"Beyond Victory" (1931) went way beyond my expectations! Starring William Boyd (later Hopalong Cassidy), James Gleason, ZaSu Pitts, Lew Cody, Russell Gleason, Lissy Arna, Marion Shilling, Theodore von Eltz, Fred Scott, and Mary Carr, with a host of others in small parts, this is a WWI thriller with intermittent scenes in flashback regarding the people these people in the trenches left behind - and how and why. Coming just on the heels of "All Quiet on the Western Front", this also has several overtones of anti-war sentiment, though it simultaneously makes it clear that democracy is better than tyranny or despotism. The battle scenes are superior, very realistic - and incredibly noisy and continual. Boyd, a serjeant, is given an order to take three men to a settlement in a small village where he is to set up machine guns and fire at intervals to make the enemy think the village is still full of soldiers. Then, when Boyd and crew are finally raided and the enemy crosses a bridge, Boyd is to blow up the bridge. It's basically a suicide mission, and it allows the rest of the platoons that are presently getting ready to leave the ability to leave. All leave but the four men, and the show begins... Some make it. Some don't. Meanwhile, the stories of the four men are told, too, in flashback. It seems very standard, if not clichéd today, but it is done superbly and it was part of a seminal formula that has followed.
Exceptional acting, wonderfully directed by John S. Robertson and Edward Griffith, and written by, among others, Horace Jackson and James Gleason (the actor in the film). The Gleason family was obviously very much interested in this film. Father and son act in it, while father wrote a good amount of it. Watch for ZaSu Pitts who plays Gleason's wife in the film. She's a - wait a minute! Is this right? A professional knife thrower??!! Yes! She plays a straight part with comedic corners, and her scenes with Gleason are diversionary and lighten up a very serious piece of film. Highly recommended! Worth a good 8 out of 10 stars.
