14. How Green Was My Valley (1941) (Feat. Citizen Kane)

How Green Was My Valley Plot Intro

A small coal mining village in Wales during the late 1800’s. The Morgan family consist of Gwilym Morgan (Donald Crisp) and Beth Morgan (Sara Allgood) and their seven very-Welsh-named children, in particular their only daughter Angharad (Maureen O’Hara) and their youngest son, Huw (Roddy McDowall). There’s also a dishy new vicar, Mr Gruffydd (Walter Pidgeon) who has eyes for Angharad. Huw is the narrator and main POV of the family’s trials and tribulations, as they take us through strikes, money-worries, illnesses, emigration, malevolent school teachers, marriages, and deaths down the mines. 

Citizen Kane Plot Intro

In his colossal, barren mansion of Xanadu, newspaper magnate and Rupert-Murdoch-esque businessman, Charles Kane (Orson Welles), dies. His last word is cryptic and inexplicable to even his closest servants and friends- “Rosebud”. A team of journalists, determined to get a scoop, delve into his life, determined to discover who, or what, Rosebud is, and discover more about this enigmatic man. 

Paul says...

Citizen Kane is often named as one of the greatest films of all time. The American Film Institute, which compiles arguably the most definitive rankings of films and stars, places it at number one, surpassing other such household names as Gone With the Wind, The Godfather and Casablanca. It has had supreme influence on film-making thanks to its innovative cinematography and non-linear narrative structure (flashbacks and music-heavy montages are used very liberally). Any good film student would have studied it at some point - on pain of death. 

So why no Best Picture Oscar for Kane in 1941? Kane has so much to say about the human condition and how it changes when corrupted with power. It’s also a landmark in film-making styles. Well, on viewing How Green Was My Valley, I can now see why it won. It’s outstanding. The film is sweet, involving, and has a huge amount of heart to it, and provides an insight into a culture and time like a David Starkey documentary.

While Orson Welles approached Citizen Kane with a heavily artistic and conceptual frame of mind, John Ford (who won four Best Director Oscars) directs Valley much more simplistically, but lets the story and characters speak for themselves. There are extremely powerful and inspirational moments- Beth Morgan’s recovery from illness and her speech against the miners ostracising her husband; the elder brothers’ bittersweet departures to America, New Zealand and Canada in search of a better life; a hypocritical preacher’s condemnation of a fallen woman in front of an entire congregation. I was transported to 19th-century Wales throughout the whole two hours. It was so vivid and natural that it was like looking through a time-hole into a forgotten age. I wanted to be there, but the fear and suffering of these people, who manage to find humour even in the most grim of moments, also made me want to remain a bystander. I defy anyone to make their way through the film without shedding at least one tear, particularly for Sara Allgood’s stunning performance as matriarchal Beth. My only criticism is of the episode involving a sadistic, snobbish school teacher which felt a little too pantomime amidst the naturalism to me.

Is it a deserved win over Citizen Kane? In hindsight, perhaps not. Valley has pretty much faded into obscurity, unless you’re a big film buff, while Kane’s endurance and timelessness is self-evident. But in 1941, with war raging and cinema’s audiences crying out for smaller, more-domestic films, films that show real people overcoming real situations rather than the reverential life stories of the ’30s, Valley would have been the perfect catharsis for any cinema-goer worried about their husbands, fathers, brothers and sons consumed by the fogs of war. Charles Kane could be read as a relatively tenuous allegory for Hitler because his pursuit of helping the under-privileged turns into a struggle to maintain power and influence over the people, but Valley resonates more strongly in its depiction of communities helping each other no matter what strife is thrown at them. 

These are two very different films. Kane is innovative, character-driven, and timeless in its themes. Valley is more traditional and linear in its plot structure (similar to All Quiet on the Western Front, Cimarron and Cavalcade), but with more heart and realism than in previous pictures. It’s a much more quintessential example of the ’40s film as the next few films will prove, while Kane combines the magnitude of the ’30s films with the experimentation of the ’70’s. The latter would be my personal choice of winner due to its current notoriety, but both are excellent pieces of entertainment. Your preference really depends on your taste in films. 

How Green Was My Valley Highlight

Beth’s recovery from a prolonged illness is a powerful scene. Beforehand, the miners had been turning against her husband for opposing their strike. But they greet her at the door with friendliness and atonement. A lovely moment symbolising the importance of camaraderie and community.

Citizen Kane Highlight

Oh God, there’s so many moments to choose from! I suppose my favourite is when Kane is contacted by a colleague in Cuba saying that everyone’s writing poetry here and war will not happen. Determined to provide a headline, Kane replies, “You provide the prose poems, I’ll provide the war”.

How Green Was My Valley Lowlight

An over-acting school teacher bullying Huw for his low-class status and allowing other children to assault him. He eventually gets his comeuppance but it felt very melodramatic and incongruous compared to other episodes.

