LES CROIX DE BOIS"; French War Picture Acclaimed by Critics as A Masterpiece of Realism and Simplicity

HERBERT L. MATTHEWS.

Published: April 3, 1932

ONE of the great films in motion picture history opened in Paris last week—the long-awaited war picture, "Les Croix de Bois" ("Wooden Crosses"). The impression created by it has been overwhelming—the critic, the public, and, most significant of all, the war veteran hailing it as the first and truest expression of the war as it really was. As such it is a historical document of inestimable value, but it is more than that, too It is a thrilling expression of human heroism.

The acclaim with which this picture has been greeted is justly mixed with exultation. The French are proud of themselves that after these years when even the best war pictures, such as "All Quiet on the Western Front," found it necessary to inject romantic, rhetorical and even bombastic passages, not to mention dubious anecdotes, a French company has done the soldier the justice of depicting his life at the front just as it was.

Here we have artistic sincerity—no frills and furbelows, no lovely girls, no artifices, no freak photography, no declamation, no exaggeration. Raymond Bernard decided that nothing could be more dramatic or thrilling than the simple truth. One would think such a conclusion rather obvious, but the answer to that is that it took fourteen years to figure it out.

As one critic (and war veteran) put it: "The film 'Les Croix de Bois' marks a totally new stage in war cinema photography. Will any one dare, after this, dupe us and abuse us with falsely heroic daubings intended to depict the war?"

To begin with, the director has a perfect scenario in the form of the book of the same name by Raymond Dorgelès—a work easily comparable in its way to the German "All Quiet on the Western Front," and the English play, "Journey's End." It is obvious, too, that M. Bernard had the complete support of his producers, Pathé Natan. Last, but far from least, he had truly superb material in his actors—every one of them a war veteran of whom the director only asked that they relive the terrible days of 1915.

The result is a picture which says the last word on its subject. It is at the same time a document and a work of art—a history that is an epic of heroism and martyrdom. Though French to the very core, its appeal is universal. Though the protagonists are simply a handful of men from a French infantry regiment, through the artistic fusion of the elementary passions which animate them they became every soldier, Everyman.

The plot is very simple. We see a squad from the Thirty-ninth Infantry fight through certain dark months of 1915 in the Champagne district, until every man of them is a casualty. First we see the flame burning above the tomb of the Unknown Soldier under the Arc de Triomphe; then row upon row of soldiers standing at attention and fading into row upon row of wooden crosses; finally a brief vision of Paris on the day the war was declared, and the story begins.

Into the billets of a rest camp comes a young law student, Gilbert Demachy, to join a regiment which is a cross-section of the French nation—a baker, some farmers, a few workmen—in no sense professional soldiers. And then one follows their terrible and sublime history—an attack, the patrol in No Man's Land, the rest camp, the return to the lines, the parade of the survivors before the General, then back to the lines again. Only one escapes alive—Sulphart, bluff and hearty diamond in the rough, whose finger is blown off, thus permitting him to retire. The picture ends with Gilbert Demachy, intellectual, sensitive, courageous, dying alone in the slime of a deserted battlefield, while over his head in a symbolic procession file an array of the dead, each carrying his wooden cross.

It is, more than anything, simply a series of episodes, but linked by the common themes of loyalty, courage, suffering and death. Certain fragments stand out as unforgetable. There is Gilbert Demachy, visiting the grave of a comrade to scatter over it the fragments of a letter which came too late. There is the death of Corporal Breval—a simple, brave soldier who had gone out near the enemy's lines to seek water for his squad and had been shot down. There is the parade of the survivors—one of the most thrilling and heart-throbbing scenes the moving pictures have given us. There is, above all, the attack—a stupendous technical tour de force, faithful to the smallest details.

