Cavalcade (1933)
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Cavalcade Movie Review
Cavalcade is a 1933 historical drama film directed by Frank Lloyd and starring Diana Wynyard. It’s one very entertaining and funny movie for all the wrong reasons.
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“There should never be any good reason
for neglecting someone that you love“
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It follows a British family throughout the first half of the twentieth century where they somehow witnessed all the major events from the Second Boer War, Queen Victoria’s death, the sinking of the Titanic and World War I. Needless to say, this is one very silly affair which unpleasantly reminded me of ‘Forrest Gump’ as it’s so unrealistic for a family to witness all of these events.
I found the characters highly unlikable. These are all very full of themselves, arrogant, stuck up rich British people whom I did not care for at all so I did not find it tragic witnessing most of their deaths. The acting is also beyond theatrical and seemingly right off the stage. Diana Wynyard did not deserve her Oscar nomination at all as she simply overacted the hell out of her role. Granted, she’s better than the other mediocre players, but still she’s far from great for the standards of this day and age.
Cavalcade has some positive aspects to it. One of them is Frank Lloyd’s direction which is passable, though certainly not deserving of a freaking Oscar and he never should have won, though admittedly his competition was rather weak this year. What I loved are its audio-visuals. The film looks very strong and far from stagey like the acting and dialogue definitely felt. The movie looks quite epic and the cinematography is so strong.
The score is also outstanding as it combines a lot of very famous numbers and hymns from British history and I just loved Auld Lang Syne which was beautifully emphasized here, especially in that finale which was sappy, but I bought it personally as it was so epic and moving nonetheless.
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One scene here acts as a microcosm for the whole picture and that is the famous scene on the Titanic. The two lovebirds speak how they could die then and they would be content and what do you know – they are on the Titanic heading for the iceberg! That level of aggressive obviousness plagues this movie and I personally found it both ridiculous and endearingly funny in a way and this scene in particular is my favorite along with the ending.
But the rest of the scenes felt forgettable. There are a lot of boring speeches in this movie along with some very dull, unnecessary musical numbers. Sappy romances abound as well. And that war sequence felt overly familiar to the ending of ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ to the point of feeling like a rip-off.
Cavalcade is ludicrous in its dialogue, absolutely unsubtle and I cannot understand how they did not find it aggressive when it came out. But on the other hand, I have to say that I still understand its appeal and most people do forget that the movie came out over a hundred years ago and these film’s events were so fresh in people’s minds and I could totally see how this epic quality of the movie and its melodramatic sweep satisfied the audiences of its day.
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It’s definitely a blockbuster of 1933 and I realize its values and its somewhat guilty pleasures so I find it way too harshly judged upon as it’s simply not one of the very worst Best Picture winners as many say. There were some much worse winners in my opinion.
Cavalcade is a very entertaining and funny movie for all the wrong reasons. Its acting is very stagey, the dialogue is ludicrously on-the-nose as are many of the plot points where this British family somehow witnesses all the major events from the first half of the 20th century. But it looks and sounds good, it’s epic in quality and I could see how audiences of its day would absolutely adore it and some scenes are a guilty pleasure for me. For all of those reasons, I personally wouldn’t call it one of the worst Oscar winners.
