HEROES FOR SALE
US, 1933, 76 minutes, Black and white.
Richard Barthelmess, Loretta Young, Aline Mac Mahon.
Directed by William Wellman.
A short, brisk melodrama from the early thirties, directed by William Wellman who had made an impact with Wings and who was to direct a number of action films including Beau Geste over the next thirty years. It stars Richard Barthelmess who was a popular actor of the time and introduces Loretta Young in an early role. Aline Mac Mahon is a sympathetic mother figure.
The film has enough material to cover several episodes of the contemporary mini-series ranging as it does from action in World War I to the mid-Depression. The hero represents the put-upon but optimistic American hero, the ordinary man who has to face so many difficulties from war to illness to unemployment and automation to the Depression as well as unjust accusations and the death of his wife. Nevertheless, the film, while it has many conventions and stereotypes in its treatment, has quite some impact and is particularly relevant to the social situations of the late eighties. It is interesting to compare social situations and responses of the early 20th century with those of the latter 20th century.
1. A thirties' drama? Its content and style? Social background, insight? Romantic melodrama and optimism?
2. The acting styles of the time and the rhetoric? Conventions and stereotypes? Once these are accepted, the impact of characters and situations? Black and white photography, sets? The score - highlighting conventions and their impact?
3. The irony of the title? The emphasis on heroes and anti-heroes? The saleability of the average American man? American heroes? The attitudes of the Depression film makers? The retrospect to World War I and the significance of the twenties? The echoes for later generations and similar situations?
4. The initial focus on war, heroism? Externals of honour and false judgments? Injuries, health, the return of the heroes after the war to the ordinariness of life, bank work? Addiction, health, institutions, law, temptations to rob, gangsters? Official cover-ups of crime in high places? The ordinary American man coping with the twenties? Prosperity, romance? Machines, exploitation of the workers? Violence and strikes, the Depression? Prison? Socialism, communism, suspicions of the Left? The Depression and the dole? The panorama of America 1918-32?
5. The atmosphere of realism, authenticity? Grimness of life? The persuasiveness of the final optimism?
6. Tom as hero, the American hero during the war, the impossible mission imposed by authority, the cowardice of the commander? Injury and the irony of the Germans healing Tom? His incessant pain and the morphine developed into habit? His rehabilitation and return home? His mother and her possessiveness and her dying when he went into an institution? His work at the bank, his pain, money for the morphine, exploitation by gangsters? Roger and his encountering Tom on the ship, pleading for the continuance of the cover-up? Roger's father and his impatience with Tom and dismissing him? Tom’s telling the truth? Their institutionalising him? The transition to Chicago, his health restored, the encounter with Mary and the refuge, the meeting with Ruth, the Bolshevik inventor? His getting a job, falling in love with Ruth? His success at his work and the enlarging the clientele? The invention and his persuading the workers to join in the patenting of the machine - with their consequent exploitation and unemployment? His marriage, his son? People being laid off and exploited by management? Strikes and demonstrations? The death of Ruth? Leaving his son? His bearing the prison experience for so many years? The visit of the inventor - become capitalist? The investment of his money and its interest? The Alaska story for his son? His giving his money for charity and the supplying of the refuge? The accusations of his being communist? His wandering the countryside, being chased from State to State by the authorities during the Depression? The encounter with Roger and the irony of Roger’s imprisonment and his father's death? The significance of his optimistic speech for post-Depression rehabilitation and endorsement of Roosevelt’s New Deal? The symbol of the American man of the time? Stereotype characterisation - with more?
7. Roger and his role in the war, the mission, his freezing and cowardice, the acclamation, his attempts to persuade them not to decorate him, his acceptance? The encounter with Tom and facing the truth? His helping Tom? Standing by his father in the bank? Committing Tom to the institution? The irony of his being on the dole after serving a prison sentence?
8. Ruth as attractive heroine, Tom's encounter with her, the outing, the proposal, the marriage, the birth of the child? Anxiety about the strike and the final speech to her son? Her death?
9. Mary and her running the refuge, her toughness in the bar, kindness to visitors, helping Tom, the room? Her decision not to go out with Ruth and Tom? Her becoming Auntie Mary especially looking after his son? Her charity? The strong mother figure?
10. The inventor and his comments about the capitalists? His invention? Mannerisms? The irony of his machine and its success, the workers sharing in the patent? His becoming wealthy and taking capitalist stances? His attack on the poor at the refuge? Double standards?
11. The glimpse of prison life, of the poor of the city lining up at the soup kitchens, of the unemployed and wanderers on the dole, of strikers? The echoes of class structure in the United States? Management and workers?
12. Basic themes of American society for the thirties?
