No Greater Glory (Frank Borzage, 1934)

No guts no glory

Frank Borzage's No Greater Glory is often considered one of the greatest anti-war films ever made--or is it?

Moonrise (Frank Borzage, 1948)

Moonshine

The film starts out a fevered dream: warped feet walking across the screen, steps rippling outward like a malignancy; camera shifts and we realize we're looking at the water reflection of three men crossing a concrete floor. Your eyes focus on the leading man's hands: they hang limp from heavily resigned arms. Why?   

Things--as they do in noir--happen faster than our ability to comprehend them: the feet walk past others gathered in what looks to be a standing crowd, mount a wooden scaffold; the camera turns aside to gaze at the scaffold's shadow (catching a glimpse along the way of the viewers--it is a crowd, all holding up umbrellas, a single grim expression on every face) in time to see a man--the same man whose hands caught our attention--being fitted with hood and noose round his neck; another man pushes a lever and

Cut to the man's shadow swinging from its rope and a baby shrieking. The camera moves in on the baby's face, eyes averted, reflecting the camera's reluctance to watch the horror; the camera pulls back and we realize it's not the man but a doll, swinging over the baby's crib. 

The opening hits like a blow to the gut (A tug to the throat?) but what lingers is the mocking cruelty of that doll. Who does that to a child? What does that do to the child?