Word: boer
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...Field Marshal; of a heart attack in the night; in London. He rose to Wartime chief of the Imperial General Staff by no spectacular feats, by detailed, hard-headed executive service. Making no secret of his backstairs origin (onetime hallboy), he educated himself, impressed Horatio Herbert Kitchener in the Boer War by doing jobs others had failed at. In the World War he believed in concentration on the Western front, opposed dispersal of Britain's armies in Mesopotamia, Suez, Eastern Africa, opposed a supreme war council of Allied generals, quarreled with Lloyd George, resigned in February 1918 as staff...
Majestic--"Cavalcade." An entrancing spectacle of British history from the Boer War to the present by the versatile Noel Coward...
...merry today for yesterday (1914-18) we died. To prove his point he wrote two strongly sentimental dramas. The first, Post Mortem (unproduced), exposes the social dissolution observed by a young ghost who returns from Flanders. The second, Cavalcade, is a tragic cyclorama which begins with the Boer War and ends in 1930 with the hope that "this country of ours may find dignity, greatness, and peace again." Here was something more than the world dared to expect from a "song & dance man." a range and flexibility of talent that was grounded on more than disillusioned cleverness...
While for various reasons the talking pictures have never equalled either the dramatic or financial successes of their silent predecessors. "Cavalcade" has moments that send one back to "What Price Glory" or "The Covered Wagon" for sequences equally powerful. There is the scene in the London theatre during the Boer War. Some of those in the audience have sons or husbands "dying by inches" in Mafeking while a relief force is on its way in an attempt to raise the seige. The ballet and chorus are reaching their height when the manager stumbles out onto the stage and stops...
...atmosphere of absolute reality that is everywhere maintained adds tremendously to the emotional force of the production. This atmosphere is the result of masterful direction by Frank Lloyd. He handles Queen Victoria's funeral, the embarkation of troops for the Boer war and later the Great War, the scene between the two lovers on the "unsinkable ship," and the personal tragedies with simplicity and astonishing dramatic skill. Much of this was only made possible by the performances of Clive Brook as Sir Robert Marryot and Diana Wynward as Lady Marryot. None of the leading players can escape the highest praise...