Evan D. As a project this year we are taking a trip through time to revisit all of the Best Picture winners in history, Wings to Wicked??? (hopefully not Wicked.(Oh god it might be Emilia Pérez, maybe Wicked isn’t so bad.)) Cavalcade is the sixth film in that series, to see all the other Best Picture reviews, click here. Cavalcade won the Best Picture prize in 1934 and represented a return to what had become the traditional Oscar winning type film. A big sweeping epic chronicling British life across the first third of of the twentieth century, the film contained depictions of war, tragedy and perseverance as the characters aged through 30 years. In scale, if not entirely in material it is reminiscent of what the Academy went for in Cimmaron just a couple years prior.
Jane (Diana Wynyard) and Robert Marryot (Clive Brook) are a well off British couple with young kids as the clock ticks midnight into a new century. As Robert prepares to deploy to war South Africa the kitchen staff below are abuzz in preparation for their own Alfred Bridges (Herbert Mundin) to join the battle as well. The two men fight side by side and return to a British society that continues to march on through the years. Their children grow, face tragic circumstance and even go off to war themselves. By this point in Oscar history it seems clear that voters were often taken by the films that felt epic in scale and Cavalcade fits that bill. Unlike Cimmaron, which has some serious race and perspective issues in retrospect, Cavalcade’s focus on the English home front holds up a little better. Focusing on a wealthy family gives the story a somewhat elitist air but I still found the relationship between Jane and Robert to be charming and the film to be well paced. Cavalcade is certainly nothing exceptional, even for the time, but it is well paced and acted. Although epic in scale, the film traces a handful of events in a manner silly enough to dull any real emotional impact. I wont spoil it here but the way two characters meet their demise is earnestly revealed in the most ridiculous manner, one can’t help but laugh. That sincerity is a credit to the film even when it veers nonsensical. Cavalcade cares about its characters in a way that makes them engaging to watch Even if time has not weathered Cavalcade in the same way as some of the more infamous Best Picture winners, it does appear to have been somewhat forgotten. Not good enough to be immortal, not bad enough to be hated and not inventive enough to be a pioneer. I found the film to be much more entertaining than some of the very worst winners we have seen so far. 6/10
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