The story of trench life during World War I through the lives of a French regiment. As men are killed and replaced jaunty Lt. Denet becomes more and more somber. His rival for the affection of nurse Monique is Capt. La Roche.
Fredric March Warner Baxter Lionel Barrymore June Lang Gregory Ratoff Victor Kilian Paul Stanton John Qualen Julius Tannen Theodore von Eltz Paul Fix Leonid Kinskey Jacques Lory Jacques Vanaire Edythe Raynore George Warrington Eugene Borden Louis Mercier Joe Cunningham Constant Franke Jean De Briac Ben Hendricks Jr. Jean Perry Nicholas Soussanin Barlowe Borland Anne O'Neal Paul McVey Robert Graves John Bleifer Show All…
Wooden Crosses, Caminho da Glória, Droga do chwaly, Les Chemins de la gloire, Les chemins de la gloire, Le vie della gloria, Camino a la gloria
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Hawks-athon #15/39
Howard Hawks made his directorial debut in 1926 with the original version of The Road to Glory. Unfortunately that film was lost, and Hawks remade it himself a decade later. And when judged as a depiction of trench warfare in WWI, it's actually pretty great. As a straight drama however, it does leave you wanting. June Lang may be one of the most desirable Hawksian women to date (at least I thought so), but the love triangle between her and the two male leads is hardly stirring stuff. I did find the subplot with the Captain's father quite interesting though, can't say I've ever seen anything like that in other war movies.
The scenes on the battlefield felt closer today, the bombs that fell were louder because they were amplified by the fireworks outside my window due to it being National Holiday here in Switzerland. As a child, this was a day of excitement, but for the last ten years it's been a day of heavy tears because it also happens to be the anniversary of my father's passing. I know this is the reason why the father-and-son story between Lionel Barrymore and Warner Baxter got to me so much, but it would have made me cry on any other day, as well.
Road to Glory is no Paths of Glory, but it’s a fine depiction of the dark, claustrophobic, and ultimately meaningless trench warfare in WWI.
Prometheus’ punishment for giving fire to men to was to be chained to a rock and have his liver eaten out by an eagle only for it to regrow each night. The same punishment seems to have been inflicted on the 39th Battalion -- chained in the trenches to be slaughtered and dawn and for replacement troops to arrive at night like a regrown liver.
What this repeated cycle of death accomplished, or was even trying to accomplish, is certainly never clear. A captured graveyard. A temporary telephone line. An artillery barrage. Such glory that is…
A Howard Hawks World War I film that seems to have fallen through the cracks of film history, likely as much due to the terrible state of Fox's cinema archive as anything having to do with the quality of the film itself. As the trench war counterpart to The Dawn Patrol's air war, it serves as the missing link between the romantic horror of The Big Parade and All Quiet on the Western Front and the cynical pragmatism of Samuel Fuller's war films.
Warner Baxter plays a barely-keeping-it-together captain, beloved by his men, and Frederic March is the new lieutenant in town. The plot, such as it is, doesn't so much move forward as oscillate in place, one thing after…
De Howard Hawks se destacan casi siempre sus aventuras de hombres que arriesgan de forma estúpida, a veces incluso divertida, su vida. Historias de egoísmo masculino y desprecio del peligro como forma de autodefensa frente a la vida real. Una proyección grotesca de la masculinidad filmada de forma carismática y emocionante.
Pero también existió un Hawks romántico que miró de frente a los miedos reales de los hombres. Un Hawks donde no existía el cinismo, la hipocresía social ni el materialismo más superficial. Un Hawks donde las grandes preguntas se enuncian de forma trágica y rotunda, sin medias tintas, sin excusas ni intermediarios. De todas ellas (The Dawn Patrol, The Criminal Code, Today We Live), puede que The Road to…
WWI tale that according to the Lbox algorithm is Howard Hawks' 34th most popular film. Far from a minor work though, I guess it's slightly atypical for the director in the camaraderie being steeped in an overwhelming feeling of a march to doom. Think of the threat of annihilation throughout Only Angels Have Wings, but cranked to 11. I hope that makes sense, didn't get a ton of sleep last night.
The cinematography by Gregg Toland also probably qualifies this as one of Hawks' most sumptuous films.
“Anything to get out of this grave.”
A near-classic Hawks picture, devised by Fox to recycle footage they owned from the French war movie, Wooden Crosses. Somehow that lead to something halfway extraordinary, written by Nunnally Johnson, Joel Sayre and William Faulkner (!), shot by Gregg Toland, and featuring one of the best performances you’ll ever see, Fredric March underplaying unforgettably as a womanising lieutenant with magic in his fingers. He joins a memorable love triangle, fighting battle-hardened captain Warner Baxter for the affections of nurse June Lang.
The film is ironic, cynical and witty, with Lang the most surprisingly effective of Hawksian women – she soon became a bright, blonde second lead, before her reputation suffered from marrying a literal gangster – but is sadly somewhat derailed halfway through by a lousy subplot featuring Lionel Barrymore as Baxter’s father, a character supposedly torn from life, but not remotely believable.
Fredric March's officer is beaten down by reality of life on the front line of world war 1.
An interesting companion piece to The Dawn Patrol with March in many ways the late 30s equivalent of Richard Barthelmess. He is excellent here and Hawks (and scripter William Faulkner) introduce us to a classic Hawksian leading man with a lovely flirting under fire scene with the truly gorgeous June Lang. By the end of the movie you are actually doubting your memory that March was ever that light and playful.
We get there through a constant grind of scenes where the cast is on the verge of being killed, or just as arbitrarily saved through absolutely no action of their own.…
Only a mite more optimistic than Paths of Glory because Hawks can’t not make movies about why male friendship rocks. Often a sight to behold — no surprise it’s a Gregg Toland job. Weird how this slipped into a rep as minor.
The Road to Glory as directed by Howard Hawks takes place "somewhere in France, 1916" with a man burning his summons to return to the front and to the trenches. It is also a remake of Hawks' lost directorial debut a decade earlier.
The story invests itself in Hawks' bleakest depiction of a wartime scenario since The Dawn Patrol - from the screams and agonising moans of wounded men left in no man's land - and in turn Hawks returns to the wellworn depiction of a superior officer that finds himself privately rankled by the reality of the fates of men in his ranks and how intently he thinks of their survival, yet in person has to put on a…
Pungent war movie rarely has a scene without a bomb going off or men tensely waiting for the next order that'll send them to their death. This is a somewhat unheralded movie about WWI. It's more sophisticated, both technically and in its script, than All Quiet on the Western Front; and because it's not burdened by propaganda, it's preferable to Hawks's later Sergeant York. Two company officers have their personal (but not their professional) relationship muddied by a woman (a very pretty June Lang) so it's the typical Hawks set up. Lionel Barrymore plays the Company commander's father, an added distraction for Warner Baxter's Capt. La Roche because his father is too old to be anywhere near an active battlefield.…
Hawks reteams with writer William Faulkner for a much better outing than the tawdry Today We Live and despite some questionable narrative choices, this is a mostly vivid depiction of life in the trenches during WWI, the mental and physical degradation, the outright horror and utter pointlessness of it all conveyed with surprising directness.
If there's one thing Hawks was great at it was exploring the lives of men undertaking dangerous jobs and war is obviously the perfect genre for him to operate in, with plenty of Hemingway-esque relationships to follow. The most interesting here is the dynamic between a trampled down and defeated captain, played brilliantly by the underrated Warner Baxter, and a more romanticised, dissident lieutenant, played by…
