The End of a Day (Juno Films). For the spectacular rise of the French cinema in the years before World War II, the men most responsible have been a handful of able directors. These directors usually did not develop special talent for the camera but made movies that attracted and used the seasoned acting personnel of the French theatre. For The End of a Day, a photographic plate recording with sharp sensitivity the emotional atmosphere of a home for retired actors, Director Julien Duvivier (Poil de Carotte, Un Cornet de Bal) recruited a cast that includes many a distinguished veteran of the Paris stage, headed by polished, twinkling Louis Jouvet, a director of the Comédie-Française and one of France's most illustrious actor-managers. Beautifully played to the last bit, The End of a Day is a glowing and worthy tribute to its profession.
When aging Actor St. Clair (Jouvet) leaves his troupe after an unsuccessful tour, he says he is going to retire to his estates, but his companions know that he is really going to the Abbaye de St. Rivière, baven for indigent old actors. Greeted there as a hero, surrounded by old women who were once his lovers, St. Clair also meets embittered Marny (Victor Francen), who has been obsessed for years by the suspicion that his wife killed herself after St. Clair tired of her. When St. Clair attempts to renew his youth by captivating a simple-minded young barmaid (Madeleine Ozeray), Marny sees history repeating itself, intervenes. As the two ancient rivals match wits, the home passes through a financial crisis, a strike against short rations led by wrinkled, wry Cabris-sade (Michel Simon), who spent a lifetime in the theatre understudying healthy actors. Typical shot: St. Clair, ensconced with a novel in the bathtub while his fellow inmates are clamoring at the door, magnanimously promising to leave after he has finished another chapter.
The Real Glory (United Artists-Samuel Goldwyn) is the Philippine Birth of a Nation. It begins when the U. S. Army withdraws from Mindanao, leaving a handful of officers to train the Filipinos to defend themselves against the aggressive Moros—as onetime U. S. Chief of Staff Douglas MacArthur is now training them to defend themselves against the Japanese. "We who are about to die salute you," quotes the gloomy padre of Fort Mysang as the soldiers leave. This pessimistic view seems justified until Dr. Canavan (Gary Cooper), an Army surgeon with a Freudian attitude towards fear, gets to work on the Filipino morale. After an epidemic of cholera, a chase in the trap-filled jungle, and a bloodcurdling Moro attack, Dr. Canavan's and Uncle Sam's proteges come of age.
The result is one of the finest action pictures since Actor Cooper and Director Henry Hathaway once before pooled their he-man talents in Lives of a Bengal Lancer. Although the plot demands that Filipinos be portrayed as terrified by Moro juramentados (dreadnought Mohammedans to whom killing a Christian is a sure passport to heaven), a few such scenes were deleted by Producer Goldwyn, at the request of Commonwealth President Manuel Quezon. Excellent shots: Moros catapulting from trees over a stockade to steal ammunition; Canavan encountering the head of a companion (Broderick Crawford) who encountered some Moros in the jungle.