So...Cavalcade...

Cavalcade - 6th Best Picture Winner
1933
#10

Starring:
Diana Wynyard
Clive Brook
Una O'Connor
Herbert Mundin

Directed By:
Frank Lloyd

1932 - 1933 Academy Awards
Winner:
Outstanding Production
Best Director
Best Art Direction

Other Films Nominated:
A Farewell To Arms
42nd Street
I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang
Lady For A Day
Little Women
The Private Life Of Henry VIII
She Done Him Wrong
Smilin' Through
State Fair

So...if you read this blog, you might be wondering why I'm mentioning this movie again. I originally posted about skipping this film because it isn't currently available on DVD, and to my knowledge, more than a year after my original post, it still isn't.

But then something interesting happened.

Back in February, TCM aired it's yearly tribute to all those films that have won the Best Picture Oscar. The event is part of a month long celebration of all things Oscar, and they try to air as many BP winners as the can. It was a random night, and there, on my television, was Cavalcade. So, I, being a movie geek, stayed up fairly late and watched.

What follows is my general impressions and thoughts of the movie as I watched it. I've decided to leave them in their disjointed fashion.

February...

Seems like an original Downton Abbey
Upstairs/Downstairs

Set at the turn of the century. NYE 1899/1900

All the levels of society in one house, the servants and the society, the women wording about this husbands going off to fight in the Boer Wars.

Mourning for Queen Victoria.

Servant husband comes back and buys pub.

The servants move up in class, with owning the pub, even after the husband dies.

Edward and Edith, kids in the beginning, their mothers friends, get together. A scene has them on a boat talking the future, boat revealed to be the Titanic.

Joey child of society family, Fanny child of servants, meet many years later when she's a dancer and he in WW1.

He has to leave for the War, wants to marry Fanny, she says his mother wouldn't approve. She gives him a locket to remember her.

Mother sees him off, decides to be a nurse.

Joey on a stop sees dad

Servant mother goes to society mom about them though she doesn't know. Says they aught get married. Mom says how do you know and why. Servant mom says oh guess you don't think she's good enough 
Mom says wait till he get a home, asks her to leave.
Gets telegram - Joey is dead. She faints
[Note Servant tried to not call the Society mother by formal title but when she faints, she does)

Fanny is a singer
Her 20th Century Blues song - still poignant today.

Society mothers on NYE 1933, mother father reflect on life

Let us drink to our sons 

Seemed a bit like a Downton Abbey, Upstairs/Downstairs type story. Or I should say they are much like Cavalcade. But that was truly how part of society lived in the times. And at the time this movie was made, it was how many people still lived. Just a slice of life. 

This is one film, though, that I'm not sure why it won. Beating A Farewell To Arms, 42nd Street, The Private Life Of Henry VIII? Those are some pretty well known and loved films, considered part of movie history if you're a real cinephile.  While I don't dislike this film as much as Cimarron, I highly doubt I will ever watch it again. One experience was enough.