the Dickens”, and have a team of pragmatic, peasant-esque servants. As the film progresses, we see this indubitably British family go through the major events of the first three decades of the twentieth century- namely the Boer War, the sinking of the Titanic, the First World War and the decadence of the ‘20s. But not the Great Depression, oddly enough. 

Paul says...

Good Lord, we were dreading this one! Doug read somewhere that, along with The Broadway Melody (which we hated), it is one of the lowest-regarded Best Picture winners. Plus, it has the lowest rating of all the Best Picture winners on IMDB. In actual fact, Cavalcade is nowhere near as bad as that, and it is actually a lovely insight into what appealed to audiences in the early to mid 1930’s. 

We’ve seen the “passing of time” structure before in Cimarron, and I think the earlier film did it better due to its concentration on the building of Oklahoma as a framing technique. Cavalcade is less grand because it concentrates on the personal and domestic tribulations of a small family during periods of strife. Plus it’s not interested in the staunchly patriotic “building a new civilisation” motif that the all-American Cimarron flaunted. 

It nonetheless has touching moments- the depiction of the First World War in particular brings a lump to your throat. This is now the third film in the first 6 years of the Oscars to tackle war. In 1933, in which the film was released, Hitler gained power, so murmurings of war may well have bounded across Europe. Cavalcade’s preoccupation with reflecting on the tragic events that opened the 1900’s (all of which were down to human error and complacency, and would be fresh in the memory of many movie audiences) would have struck a chord with enormous force at the time. The closing scenes even look forward to the future, with the main characters providing a stirring, if platitudinous, speech to the camera about the need for a peaceful society. Plus the film conspicuously begins and ends with the British National Anthem. It’s very poignant, although if Noel Coward intended to prevent another world war occurring then he did a bloody rubbish job of it, didn’t he? 

My problem with the film, however, is Noel Coward’s original play script (on which the film is based). My only other exposure to him is 1945’s Brief Encounter which, though touching, is still susceptible to vicious parody (which Victoria Wood has proven so well). In Coward-world the upper classes have awfully clipped accents (pronounced “ix-sents”). They stand with dignity even when their children die and act like they’ve learnt expression and gesture from a Victorian instruction manual on acting. The lower classes say meaningless maxims like “It is what it is” and “What happens, happens”, and are charmingly dim and raucous. It’s all very mawkish and sent us into fits of giggles most of the time, so the film lost a great deal of its power.

If you like old-fashioned “oh woe is me!” over-acting then this film is a lark, but most modern audiences would just scoff like we did. Nonetheless, Cavalcade’s saving grace lies in his historical significance, and in the scale of time and events that it covers. The leading lady, Diana Wynward, who was nominated for Best Actress, is vulnerable and touching, and gives the film a driving force so that you’re never bored. But, for me, Cavalcade is a far-cry from a full 10 out of 10. 

Highlight

A stirring and inventive montage of World War One, in which marching soldiers, dying soldiers, explosions, gunfire and pretty girls singing propaganda songs are mixed together forming a memorable 3 minutes.

Lowlight

Some awkwardly ancient acting and writing styles steal the emotion from even the most tragic scenes. 

Mark

4/10  

Doug says...

As Paul has said, I read somewhere that this film was said to be on the same level as the dire Broadway Melody (thinking of that film winning an Oscar still makes my teeth hurt). The expectation then was that we would be subjected to an agonising two hours that rendered us relieved to have finally escaped it. 

It wasn’t anywhere near that. For a start, it’s not boring, and I’m a huge fan of wordy stage plays - and this was taken from a Noel Coward play. I’m a sucker for human observation in my entertainment - and Coward delivers, with the servants’ lives noted in minute details - of course they are stoic and common sense-filled caricatures, but it’s interesting to see them given as much screen time as the ‘above stairs’ family. And that’s one of the most interesting things about this film for me - we are seeing one of the first Upstairs Downstairs/Gosford Park/Downton Abbey films. It’s a genre that has endured to the current day, and it’s intriguing to see how right from the beginning we’ve structured the plots to include both masters’ and servants’ lives. 

It bears similarity to Cimarron in the way it spans a great expanse of time, but where Cimarron seemed to do that almost organically, with Calvacade it jumps a bit awkwardly, and often labours its point. For instance at one point two lovers are on a boat. They’ve already made speeches in the previous scene about how they would have their honeymoon on a luxury ship, then the titles told us it was 1912, then they’re stood on the boat itself making ‘witty’ speeches about how they could easily die in the water, then finally they move away revealing an inflatable ring with ‘Titanic’ written on it. I’m sure the film-makers expected us to gasp at this, but we’d already worked it out about ten minutes ago. The director didn’t exactly credit the audience with intelligence. 

And then here’s my main bugbear. World War I was of paramount importance to contemporary history, and I understand the desire to cram it in to every film possible. However because it’s such a big issue - and back then was still very recent - once the film reaches the point of WWI, they get stuck there and the momentum of the film (moving quickly from Boer War to Titanic and onwards) falters. There’s a series of montages showing the ‘horrors of war’ and to me it all felt very dull and unnecessary. How much more interesting it could have been if they’d treated WWI with the same brevity as all the other historical events and thereby addressed more events. 

Finally there’s the ending, which takes the form of a huge warning against people being too ‘easy’ with each other (girls dancing with their shoulders uncovered, heaven forbid) and vicars preaching that we must take care not to get caught up in TERRIBLE SIN etc etc. It’s all very forced and a bit odd that Coward has slung some sort of moral in, right at the end. 

Apart from that, it’s a fun film and perfect for a lazy Sunday afternoon. Coward’s writing is certainly a bit dusty, but it’s peppered with a few good actors (Diana Wynward as the film’s star is very good despite a hilarious ‘faint’) and some great characters, including the social climber Ellen who goes from housemaid to Kris Jenner-wannabe over the two hours. 

Highlight

The mother telling her small child who woke up and called for her: ‘Joey you awful child. How dare you make such a noise? What would you do if I spanked you soundly and sent you to bed?’

Low light

The odd preachy end (with the lead characters looking into the camera and declaring how we must remain 'dignified'), and the unusual over-use of montages. 

Mark

4/10