It is this fidelity which is the outstanding achievement of the film. The authors sought only to give us the reality in all its horrors, its crudities, its agonies and its greatness. The dialogue is taken directly from the book and consists chiefly of biting sallies, grim jokes, slang phrases—all the restrained emotion of men living at the breaking point, afraid to give way to their feelings, but seeing with bitter humor the irony of their situation. There is an exaltation about the grim jesting in the face of tragedy which gives a curious touch of nobility to what they say. The coarseness, the blasphemy even, upon which men fall back in times like those, is but a camouflage for emotions which must not be expressed lest they make men lose their courage. This quality, which Dorgelès expressed so beautifully in his book, is expertly caught for the screen.

Inevitably, in the wealth of discussion the picture has already aroused, the question cropped up as to whether "Les Croix de Bois" was an argument for or against war. Certainly, the producers, the director and the author of the book meant it to be against. So much so, in fact, that the first showing of it was in Geneva for the delegates to the Disarmament Conference. However, the next was here in Paris for the veterans of the Thirty-ninth Infantry. Then the press saw it, and finally it was opened to the public at a gala performance which the President of France attended. In each case—particularly the press comments—the horror and anguish and tragedy of the subject were stressed.

The picture itself consciously points no moral at all. It simply presents war as it was, and the audience writes its own moral. The key, then, lies with the spectators and their reactions. Your correspondent attended the press showing, and there, at least, the feeling was unmistakable. The applause for the dying Corporal Breval was a tribute to fine acting, but that for Demachy standing beside the grave of his comrade was a tribute to the fallen soldier, as well as to the beauty and pathos of the scene. And the waves upon waves of applause which punctuated the various attack scenes were the result of sheer exultation, which reached a tremendous climax in the marvelous parade of the survivors.

After all, these people were saying to themselves, consciously or unconsciously, men were giants in those days. The high courage, the unselfishness, the uncomplaining acceptance of suffering, the sacrifice of life for ideals they thought true—these were great qualities. This particular audience must have been thinking: These men we see here were Frenchmen, our own flesh and blood.

And what about the veterans, of whom there must have been hundreds in the audience? Could any of them have failed to think that just to march once more in such a parade of the survivors they would not go through again the inferno of those days?

So, it would be hard to say that "Les Croix de Bois" is the perfect argument for peace—which is just as well. A work of art need not point a moral. Raymond Bernard has produced a great picture, and nothing else matters.

WARNER BROTHERS-First National Studios have passed the halfway mark of the season's total of seventy pictures, and the affiliated companies will continue to maintain a year-round policy of from four to eight photoplays each month, it is announced.

That the Burbank plant of the organization is busy is indicated in the fact that the daily chart shows that more than 5,000 persons are employed daily, with as many as 1,700 extras being used in a single day.

Production on six pictures is scheduled for next month. The first three will be "The Mud Lark," Arthur Stringer's tale of the wheat fields, which will afford a vehicle for Barbara Stanwyck; "S. S. Atlantic," with Kay Francis, and "Silver Dollar," with Edward G. Robinson. Later will come "The Dark Horse," a political story by Joe Jackson and Courtenay Terrett, featuring Warren William, Bette Davis and Guy Kibbee. The picture will be directed by Alfred E. Green. William Powell and Kay Francis will be the principal stars in "The Jewel Robbery," directed by William Doeterle.

A Technicolor production, "Doctor X," with a cast that includes Lionel Atwill, George Rosener and Kay Wray, is being prepared.

Eight other pictures slated to start or already in production are "Week-End Marriage," with Loretta young and Norman Foster, adapted from the novel by Faith Baldwin; "Competition," with Chic Sale; "Central Park," described as a romance of New York; "Winner Take All," with James Cagney; "A Successful Calamity," in which George Arliss has the principal rôle and is supported by Mary Astor, Evalyn Knapp and Grant Mitchell; "Love Is a Racket," with Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Ann Dvorak; "Street of Women," with Kay Francis in the main part, and "Two Seconds," with Edward G. Robinson, Vivienne Osborne and Preston Foster.