Year: 1933
Director: Frank Lloyd
Country: US
Language: English
Frank Lloyd's 1933 Noel Coward adaptation Cavalcade has been virtually forgotten about by cinephiles and film critics alike. It is a pre-code drama that won three academy awards- most notably for Best Picture and Best Director- and was a financial success, being the second highest earning film of that year, but seems lost in time due to how dated it feels. It would likely bore the pants off of today's audience.
We witness cavalcade of English life from New Year's Eve 1899 until 1933 seen through the eyes of well-to-do Londoners Jane (Diana Wynyard) and Robert Marryot (Clive Brook). Amongst events touching their family are the Boer War, the death of Queen Victoria, the sinking of the Titanic and the Great War.
Cavalcade's running time is about two hours long, but it's slow leisurely pace will have you checking to see if your watch is broken. Slow musical numbers drift along, none of which are even remotely memorable. They feel greatly out of place as people start singing at the strangest of times. There is no choreography either, so the picture is literally halted without any sense of pace.
Granted the picture is gorgeous to look at. The great expanse of settings (from African battlefields to the Titanic) leave is with a visual variety on a grand sweeping scale. The costumes are a pleasure to the eye, and the swooping camera shots give us a sense of wonder. If only the story was enticing and the picture had more cohesion. At times Cavalcade wants to be a tear-jerking drama, while at other times we get very awkward comedy.
I would not say this is the "Best Picture" of the 1930's, heck it's not even the greatest picture of 1933. Cavalcade is loaded with production problems that make the picture forgettable; it's not even bad in an entertaining way. Avoid this if you can.
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