Heroes for Sale

During the darkest days of the Great Depression, movie studios took on different approaches. MGM, for the most part, pretended that it wasn't going on at all, and put on a happy face so moviegoers could forget about their troubles. Warner Brothers, on the other hand, was a studio more connected to the proletariat, and didn't shy away from making stories about what was going on in the country. William A. Wellman's 1933 film, Heroes for Sale, is a prime example.

The story begins in the trenches of World War I, when Tom Holmes, played by Richard Barthelmess, performs a heroic act, but it is wounded and taken prisoner by the Germans. His cowardly colleague takes the credit and gets a medal. After the armistice, Barthelmess returns to normal life, and his friend, guilty about what happened, gets him a job in his father's bank. But Barthelmess is hooked on morphine and has to go to a rehab asylum (drug references like these were abolished after the institution of the Code).

He gets clean, though, and finds a job with an industrial laundry. He lives in a boarding house and falls in love and marries a young woman (Loretta Young) and has playful debates with a rabid Marxist (Robert Marrat). The film turns on Marrat's invention, which improves washing machines, and means that many workers from the laundry are laid off. This leads to a riot by the workers, which Barthelmess tries to stop, but he's arrested and convicted for inciting it. When he's released Marrat tells him he's now rich (Barthelmess invested in the invention), but he chooses to give his money to the hungry, and hits the road, living as a hobo.

Heroes for Sale is not great cinema--it's overly melodramatic and has some hammy acting--but it's of interest to anyone who is interested in the cultural history of the 1930's. There's a lot to digest here, from the treatment of returning veterans to drug addiction to the prevalence of communism during the period. This last one is interestingly portrayed in the character played by Marrat, who starts praising Lenin, but when he becomes rich he does a one-eighty, saying that the destitute should be killed. There's also some pointed scenes involving a "Red Squad" that throws suspected communists out of town.

Students of Wellman will also notice some trademarks of his. One of them was his fondness for rain scenes, and Heroes for Sale is bookended by them. The war scene that opens the film is in a rainstorm, and the ending, in which Barthelmess and some fellow hard-luck men are rousted from underneath a bridge, is during a storm. As he and his friend walk along the road, the rain stops and Barthelmess says, "Things are getting better. It's stopped raining."