Cavalcade (1933)

Directed by Frank Lloyd. Starring Diana Wynward, Clive Brook, Una O’Connor, Frank Lawton, Ursula Jeans, Margaret Lindsay, John Warburton, Herbert Mundin, Beryl Mercer, Merle Tottenham, Tempe Pigott, Irene Browne, Billy Bevan.

The “Upstairs, Downstairs” lives of two British families over the course of two eventful decades at the turn of the century—multiple wars, the death of Queen Victoria, the Titanic disaster, the Jazz Age, etc. As a crowded, eye-filling spectacle, not bad (disembarking ocean vessels and hundreds of extras and ever-changing locations and so forth), but as an epic of human emotions and resolve, it’s painfully dated and dramatically feeble. Although some of the performers come out relatively unscathed (e.g., Wynard, O’Connor), most flounder hopelessly, unable to redeem the frequently awful dialogue (from the pen of playwright Noël Coward, no less, whose customarily sophisticated witticisms and lamentations are often reduced to juvenile and oversincere treacle). It’s tempting to praise the filmmakers for not getting too long-winded while sketching a story of such sprawling breadth, but brevity only serves to make the various character arcs and plot threads come off as cursory, even muddled, as the picture lurches through the years with a spotlight wandering among all the family members at various stages of their lives. Won 3 Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Director.

39/100