Cavalcade

Rating

Director

Frank Lloyd

Screenplay

Reginald Berkeley (Play: by Noel Coward)

Length

110 min.

Starring

Diana Wynyard, Clive Brook, Una O’Connor, Herbert Mundin, Beryl Mercer, Irene Browne, Tempe Pigott, Merle Tottenham, Frank Lawton, Ursula Jeans, Margaret Lindsay, John Warburton, Billy Bevan, Desmond Roberts, Dick Henderson Jr., Douglas Scott, Sheila MacGill, Bonita Granville

MPAA Rating

Unrated

Review

History is filled with terrible events that mar the lives of its denizens. Cavalcade explores the misfortune of a loving British couple who deserve no such life.

Lemony Snicket would have been proud of Cavalcade as it certainly could have been titled A Series of Unfortunate Events. Beginning in 1899, on the eve of British troop deployment to the Boer War, Jane (Diana Wynyard) and Robert Marryot (Clive Brook) share one last night together. The night was New Year’s Eve and their hopes and fears of that day are soon to be revealed over the next 34 years.

Their lives are touched upon by the events of the death of Queen Victoria, the sinking of the Titanic, the Great War, and more. Cavalcade also shifts focus, much like the significantly later British series Upstairs, Downstairs, to cover the impact of such events on the Marryots’ head servants Ellen (Una O’Connor) and Alfred Bridges (Herbert Mundin).

The Bridges’ story never comes in contact with the Titanic misery nor is it impacted much by the events of the Great War. However, the Bridges’ daughter Fanny (Ursula Jeans) does intersect that story having potentially fallen in love with Marryot son Joe (Frank Lawton) who, after a leave of absence returns to the Great War only to discover that armistice has been reached.

Cavalcade bears more resemblance to its titles definition meaning “any noteworthy series, as of vents or activities” than it does to the term signifying “a procession of persons riding on horses, etc.” However, filmmaker Frank Lloyd doesn’t miss an opportunity to display hits knowledge of the word and uses, quite unnecessarily, a cut title card scene with people riding by on horses. The scene feels completely out of place despite its metaphorical connection to the story as intended by playwright Noel Coward. This kind of stagy gimmick typifies the rest of the film.

The performances aren’t astounding, their barely passable even for those early days of filmmaking. Wynyard fails to provide her character with any manner of warmth. Instead, she resorts to the over exaggerated mannerisms of the silent. Any time she’s faced with turmoil or heartbreak, she flings her head to the side almost exactly to the same position askew of the camera each time, to symbolize her attempts to keep a stiff upper lip. The others in the film are as most high school students with a play, barely memorable.

O’Connor gives the only suitably interesting performance in the film. Though the early parts of the film feature her as a shrill crybaby, it’s after she becomes an earned-wealth socialite that you realize her ability to develop a character over time. Whereas Wynyard maintains the same performance throughout the film despite a series of great losses, O’Connor brings her character to a new point in her life and shows the audience how lives can truly change.

The performances aren’t the only part of the film that seems dated. Being seven years after the advent of sound, one might expect the unnecessary uses of “sound to entertain” eliminated for the most part from the screen. Unfortunately, such a film Cavalcade isn’t. Three musical numbers exist in the film. Not a single one of them furthers the plot in any significant way and it’s still patently obvious the intention.

Lloyd fails to keep Cavalcade a coherent work. A terrific example of such is the sequence depicting the GreatWar. The viewer is inundated with a barrage of spliced and double-exposed images of death and destruction symbolizing the passage of time in the war. The scene plays for several minutes despite becoming wearisome not long into the first minute. The tone and style doesn’t synch up with the rest of the picture and seems yet another reason to simply pummel the audience with more sound and visual style.

Cavalcade remains one of the worst and least significant pictures in Academy Award history. If it had not won the Best Picture award for 1932/33, the film would have faded into obscurity.

Review Written

October 17, 2006