Heroes For Sale concerns the life during and post World War I of that of Richard Barthelmess. The film goes from his struggle with morphine addiction to labor problems during the Great Depression with only the flimsiest of connections between the plot lines. I felt almost like the film abruptly switched movies, that maybe the projectionist got the reels mixed up.
Barthelmess and Gordon Westcott are part of a mission to capture German prisoners and gain some intelligence, Barthelmess is wounded and thought to be dead, Westcott brings in the prisoners and gets credit and medals for what Barthelmess did. When Westcott discovers Barthelmes alive on the troop ship returning home, he gets him a job with his father Berton Churchill's bank.
Berton Churchill is in many ways doing a dress rehearsal for his career role as banker Gatewood in Stagecoach. You'll have to see Heroes For Sale to see what I mean. The problem is that Barthelmess has taken back an addiction to morphine souvenir of World War I. That was something far more prevalent than generally believed. When its discovered, Barthelmess is fired and sent to a hospital for a cure. That's not shown, but it usually meant cold turkey and we'd have to wait until the Mid Fifties with Frank Sinatra going through withdrawal in Otto Preminger's The Man With A Golden Arm to see that graphically illustrated.
After this Heroes For Sale abruptly switches to Barthelmess leaving that town and going to Chicago where he gets a job in a laundry and meets and marries Loretta Young who works at a hash house with sister Aline McMahon and father Charley Grapewin. Barthelmess is a go getter and impresses company president Grant Mitchell.
After this the film gets a bit ridiculous. Robert Barrat a malcontent with socialist views whose a regular at the hash house invents a folding machine which will save all kinds of labor costs. Barthelmess helps sell it to management and gets a 50% cut. The usual thing happens and men go out of work.
But Barthelmess is a man of exquisite conscience, he both leads a riot of the newly unemployed workers and won't take a penny of the filthy money from the invention for himself. Even when he goes to prison for leading same riot in which police were killed. In the end he does have a meeting with Westcott in an ironic twist going back to the first part of the film.
Barthelmess's character is way too saintly for me, it's just simply too much to swallow. Automation was and is a fact of life even today. It can and does lead to other, but different kind of jobs. This is where government retraining programs come in, not the Luddite solutions that Heroes For Sale seems to advocate.
I will say this, by far the best performance in the film is by Robert Barrat who's a real red agitator against capitalism until he accumulates a lot of capital because of his invention. It's a real treat to see him change from work to evening clothes and now rail against helping those unemployed who were once his comrades in solidarity forever.
I wish William Wellman had directed a film that strictly was about the struggle against morphine addiction, the first part showed far better promise than the second one.
Barthelmess and Gordon Westcott are part of a mission to capture German prisoners and gain some intelligence, Barthelmess is wounded and thought to be dead, Westcott brings in the prisoners and gets credit and medals for what Barthelmess did. When Westcott discovers Barthelmes alive on the troop ship returning home, he gets him a job with his father Berton Churchill's bank.
Berton Churchill is in many ways doing a dress rehearsal for his career role as banker Gatewood in Stagecoach. You'll have to see Heroes For Sale to see what I mean. The problem is that Barthelmess has taken back an addiction to morphine souvenir of World War I. That was something far more prevalent than generally believed. When its discovered, Barthelmess is fired and sent to a hospital for a cure. That's not shown, but it usually meant cold turkey and we'd have to wait until the Mid Fifties with Frank Sinatra going through withdrawal in Otto Preminger's The Man With A Golden Arm to see that graphically illustrated.
After this Heroes For Sale abruptly switches to Barthelmess leaving that town and going to Chicago where he gets a job in a laundry and meets and marries Loretta Young who works at a hash house with sister Aline McMahon and father Charley Grapewin. Barthelmess is a go getter and impresses company president Grant Mitchell.
After this the film gets a bit ridiculous. Robert Barrat a malcontent with socialist views whose a regular at the hash house invents a folding machine which will save all kinds of labor costs. Barthelmess helps sell it to management and gets a 50% cut. The usual thing happens and men go out of work.
But Barthelmess is a man of exquisite conscience, he both leads a riot of the newly unemployed workers and won't take a penny of the filthy money from the invention for himself. Even when he goes to prison for leading same riot in which police were killed. In the end he does have a meeting with Westcott in an ironic twist going back to the first part of the film.
Barthelmess's character is way too saintly for me, it's just simply too much to swallow. Automation was and is a fact of life even today. It can and does lead to other, but different kind of jobs. This is where government retraining programs come in, not the Luddite solutions that Heroes For Sale seems to advocate.
I will say this, by far the best performance in the film is by Robert Barrat who's a real red agitator against capitalism until he accumulates a lot of capital because of his invention. It's a real treat to see him change from work to evening clothes and now rail against helping those unemployed who were once his comrades in solidarity forever.
I wish William Wellman had directed a film that strictly was about the struggle against morphine addiction, the first part showed far better promise than the second one.