Thursday, December 5, 2013

Cavalcade

Film: Cavalcade
Format: Internet video on laptop.

Of all of the Best Picture winners, Cavalcade is the one that is nearly impossible to find. I mean, I located it in nearly a dozen parts on YouTube, but if you want a DVD version, you’re pretty much out of luck. There evidently is a Blu-Ray release, but I’m not dropping $20 on something sight-unseen just because it happened to win Best Picture 80 years ago. I gave it as much leeway as I could; the audio was a touch out of step with the video, so it was a bit disconcerting.

There’s not a ton here in terms of a plot or much to summarize. The film is called Cavalcade because it presents a sweep of world history—30 plus years of it—through the eyes of the Marryot family of London. We get one of the Boer Wars, the end of the Victorian era, the sinking of the Titanic, and World War I, among other events, not as they were experienced by the world, but specifically as they affected the wealthy Marryots and their social circle.

We start with the introduction of the new century, New Year’s Eve 1899, and the Boer War. Robert Marryot (Clive Brook) heads off to war, leaving his wife Jane (Diana Wynyard) behind to look after their children. Also off to the war is the family butler Alfred Bridges (Herbert Mundin), who leaves behind the Marryot’s maid, Ellen (Una O’Connor, best remembered from her shrill roles in The Adventures of Robin Hood and Bride of Frankenstein). Do we get to see the battles? No, we do not. Instead, we get to see Jane crying about her brother and her husband off in the war and we get to see them head off to a far too patriotic stage show and a number of overly-earnest professions of love between the Marryots. Honestly, the stage show felt like a way to shove a couple of musical numbers into the film.

Eventually, the men come home, and get home just as Queen Victoria is days away from breathing her last, an event that is honestly much more historically important than changing the digits at the start of the year. I mention this because the film certainly takes this event quite seriously. We get minutes of Queen Victoria’s funeral cortege as it wanders past the Marryot house. As per usual, we don’t actually see it; we just see the Marryots reacting to it.

And so it goes. It’s all so fucking British. I consider myself something of an Anglophile, but I was completely put out by it. If Jane Marryot were any stiffer, she’d have starch running through her veins. It only gets worse when Robert gets knighted and she becomes Lady Marryot.

That’s the biggest problem I have with this film—it’s not so much a cavalcade of history as it is a parade of caricatures. When Bridges buys a pub, he immediately becomes a drunk. Why? Because he’s working class and should’ve been happy as a servant instead of trying to be his own boss. And rather than give him a chance at redemption, when he becomes embarrassing, it’s easier to just have him run over by a carriage. The whole proceeding is one of the most class-conscious things I’ve ever seen. Try to move above your station, and Cavalcade will slap that shit out of you straight away. Only those born and bred to society are deserving of anything above their own station.

I’ve seen most of the Best Picture winners now. There are certainly those that I’ve disliked more than Cavalcade. This film isn’t nearly as morally repugnant as Gigi, as overblown and silly as The Greatest Show on Eart or as blustery as Cimarraon, but I haven’t encountered one as dead boring as Cavalcade is. At times, it was difficult to concentrate. All that happens is people talk. When two of the characters wind up on Titanic, we see nothing except another damn conversation. It naturally presages what will happen to the ship. We’re left to imagine what happens. When the younger of the Marryot boys marches off to World War I, we get nothing but a montage of guys marching and a some overlays of people dying almost comically. And it goes on too long.

I can’t fail to discuss Fanny Bridges (Ursula Jeans) for a bit. Fanny is the daughter of Alfred and Ellen who eventually becomes a professional dancer. We get to see a little of her dancing; everyone goes crazy for it despite the fact that I think I could perform most of her steps. All she does is sway and kick her legs, and suddenly she’s a top star. Most of the time in a film like this, at least the people who end up on stage actually have a modicum of talent.

It’s almost as if Cavalcade tries so hard to be as stiff upper lip British as it can be that it’s afraid to actually show much of anything. Despite the broad waves of history and world-shattering events that it claims to include, it plays itself off as little more than a drawing room drama.

Why to watch Cavalcade: The sweep of history in two hours.
Why not to watch: Could it be any duller?

10 comments:

  1. I also caught this in parts on YouTube. While I liked it more than you, it does suffer from the stasis that overcomes most filmed stage plays.

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    1. It just feels too careful and too staid. It's like a waxwork.

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  2. For me it felt like they were just going down a checklist: Boer War? Got it. New King? Got it. Titanic? Got it. WWI? Got it. And so on. I consider this one of the very lesser Best Picture Winners. I'd take any of the other three you mentioned over this one.

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    1. I haven't decided the order I would rank Best Pictures yet, but I can tell you that with 82 down, Gigi is at the bottom, which is a shame because it's so well made.

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  3. I guess I could say that I was more fortunate than you, if you could call it that, since I was able to watch this all in one piece on TCM. It was everything you said, old time British to its backbone, staid beyond belief and ponderous in spades.

    I was thrilled that Una O'Connor was in the cast because she seemingly was the only one with a pulse in the picture. I chuckled at your reference to Diana Wynyard's character which I think was a combination of the role and the actress. I can see how she scored a nomination since her type of achingly sincere posturing was seen as "GREAT ACTING" at the time and perhaps it was more effective on stage, her main area of activity, but it reads now as completely affected. I've seen her in a few other pictures and she is always the same-so veddy, veddy refined and tediously monotonous, a little of that goes a long way.

    This is not my least favorite Best Picture winner, that's the horror show that is Around the World in 80 Days, but its definitely lingering near the bottom.

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    1. In January of 2013, I ranked all of the Best Picture winners (at the time--no 12 Years a Slave or Birdman) in my order of preference. Cavalcade ranked 80th of 86 for me. For the record, Around the World in 80 Days ranked 84th. The bottom of the barrel for me is The Broadway Melody, which has no redeeming qualities in my opinion.

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  4. I'm trying to hit all the Best Oicture winners as well. This movie is listed as being 150 minutes, but the online versions I see are only about 100. Don't know if you saw a truncated version, but I may have to settle for that. Considering the lack of enthusiasm in the comment thread, it sounds like a shorter version might not be a bad thing.

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    1. The version I watched was 109 minutes. That's honestly too much of this movie, but far better than 150 minutes would be.

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    1. Good luck with that one. It's my least favorite Best Picture winner.

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