Eroi in vendita

Heroes for Sale (1933)

Okay, this is frankly a great movie. It's a "type" of movie that may or may not be your thing--a social conscience film. Warner Bros. in particular was famous for these, and the year before had made the astonishing "I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang."

In a way, this one owes a lot to that previous film. The theme is similar--a returning WWI vet runs into trouble adjusting to life at home. And the progression is similar, as this leading man goes through huge ups and downs over many years. There are even similar devices used, like showing several places on the map as he wanders the country, showing his paychecks go up over the years (during a successful period), and using a dates to move the narrative ahead quickly.

The crisis in this movie is not a man wrongly accused of a crime, but a man struggling with morphine addiction from war injuries. Once he overcomes that he rises up but because of his compassion for the poor he's labelled a "Red" meaning a communist and is targeted again. The cycle gets worse and worse.

The leading man, Richard Barthelmess, is (like Paul Muni in "Fugitive") a real actor, less a matinée idol and more a compassionate, emotive performer. And he makes the movie complex and heartwrenching. His wife, when you get to that point, is a young, chipper Loretta Young, who is great, but even better is Young's sidekick, who has a growing part as the movie goes, Aline MacMahon. She represents the truest goodness of all the people in the movie, matching the more exaggerated kindness of Barthelmess.

Eventually the movies moves from 1918 (in the war, actual battle scenes) to 1933, with the depths of the Depression kicking in. And so a whole new kind of despair is on view--something the audience itself felt very much. That's something hard to remember or feel is that the audience was not only suffering much like the people in the movie, they had no idea (!!) when and if the suffering, the Depression, would end. Like "Fugitive," this movie ends with that despair on screen.

But boy is this well made. Well photographed, great modern sound, and wonderful direction by the undervalued great Hollywood master William Wellman. Wellman is one of a handful of terrific directors who never developed his own style outside of what the studio was creating as an institution. But for about twelve years or so (up to "Ox-Bow Incident") he made, on and off, some really terrific, classic, still-powerful movies. "Heroes for Sale" is one of them.

HEROES FOR SALE is available on videotape as part of the "Forbidden Hollywood" series of pre-Hayes Code films. Since it is not salacious, unlike most of this line, its inclusion is a bit of a stretch-- its hero's morphine addiction is honestly come-by. Still, it is a grabber-- I have shown it to three acquaintances, and each has been as surprised as I. Why isn't this film better known? If you trouble yourself to find a copy, what you will get is a furiously compacted plot line that resembles an Americanized LES MISERABLES. Won't spoil the surprises, which are frequent. But the plot is hardly more surprising than the film's anger-- watch for the series of quick scenes late in the film documenting a Red-scare vendetta by Chicago police. What really seems "forbidden" here are the politics.

After the dawn of sound, Warner Bros. wandered through the early-talkie wilderness trying their hand at Technicolor musicals and revues that largely did not work out. Around 1930 they changed their output to be what we think of when we think about the Warner Bros. of the 1930's - gritty Depression era films that pulled no punches in depicting the hardships of those days. Here Richard Barthelemess is Tom Holmes. Tom's life is a metaphor for just about every social injustice from 1917 through 1933 you can pack into a 70-plus minute film. Through his life we visit the post-war hardships of WWI doughboys including morphine addiction, the double-edged sword of automation, the Red scares and hysteria of the 1920's, and finally the armies of unemployed Depression-era men treated as lepers as they wandered from town to town in search of non-existent jobs.

It's an interesting picture of a bleak world populated with largely unlikable characters such as the socialist who becomes a capitalist as soon as he becomes wealthy and the soldier that stole a wartime honor from Tom only to return home and not stand up for him when Tom really needs him. You do have to overcome some obvious problems in logic to enjoy this film. For one, nobody is as long-suffering as Tom Holmes is in this film, having so much adversity unjustly piled on him and still at heart an optimist. However, the film is a great political precode, and one whose script would not have been possible even a year later with its explicit sarcasm about the American social and economic order.

Heroes for Sale (1933)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

William A. Wellman directs this hard hitting look about a man (Richard Barthelmess) who stands up during a WW1 battle and becomes a hero but he doesn't get credit for what he did as it goes to someone else. He's injured in the war and soon gets hooked on morphine and this causes him to break up when he returns home but after getting himself cleaned up he eventually gets married to a woman (Loretta Young) but soon the Depression hits and he has another chance of being a hero. This is an extremely powerful film that talks about unknown heroes who never get the credit they deserve because they don't want any credit for doing the right thing. There's a lot of blood and passion running throughout the film so it's rather obvious that this was a big subject for director Wellman. Barthelmess gives a terrific performance as he commands every scene that he's in. Aline MacMahon is great as a family friend as is Robert Barrat as a German trying to cash in on an invention. Young is very good in her small role and has some great chemistry with Barthelmess. The early WW1 scenes contains some great and bloody action as does a riot during the middle of the film, which really caught me off guard with the violence and blood shown. There are countless Pre-Code elements and the look at drug addiction is very nicely done.

There's something strange about watching most pre-code WB movies: they don't end so much as they just STOP. It's as if Jack Warner doled out a budget and the director just shut the production down when the film stock quit being delivered. Wild Bill Wellman's a top-notch director knee deep into his socialist fervor period (see WILD BOYS OF THE ROAD as a double bill), Barthemless is a hapless WWI vet who traded heroism for a morphine addiction--- his cowardly platoon commander got the glory and he faces the next 14 years dealing with everything life throws at him. His fortunes ironically change when his cartoon-Red neighbor (played to the usual hilt by Robert Barratt) invents a machine that allows them both to get rich, but Barthemless has gains a deeper social conscious as Barratt loses his. This is really a big budget (for Warners!) soap opera. An uplifting ending is tacked on after Barthemless disappears into the Land of the Hobos. Watchable as an example of early 30's "realism."