Citizen Kane Lowlight

I literally can’t think of anything. The film is so carefully thought out and connected together that it’s verging on perfect (despite my assertion that nothing can be totally perfect).

How Green Was My Valley Mark

9/10  

Citizen Kane Mark

10/10 

Doug says...

When we started this project, we scrolled through the films ahead of us, and alighted on the curious fact that Citizen Kane - considered by many film buffs to be the best film ever made - did not go on to win the Oscar, and lost out to a now-obscure film called How Green Was My Valley. We decided there and then that when it came to this week, we would watch both films and critique them, seeing whether the forgotten film about Welsh mining villages would stand up to the renowned Orson Welles masterpiece. I for one was excited to write a scathing review of some saccharine piece that had nothing on Welles’ film of power’s ultimate decay. 

As it was, they are both extraordinary pieces and to define which should have won the Oscar is ultimately incredibly hard. Kane is the first example we have of someone actually taking cinematography and running with it - something that films such as Birdman and La Vie En Rose owe a huge debt to. Every shot is perfectly planned, the central character is constantly shrouded in shadow, and in his final shot in the film, he walks past a mirror and is reflected in it thousands of times, each self walking on lonely into the dark. I was gripped by the central drama of who this man is, and the groundbreaking methods Welles has used to create it. 

So how on earth could Valley have beaten it? Well actually, it is in itself a wonderful piece. By focusing on the actualities of miner life (we see cave-ins, poverty, strikes and infighting), and setting it from one family’s viewpoint, we are drawn into the characters while never falling into sentimentality. And the Welsh singing throughout! It is a musical, mesmerising piece, with heroes and villains. The teacher Paul so disliked for pantomime villainy, I found rang terrifyingly true - and when two miners from our central character’s village storm into the classroom and beat the teacher up, I found myself loudly cheering at the tv screen. There’s a whole ream of themes - from the rich/poor divide, to how religion means different things for all of them. It’s filled with naturalistic acting, realistic and emotional narratives, and all tinged over with the everyday humour that is in all our lives. 

Ultimately I am unsure of who should have been the winner. In terms of breaking ground with style, cinematography and non-linear stories, Kane takes the crown in no uncertain terms. But for me the real winner is (by a hair’s breadth) Valley - it is our first instance of really naturalistic, powerful acting - led by the incomparable Sara Allgood who as the matriarch whips us through comic scenes and one scene of devastating tragedy with utmost realism. As she stands, frozen, simply waiting to hear the terrible news, I found myself unable to rip my eyes from her face. A forgotten masterpiece. 

   

How Green Was My Valley Highlight

Sara Allgood quietly steals every single scene she’s in with patient good-humoured kindliness, meaning that a tragic scene later on reaps great pathos.  

Citizen Kane Highlight

Every single shot is thought about and considered. Welles clearly adhered to the school of Hitchcock thinking. It’s a lesson in cinematography.

How Green Was My Valley Lowlight

There are moments which feel slower - though not dragging - but are soon whipped back up into the story, and proven to be necessary. 

Citizen Kane Lowlight

The acting, while elegant, is not really worth writing home about as the style overwhelms it. Also, the second wife’s angry voice is so irritating that it detracts from the power of her scenes

How Green Was My Valley Mark

10/10  

Citizen Kane Mark

10/10 

The PAD Awards: 1920s/1930s

The twelve films of the 1920s and '30s. 

Well we've made it past our first milestone. And as we reached the end of the 1930s, we thought it'd be a good moment to stop and reflect on what we've seen so far. And so - without further ado - the PAD (Paul and Doug) Awards...

Least Favourite Film 

Paul says: The Broadway Melody

I think we’re pretty unanimous on this one. Obviously, we were expecting some antiquated movie-making in the first decade of the Oscars but The Broadway Melody went so far with this that it was almost unbearable to watch at times. Acting and directing techniques were very much of the silent era, so most of them came across as over-acting in a sub-standard Broadway musical. The whole thing felt like it had been glued together with Prit-Stick, and it very much belongs back in the time it was made, like mullet hairstyles or 90’s track suits.

Doug says: The Broadway Melody

Oh god The Broadway Melody was so awful. It makes me cringe even to think of it now. Full of long dance pieces that seemed unintelligible, with a plot and characters that didn’t make any logical sense. It was as if they’d never made a film before, and I think it won purely for the novelty of sound and music - even though some cinemas weren’t yet equipped with the technology and so showed this musical - silent. It was truly a transitional piece, showing the difficult manoeuvre from silent to talkie and how easy it is to fail at. Definitely one to be left in the dusty museum cabinets.  

