Cavalcade: 1932/1933

So I may be an English teacher, but  I have to admit, when I picked up Cavalcade, I had no idea what the title of the movie actually meant. According to dictionary.com, there are a few definitions:

1. a procession of persons riding on horses, in horsedrawn carriages, in cars, etc.

2. any procession

3. any noteworthy series, as of events or activities.

What I should have done was look the definition up BEFORE watching the movie because a couple minor aspects of the film that I found odd make so much more sense now. 


Cavalcade is the story of two women, both wives and mothers, who experience happiness, fear, and tragedy in England. Their stories start on New Year's Eve 1899. Jane is the wealthy one. Her husband Robert and her two sons are the center of her life, just as they should be in early 1900 England. Ellen and her husband Alfred are two of their servants, and although they are servants, their story is equally treated in the film. As the film progresses and the men head off to fight in the Boer War, Jane and Ellen become the focus. Essentially, the film presents a series of events (a cavalcade) and their consequences for each woman in parallel stories, with the women encountering each other only a few times after Alfred and Ellen leave their positions as domestic servants to run a pub. 

Throughout the film, the director used varying transitions to show the passage of time. The film ends on New Year's Even 1932, and to make the passage of time clear, the director used text slides to present years and/or information between each event. He also used footage of men riding on horseback, a long line of them, also known as a cavalcade. This was the transition that I found so odd, but now that I know what a cavalcade is, it makes sense (but it's still a little cheesy).


I have to admit, Cavalcade really pulled me in. Jane, played by Diana Wynyard who was nominated for an Oscar for the role, is a strong woman. When her husband and later her son leave for war, she does not wallow in sorrow. Clearly, she is distraught, but she remains strong. She is the one who comments that time changes everything, and while it is true to some degree in her life, it is even more apparent in Ellen's life. 


Like two of the other movies I've watched so far, Cavalcade incorporates World War I in its storyline. It is one of the events in Jane and Ellen's lives, and while the director could have minimized the war footage, he didn't, and the film benefits. The director uses a series of montages and text slides to show the progression of the war. As the years pass, the montages grow darker, with more men dying, showing the devastation of the war on England. At the end of the war, on Armistice Day, there is an amazing scene where there are must be thousands of people celebrating on the streets of London. The camera pans over the crowd, zooming in for close shots...there are clearly no digital extras here. I can't imagine how the director managed to pull this scene off, but the thousands of extras made for an impressive scene where Jane joins the crowd to celebrate the end of the war even though the war has brought her nothing but suffering.


If you're looking for an older film to watch, I definitely recommend Cavalcade. The film work itself is impressive, and the story is engaging (it's based on Noel Coward's play). Unlike some of the other films I've watched for this project, this was one I had no trouble watching.