EPIC OF BRITAIN

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21555, 28 July 1933, Page 12

EPIC OF BRITAIN

♦ « CAVALCADE " AS A FILM DRAMA AND PAGEANTRY FIRST NIGHT SCREENING The first Now Zealand presentation of the film version of "Cavalcade," at the Civic Thoatro last evening, was a memorable occasion. The GovernorGeneral, Bledisloe, and Lady Bledisloe were present, and a hugo audience, deeply moved by the nobility of the theme and stirred by its patriotic pageantry, filled the theatre. It would be safe to say that no film has so stirred the blood of Britons as "Cavalcade." It strides hot-footed through the last 33 years of British history, pausing at such critical episodes as the South African War, the Great War, and the Disarmament Conferences, to recall the sorrows and the triumphs of the British people in their steadfast march toward greater honour and glory. There is fidelity and an extraordinary sense of spaciousness in tho camera's roving eye as. it sweeps backward through the years and recalls tli3 embarkation of troops for South Africa, holiday crowds on Brighton Beach, the despatch of troop trains from Victoria Station, London, in 1914, and the mad whirl of excitement into which the world plunged in the hectic years following the peace. The astonishing thing about the film is that such a magnificent epic of tho British people should have been, made in America, for the story, with its London background, is clothed in purely English sentiment, and there j:re no traces of American origins. The happiest thing about it, in fact, is its entire freedom from foreign distortion. It is like no other epic drama in its piling up of shattering climaxes, in its terrific contrasts of rejoicing and sorrow, in the beautiful simplicity behind its power. Take, for instance, the intensely poignant description of the funeral of Queen Victoria, portrayed with great artistic restraint. Tho people in the play talk about the gun-carriage, but it is never shown; j the solemn procession is seen in the , fixed eyes, of the onlookers. Or take the catastrophe of the Titanic. Host film producers would be sorely tempted to stage a stupendous wreck | scene, but Frank Lloyd sticks to the | play, and the mind is shocked more suddenly by tho suggestion than the reality. Noel Coward's patriotism is devoid of the " mafeking " tinge. When the crowds run riot in Trafalgar Square on Armistice Night it is the pathetic face of the woman who has just heard that her son has been killed that takes his interest and sympathy. And womanhood, giving sons and happiness to the voracious jaws of Mars, is as much his theme as the intoxication of victory. So the storied years pass in panoramic review. Great ingenuity has been shown in reproducing familiar London scenes — Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace and East End haunts —and the handling of vast crowds has been done with a maximum of emotional effect. The Cockney dialect, spoken by a considerable number of London actors and actresses, is authentic, and a particularly sound cast is headed by Diana Wynyard and Clive Brook, the latter giving what is certainly the finest perjformance of his screen career. .