The Road to Glory

1. Modern Times 2. Partie de campagne 3. Mr. Deeds Goes to Town 4. Swing Time 5. Show Boat 6. Le roman d'un tricheur 7. San Francisco 8. Fury 9. Dodsworth 10. Libeled Lady 11. After the Thin Man 12. La belle équipe 13. The Road to Glory

First time I watched this movie and I give it eight stars, it's a descent movie, worth watching. Warner Baxter is known for his Dr. Ordway series which I enjoyed. This is a serious drama about front line war in WW1, the French fighting the Germans. The love interest of the two leading men (June Lang) was quite attractive. The reason I didn't give a higher rating is that it moves a bit slow at first but the war authenticity is impressive, even by today standards. Unlike the other reviews I'm not describing details, seems that spoils it for those who read the reviews before watching the film.

The horrors of trench warfare in WWI are effectively shown in this anti-war drama, in which there were two scenes that stuck with me for hours afterwards. In one, the mournful wails and moans of an injured soldier stuck on barbed wire 100 feet from the trench had dead would-be rescuers strewn about him. The enemy snipers purposely let him live to tempt his fellow soldiers to a rescue so they could kill them. In the other scene, soldiers in a bunker hear the enemy below them and realize they are digging into the area to place explosives to blow it up, and this sets off a panic. Director Howard Hawks paces the film well and has exceptionally good action scenes. There's also a love triangle between Capt. Warner Baxter and his subordinate, Lt. Fredric March (both excellent in their roles) for lovely June Lang, which was an essential part of the plot. I enjoyed the humor provided by Gregory Ratoff and seeing Lionel Barrymore in one of his last films he made without a wheelchair.

Howard Hawks reused the title of his1926 movie. This one owes some debt to Raymond Bernard's LES CROIX DE BOIS, particularly in the art decoration of the battlefield scenes. Yet the story itself is not anti-war. It recounts the growing professionalism and disillusionment of of Fredric March under the tutelage of his captain, Warner Baxter, in the ruined landscape of the Great War. In the end, all he has left is his profession, as he addresses the latest batch of soldiers, tells them of the unit's glorious history, and takes a drink.

It's clearly an A movie, with a cast that includes Gregory Ratoff, John Qualen, and Lionel Barrymore borrowed from MGM to play Baxter's father and private soldier in the regiment. June Lang plays the inevitable love interest and she's pretty shaky: visually excellent, good in some line readings, poor in others. That's probably Hawks' responsibility; he was fine with strong actresses, bit so much with lesser ones. I suspect he lacked the patience.

It's a war movie, so the big battlefield scene is important, and it's beautiful shot and edited. It was also noisy, and appropriately so, second only to ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT for its shrieking chaos. It' a good movie, but not a great one; in the end it's too conventional, willing to admit that war is bad, but well, we're going into battle tonight, so let's get on with it. Hawks had not quite reached the point where he could make the movies he wanted. In the meantime, he was a professional, doing the job he was assigned as well as he could, even if it made little sense.

In 1916, somewhere in the front in France in World War I, the 5th Company in the 2nd Battalion of the 39th Regiment created by Napoleon Bonaparte and leaded by the tough Captain Paul La Roche (Warner Baxter) receives among the replacements, Lieutenant Michel Denet (Fredric March) and private Moran (Lionel Barrymore). When Lt. Denet meets the nurse Monique La Coste (June Lang), who is Capt. La Roche's mistress but he does not know, they fall in love for each other. When Capt. La Roche sees the old Pvt. Moran in his inspection, he identifies his father using a fake identity. Meanwhile, the 39th Regiment receives order to go to the trenches, attack the German lines and install a telephone in the front to guide the artillery.

"The Road to Glory" is another great anti-war movie that shows the barbarian life in the trenches in WWI, using a dramatic triangle of love and father-son relationship in a time where the leader headed the attack and soldiers were just numbers. The direction of Howard Hawks and the screenplay are excellent, using adequate pace and lines such as "why do they have to die?" or the contradictory "the fear is just in the imagination" to support the anti-war message of the feature. The scenarios and cinematography depict the horror of the insanity of war in the bloody trenches. The performances of Warner Baxter, in the role of a harsh commander; Fredric March in the role of the ambiguous lieutenant divided between love and loyalty; Lionel Barrymore, in the role of a stubborn old soldier; and the gorgeous June Lang in the important role of a nurse also divided by her moral obligation with her lover and real love, are wonderful and credible. I am really impressed with the beauty of June Lang. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Caminho da Glória" ("Path of the Glory")