The World Moves On

In the tradition of Fox Studios' Oscar-winning Cavalcade, The World Moves On covers over one hundred years in the lives of two Louisiana families: The Girards, of French extraction, and the Warburtons, formerly of Manchester. Forming an alliance by marriage in 1825, the families rapidly corner the cotton business in the South. Years later, three of Girard/Warburton sons split up to head business operations in England, France and Germany: as a result, descendants of the original families find themselves fighting on opposite sides during WW I (this episode is similar to a memorable sequence in the 1928 silent Four Sons, which like World Moves On was directed by John Ford). Surviving the war, Richard (Franchot Tone), the last of the descendants becomes a sharkish Wall Street speculator in the 1920s, ultimately losing his fortune in the Wall Street Crash. Bloody but unbowed, Richard and his wife Mary (Madeleine Carroll) cut their losses and return to their ancestral home, to start all over again. Both The World Moves On and the subsequent Fox production Road to Glory rely to a considerable extent upon stock footage from the grim 1931 French antiwar drama Wooden Crosses.

Starting in the Civil War South like an across-the-generations romance in the manner of SMILIN' THROUGH, this stilted drama then slogs through World War I and the Great Depression like an American CAVALCADE. John Ford effectively showcases the luminous Madeleine Carroll [including a QUEEN CHRISTINA-like moment of gazing out to sea], but otherwise directs with little commitment to the material. Franchot Tone conveys zero chemistry with his leading lady, so he just goes through the motions, while Ford favorite Stepin Fetchit works his offensive "shuffling darkie" routine, but in Paris. The screenplay seems especially turgid since the situations are arbitrary and reveal little about the characters. Despite an occasional imaginative touch, this all makes for a long 107 minutes.

For a John Ford film this one is usually not mentioned in any retrospectives I know concerning his career. For a film that is internationalistic in scope it gets sadly neglected.

Another reviewer compared The World Moves On to Cavalcade which came out a year earlier. For me this film most closely resembled The House Of Rothschild only instead of money the commodity is cotton and in the 19th century. In some places cotton was considered a kind of currency like in the American south. In 1825 the American family Girard merges with the British Warburtons and then has other sons settle in France and Germany just like Nathan Rothschild's kids as early proponents of globalism.

After an 1825 prologue the action skips to 1914 where Sig Ruman of the German branch is hosting a big blowout with nary a thought to a possible war breaking out. War and the Roaring 20s type materialistic peace that followed are what is dealt with.

By the way also watching this film I did wonder just how the combine managed to weather the American Civil War. But that was never mentioned.

The film focuses on Franchot Tone of the American branch and Madeleine Carroll of the English Warburtons. They marry and she jilts Reginald Denny of the German branch in the process. Then Tone almost on a lark enlists in the French Army. The family with losses both financial and personal carries on though.

Shoehorned into the film is Stepin Fetchit in a real travesty of a role. He's the family retainer as he usually is. Here he spots some French Senegalese African soldiers in dress uniforms and he thinks it's a lodge and wants to join. Of course he's eagerly recruited. Today's viewers might not realize but the popular Amos N' Andy radio show had their protagonists as members of the Mystic Knights Of The Sea Lodge. That reference to a lodge would not have been lost on a 1934 viewer. Stepin Fetchit's role adds zero to the story and it's more offensive than usual.

Best part of The World Moves On are the battle scenes in World War I. They are not glamorized in any way, hardly like one of Ford's cavalry epics.

I rate The World Moves On as low as I do because of Stepin Fetchit. Had he not been there this would far higher on John Ford's list of films for quality.

The World Moves On (1934)

** (out of 4)

Flat look at two families, the Warburtons and the Girards, who are bound by marriage in 1825 and form a business that places parts of the family in England, America and Germany. All is well until WWI breaks out and soon the families are torn on all issues. I've read numerous reports saying that director John Ford never cared for this film and rumor has it that Fox was really hounding him to film screenplays the way they were written and not to go so far off track. Rumor has it that Ford did exactly that here and turned in a pretty lifeless movie just to prove a point to the studio. Of course, this has never been proved to my knowledge but if you watch the film it's easy to see why this might be the case. I've seen dozens of films from the legendary director and there's no question that he's made some duds throughout but THE WORLD MOVES ON should have been a classic but the end result is so lifeless that you can't help but think there was something going on behind the scenes. Ford has always been great at showing patriotism but that's missing here and it plays an important part of the picture. There are many actions scenes scattered throughout but none of them contain any energy and they come across so flat that it seems like they just set the camera up and started shooting without trying to do anything special. This is especially true during some horrendous comedy moments with Stepin Fetchit, which are just so embarrassing that you really wonder what the director was thinking. I know Fetchit appeared in several Ford films and the image that he plays rubs a lot of people the wrong way but no matter how you view it the way the character here is used is just bad. Performances are pretty good from the leads (Franchot Tone, Madeleine Carroll, Reginald Denny) but they're certainly letdown by the direction. The look of the film is quite good and there's a very interesting story here but sadly it just never comes to life. I think with more care there's a classic movie here.

Aside from a couple of shots, it would be almost impossible to tell that John Ford directed this if you didn't see the credits. There is an astonishingly good combat sequence, but apparently most of this footage comes from a French film that Fox bought a few years before Ford made World in '34. Nonetheless, the combat stuff is breath-taking, and very well integrated with studio footage of the principals. Stepin Fetchit has some good lines. Some nice compositions show that Ford (or his cinematographer) wasn't totally disengaged. The multi-generational love story with its mystical overtones seems totally out of character for Ford, but the opening and closing shots of Christ on the cross remind us of Ford's lifelong religiosity.