Favourite Male Performance 

Paul says: Lionel Barrymore, in Grand Hotel

Of course I’d heard of the Barrymore dynasty- right from Ethel, John and Lionel in the ’30’s through to Drew in Charlie’s Angels. But this project fully exposed me to the elder generation, and Lionel floored me in Grand Hotel. He was a scene-stealer in You Can’t Take It With You too (yes, he was in two of them- Clark Gable was in three!), but his performance as a man going on a massive European bender before he perishes from a terminal illness had more depth to it due to his development throughout the film- and due to his confrontation with the prehensile businessman for whom he worked for decades, but was never thanked. Although Grand Hotel was far from the best film, and Barrymore is not the most central of the cast (Garbo nicked that slot), his climactic attack on the businessman’s lack of humanity was the centrepiece of the film for me. Charles Laughton in Mutiny on the Bounty was also a close second.

Doug says: Edward Arnold, in You Can't Take It With You

Truth be told I’m not in love with any of the male performances from this era. We’re still stuck in the period where men weren’t really allowed to emote in case they come across as pathetic, which means we have a lot of same-y performances with men saying quick-witted lines and then taking a drag of their cigarette. However there’s one that stands out - Edward Arnold in You Can’t Take It With You. As the rich banker who begins to realise that his family do actually mean more than his financial status, he delivered a tour-de-force in underplayed acting, culminating in a typical Capra-esque ‘letting go and being happy’ narrative that actually felt pretty real. Big props to the scene where he sat in the boardroom, silently stealing the focus without moving a muscle. Judi Dench would be in awe. 

Favourite Female Performance 

Paul says: Vivien Leigh, in Gone With The Wind

Let’s face facts here, Viv acts her socks off. She conveys Scarlett O’Hara’s volcanic, mercurial, snarling side whilst also rendering her sympathetic and even admirable in her inherent expertise at surviving the American Civil War (again, survival! A theme!). And she is the Queen of Resting Bitch Face. This is no mean feat, especially considering the chaos that Gone With the Wind’s production went through. Re-writes to prevent the film going past an inordinate four hours; one director (George Cukor) getting fired while his replacement, Victor Fleming, was temporarily replaced by a third director, Sam Wood, due to exhaustion; and a budget that was never quite enough. And yet, Leigh maintains her energy and her focus all the way through, flitting from expression to emotion without resorting to the over-acting of Luise Rainer in The Great Ziegfeld.

Doug says: Clara Bow, in Wings 

It’s a close call, and while Vivien Leigh is deservedly iconic as Scarlett O’Hara, delivering each and every ‘fiddle dee dee’ with a genuine carelessness, I’ve found it hard to shake the star power of Clara Bow from my memory. Watching a 1927 silent film was a fair slog, and yet every scene Clara Bow was in immediately lit up and seized the attention. Her name is still remembered as one of the silent film greats, and it was easy to see why. She is all energy and vitality, much as Vivien Leigh would be a decade later, and she was an unexpected find among the juddering amateurish film-making of the late ‘20s. The scene when she hid from bombs under her car in particular stood out as a great example of her superb physicality mingled with a skilled acting ability and without any voice at all - ‘look mama, no sound’! 

Favourite Film 

Paul says: The Life of Emile Zola

For me, the key theme of the 20’s/30’s films is survival. As society crumbles then rebuilds itself through the Great Depression in both excellent and hideous ways, most of our main characters are striving to keep their heads above water in some way or another. Whether they are doing this quite literally whilst dodging gun fire in war films Wings and All Quiet on the Western Front; or trying to establish their name in a brand new community in Cimarron; or surviving at sea with no food in Mutiny on the Bounty; or fending off greedy businessmen and corrupt politicians in The Broadway Melody and You Can’t Take It With You. This was the constant throughout, but The Life of Emile Zola tackled survival in the face of regnant corruption, and the battle for a changed, good society, with full force. I was captivated by the courtroom scenes especially (we all know I love a good courtroom scene), and Paul Muni’s central performance oozes with charisma and sympathy. Above all, it was my most exciting film, an air-punching insight into one of history’s best known tales, and one which I would recommend to anyone who loves a bit of social injustice.

Doug says: It Happened One Night

Going into this from the very beginning has been fascinating, as we’ve started off with a black-and-white silent film (oh the barrel organ music…) and have just finished our first full-colour epic. And while there’s been a clear shift in the films’ content from memorialising World War One to anticipating World War Two, we’ve also seen the film-makers become more confident in their techniques, each film slicker and more professional than the last. For me, although Gone With The Wind was by far the best-made film, my favourite had to be the screwball comedy It Happened One Night. Before Frank Capra delved into saccharine sentimentality, he proved himself capable of hilarious film-work like this. Not only do Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert shimmer on screen with energy and vitality, but the film itself is very funny and so beautifully constructed. It’s one of the few that I’d willingly watch again, and the background of the Great Depression only serves to make it more intriguing. 

Average Film Scores 

Paul: 6.58/10

Doug: 5.75/10

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