A Modern Hero

Irresistible French circus boy Richard Barthelmess (as Pierre Radier) is a bareback rider in more ways than one, after impregnating pretty Jean Muir (as Joanna Ryan). Although Mr. Barthelmess is willing to marry Ms. Muir, she decides to wed a more financially stable suitor. Alcoholic mother Marjorie Rambeau (as "Madame Azais"), who lost her left arm to a favorite circus leopard, saw this coming; of dubious origin, Ms. Rambeau tells son Barthelmess he was the illegitimate son of a wealthy lover. Barthelmess wants to become wealthy, too...

Predicting, "Someday, I'm going to be rich," he leaves the circus and eventually becomes a millionaire businessman. As the decades pass, Barthelmess continues to have affairs with well-heeled blondes, like Florence Eldridge (as Leah Ernst) and Verree Teasdale (as Claire Benston). This causes brunette wife Dorothy Burgess (as Hazel Flint) much distress. Barthelmess also keeps contact with his son by Muir, and helps the boy grow from poor Mickey Rentschler into pampered William Janney (as Pierre Croy). All may be in store for tragedy…

Despite the presence of accomplished actor Barthelmess and acclaimed director G.W. Pabst, "A Modern Hero" is a muddled melodrama; the former is miscast, and the latter misguided. This was Barthelmess' penultimate Warner Bros. film; the studio let him go after this and the forthcoming "Midnight Alibi" (1934) failed to draw the crowds necessary to continue to employ the studio's high-paid star. "A Modern Hero" is also notable as Mr. Pabst's only Hollywood sound film. It has moments.

***** A Modern Hero (4/21/34) G.W. Pabst ~ Richard Barthelmess, Jean Muir, Marjorie Rambeau, William Janney

That might be the headline of a tabloid feature about the hero in question. Played by Richard Barthelmess, 'hero' is an inapt description of author Louis Bromfield's character, since he is neither modern nor a hero. 'Modern' depends on your point of view, but Pierre Radier is more opportunist and con man than hero. There are great similarities and a slight physical resemblance to Tyrone Power's character in "Nightmare Alley", as Radier uses people and their money to improve his social status. Ultimately, his reach exceeds his grasp but his end is better than Power's Stan Carlisle.

"A Modern Hero" is a simple, straightforward story and plays like an Aesop's fable. It is well done and is an absorbing cautionary tale about the evils of money and the pursuit of power. Barthelmess is good, but I thought the best part of the film was the casting of the women supporting him. Jean Muir was lovely as always and Veree Teasdale was even better, with the supercilious air of a female George Sanders. Best of all was Florence Eldridge as a vulnerable widow who falls for the caddish Radier. Her portrayal and her sad, expressive eyes stay with you after her part is finished. Marjorie Rambeau has perhaps her best role as Radier's alcoholic, regretful mother.

"A Modern Hero" is well worth the time and is easy to take at only 70 minutes. I also feel the website rating is somewhat low. It was shown recently on old reliable TCM.

In many ways, "A Modern Hero" reminds me of one of Spencer Tracy's best and most forgotten great films, "Edward My Son". Both films are about men who are bent on success at all costs and who channel all of their love and energy into their sons...and end up destroying them in the process.

When the film begins, Pierre (Richard Barthelmess) is a nice guy who performs at the circus. However, his mother is just awful...and she teaches him that love is nothing nor are women. Not surprisingly, he internalizes this message and spends the rest of his life using people and striving for money and power. After leaving the circus, he buys a bicycle business and soon moves into the burgeoning automobile business at the turn of the century. During all this time, his only thoughts are about money and power and slowly you see the nice guy disappear and a jerk replace him. He marries a woman...but is cold and indifferent towards her. Later, however, he learns that a boy he fathered out of wedlock lives nearby...and he spends the rest of the film heaping gifts and attention on the boy...and expecting nothing in the way of responsibility. Ultimately, by the end of the film, Pierre has really achieved nothing...and the brutal scene when he returns to his mother is one of the most cynical I can recall!

Overall, this is a very well made film--a modern morality tale about the pursuit of riches that can consume a man's soul. Not quite as hard-hitting as "Edward My Son" but the pair of films would make a terrific double feature! Well worth seeing and very well written. It's also all the more striking because Barthelmess was such a boyish looking guy and so easy to like...and seeing him in this sort of role sure packs a punch.

This is not a great film, but it has much to recommend it. With the great G.W. Pabst at the helm, there is much of visual interest, and with one of the best actors of his generation, Richard Barthelmess, in the lead role, there is much of dramatic interest too. Although both men were at their height in the silent era, they were both still great cinema artists in 1934.

In the Barthelmess films of the early 1930s, there was a tendency toward a kind of tragic masochism, where everything that can go wrong does go wrong for the Barthelmess character. And we see it here again. Twenty years later we'd see another great actor being attracted to such roles - Marlon Brando. But Pabst steers the character's suffering (perhaps a symbol for a rather innocent USA suffering through a terrible war and the great depression) toward enlightenment. And the ending is both profound and a little subversive politically.

All the supporting performances are excellent, but Marjorie Rambeau stands out as Barthelmess' mother. The film is also quite risque for its day - with Richard obviously sleeping with rich older women for money, and fathering a love child. Pabst was bringing a real European sensibility to American cinema here - something that would soon become impossible with the Hollywood production code. It's a shame that Hollywood lost such a great artist, and even sadder that he chose to work in Nazi Germany instead.

Richard Barthelmess is a rider in the circus. He wants to get out. He has, he tells Jean Muir before he gets her pregnant, big plans -- apparently he wants to marry the daughter of the richest man in the state; at least, that's what will happen. When he gets her with child, she is magnanimous about it and marries another man. Then it's off to nepotistic success for Barthelmess.

In his only American film, G. W. Pabst produces an ironic circus picture -- how very European! -- and gets some fine performances in a movie that looks slightly disjointed. There are lots of despicable archetypes, from Miss Muir's drunken father, to Barthelmess' vaguely Nietzschean mother.

It's all ironic and futile, and apparently Pabst so disliked the American way of making movies that he fled back to Europe. Barthelmess was aging out of his star persona, and could no longer sustain artistic efforts. Too bad on both accounts. The movie, while fascinating, failed to excite at the box office.