Cavalcade

Quite as much as the cast, if not far more deserving of praise, is the superior direction of Frank Lloyd who has handled the unwieldy and sprawling material with disciplined intelligence and understanding art.

The self-conscious good taste of it all creaks, but Noël Coward knows plenty of tricks, and the performers know how to get the most out of his lines.

The production is technically brilliant if not very imaginative, and I got, as I did from the presentation in London, the sense of time’s tragedy which Mr. Coward intended us to have.

At best, Cavalcade is an unintentionally campy look at how privilege interacted with a changing world over multiple decades. At worst, Cavalcade is one of the most boring Best Picture winners to date.