Cavalcade
Directed by Frank Lloyd
Written by Reginald Berkeley from a play by Noel Coward
1933/US
Fox Film Corporation
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental
Opening title card: This is the story of a home and a family… history seen through the eyes of a wife and mother whose love tempers both fortune and disaster… As 1899 ends, England is at war with the Boers in South Africa, but the tide of battle is against her… It is a national emergency… New Year’s Eve… our London family, sheltered through two generations of Victorian prosperity, awaits the headlong cavalcade of the Twentieth Century…
I enjoyed this upstairs/downstairs history of a London family and its servants as they navigate the turmoil of the period from 1899-1933.
I liked this better the second time around. Last time I watched in parts on YouTube with a less than wonderful print. Dana Wynyard, who played the matriarch, was truly wonderful in the role — very understated yet full of feeling. With Clive Brooke as her husband and Una O’Connor as their housemaid and Herbert Mundin as their butler, later turned pubkeepers. It’s kind of sad to think that by the time this was made another war and more sadness were already on the horizon.
The story’s anti-war message must have resonated with the Academy as the film won Oscars in the categories of Best Picture, Best Director and Best Art Direction. Wynyard was nominated for her performance.
