Nearly every review you can find of Cavalcade is quick to mention that this film -- this abysmal, miserable, death march of a film -- has fallen into complete obscurity and watching it, it is completely obvious why. The film is a rather gloomy affair, a sort of Forrest Gump-style epic sweep through the changing times surrounding two families on supposedly different sides of the class spectrum as they grow old, get married, die, and in general act like boring, prissy thugs for 30-odd years. Oh look! There's the Boer War! And the Titanic! Oh, how about that, the first solo flight across the English Channel! And World War I, complete with lame montages, preachy speeches about the meaning of war, and woozy victory parades! Well, gosh, I feel like I've just gotten a complete history lesson!
The absolute lack of grace, subtlety, wit, and style doom this film from the very beginning. Characters are hard to sort out; there is almost no plot development other than the changes forced upon these cardboard characters by placards indicating that -- snoooooze -- three or four years have passed and now it's time to be dragged along for another obligatory moment of early 20th century history. While we're at it, how about a few more montages. Oh, hey, another montage? And another? Thanks. I really feel like I'm being swept up by the currents of history... Honestly, I would have much rather read a dry British history textbook than slog through this movie again. There is clearly no accounting for taste; incredible that the same Academy that picked the subtle, evocative, and harrowing All Quiet on the Western Front (a truly moving epic of WWI) and Cimarron (a smart and bittersweet meditation on the sweep of American history) could just a few years later think highly of themselves for picking this terrible movie. I'm sure they thought they were picking something "important," but 70 years later, it's clear they were just picking a real piece of shit. 3/10
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