1934 - Cavalcade

Director: Frank Lloyd
Production Company: Fox Film Corporation
Leads: Diana Wynyard, Clive Brook, Una O'Connor

“We have to have wars now and then just to prove we’re top dog” - Alfred Bridges

Setting

London, England; 1899-1933

The Plot

The film follows two London families from the end of 1899 through to 1933, throughout various real-life historical events: the Marryots, an upper-class family; and the Bridges, a family in service who work as the Marryots’ live-in maid and butler with their infant daughter. As per the title card, the film is mainly based through the eyes of Mrs Jane Marryot (Diana Wynyard), “a wife and mother whose love tempers both fortune and disaster”.

The Review

After a rousing choral rendition of Land of Hope and Glory, we’re introduced to the Marryots being let in by their butler Alfred Bridges (Herbert Mundin) via a smooth link from Big Ben as their patriotic doorbell is the same chime. Downstairs we meet the staff, including Mr and Mrs Bridges with their infant daughter Fanny, all preparing for the new century. Alfred’s cockney accent comes out nicely while preparing for “them cellybrations”; though the accents show the differences in class from their bosses upstairs they all interact as one larger family. After the Boer War, which no characters seem to really understand, the Bridges leave service to run their own pub and sadly this sees Alfred’s decline into alcoholism. Throughout the movie we see both families affected by three main events (The Boer War, Titanic and World War I), as well as minor encounters with other events such as Queen Victoria’s funeral procession and Lindbergh’s trans-channel flight. Even after leaving service, the Bridges and Marryots continue to intertwine throughout the film in moments of friendship, grief and romance. 
I enjoyed the film, it could be the Forrest Gump of its day but more realistic since it covered fewer events and more central characters. Despite their losses, Mr and Mrs Marryot regret nothing come the end of the film and greet their golden years with a philosophical outlook.

There is a good mix of drama, romance and a few laughs (Merle Tottenham's overly-nasal character asking “where is Afrey-kerr?[Africa]” while talking about the Boer War). We are also treated to different perspectives of the events, comparing a young woman thinking how wonderful it is seeing all their men off to war with an older woman stating she was just wondering how many of them would come back alive; as well as comparing the servants downstairs and the family upstairs as Downton Abbey did in a more recent example. I liked how they used the montage effect similar to All Quiet on the Western Front during scenes from the War. 
Scenes showing emotion or grief tended to be over-done or skimmed over, perhaps to avoid dragging the mood. 
I do love a dose of dramatic irony and examples are dotted throughout the film, which is to be expected when covering real events...with their opinion that they “rather liked Germans” as World War I was approaching and a pair of newly-weds waxing lyrical of their future as they sail away on the Titanic. “No!” I may or may not have shouted at them, “Go on the Carpathia!”

The Slap

Alfred Bridges, he was a great and honourable man at the start of the film but he failed his family later on and let them all down.