October 15
| 9:20 p.m. | The Road to Glory Howard Hawks (U.S., 1936) |
Hawks's maligned diamond. A gorgeously mudded-and-mustard-gassed and outright oneiric war melodrama that crams every human fear and desire into the baggiest jodhpurs ever worn by a Hollywood leading man. A blinded and atrabilious Warner Baxter commands his own elderly father (Lionel Barrymore) to join him on a suicide mission to atone for the latter's cowardice. When Barrymore asks his own son permission to toot on a little bugle seconds before they know they're to die, he seems to be tooting for all the great impotent fathers of all time. A very mean script by Faulkner. Surrender to it!
—Guy Maddin (originally published in Film Comment)
• Written by Joel Sayre, William Faulkner. Photographed by Gregg Toland. With Fredric March, Warner Baxter, Lionel Barrymore, June Lang. (101 mins, B&W, 35mm, From Criterion Pictures/20th Century Fox)
