Critical Moments

Labelled for reasons I am still trying to fathom, “The Love Story of a Century,” Fox Films, with ear-splitting shrieks, brought its super super and super film, “The World Moves On,” into the Criterion Theatre for an indefinite run. It all ren###ds me of a Fourth of July giant firecracker that goes off with a pop.

Certainly the Fox scenario department was not sparing with ideas because it got just about everything in this film but the sex life of ants. Pacifism, the economic depression, family life, nationalism, armament manufacturers, the horrors of war, young love and sundry other topics are injected into this rather confusing mess of action. At times the film makes you think of “Cavalcade,” “The House of Rothschild” or any other three epic pictures you can remember but unfortunately you never receive the impression that you are seeing anything very worth while.

In plot, and there is plenty of that, “The World Moves On” concerns the American Gerard family. Wealthy southern planters of the South, they decided in the early years of the nineteenth century that they should become an internationally powerful family. To that end members of the clan are sent abroad (a la Rothschild) to found branches in Europe’s capitals. The scene then jumps to 1914 and you are shown the results of this idea. In England, Germany France and America the family has done very well. Each branch has a leader in industry in its particular land but when the war comes they break up and fight for their respective countries. This gives John Ford, the director, a chance to flash his war scenes, which are brutal and convincing, but his conception of pacifistic feeling about the World War is pretty sad stuff to those of us who remember the hysteria of those turbulent days.

After the terror of war passes, the family goes in for “whoopee” in an unrestrained manner and you are regaled with shots showing how the wealthy are supposed to act when the bank account has no bottom. Then comes the depression and the political disturbances that accompanied it and at this point “The World Moves On” goes moral. Everyone seems to realize he has wasted his life and finally decides that faith in such things as the home, pure love and religion is all the world needs to put it back on its feet.

Of course there is a love story. Madeleine Carroll and Franchot Tone supply the emotional outbursts and manage to act and sound as though they were newcomers to the screen. As the leading players they add nothing to the general enjoyment of this conglomeration.

“The World Moves On” gives you the same impression you receive when you walk into a room full of people, each of whom has a great deal to say but all of whom insist upon saying it at the same time.