Cavalcade (Frank Lloyd, 1933)

Based on the Noël Coward play about two British families during the first third of the twentieth century, Cavalcade would have been a limited series on Netflix were it made today, suffering from the same drawbacks of a property much more concerned with chronicling major events than their impact on human beings. The "cleverness" of having one major character die on the Titanic supersedes the effect of his loss. I wasn't even sure he died, so blasé were the subsequent scenes about his death. And montages pick up the rest of the slack. The one that reduces WWI to three minutes is about two-and-a-half minutes too long. This event happened - we get it, Frank! The only plus is that Lloyd/Coward choked the film with songs. Several dozen hymns, music hall numbers, anthems, etc., some composed by Coward, provide a much more trenchant snapshot of the era than any of the montages or messagey dialogue. 

Grade: C+