Rally ‘Round the Flag, Boys: Revisiting Frank Borzage’s No Greater Glory and the 1930s Boy Soldier Genre

“With flags fluttering, the cast stoically stands at attention, with tears streaming down their stiff upper lips. Even with their country’s destruction, the boys reflect a military mentality, still in service to their country.”

Columbia Pictures had high hopes for No Greater Glory (1934), an adaptation of Ferenc Molnar’s 1907 semi-autobiography The Paul Street Boys. Harry Cohn, Columbia’s chief, saw the picture as a golden ticket to lift his studio from its near-poverty row reputation. The director, Frank Borzage, a two-time Academy Award winner, envisioned his film as a means to independence from studio interference.1 No Greater Glory itself had a lofty purpose: Borzage saw the story about two gangs of boys warring over a playground as a metaphor concerning “the futility of war, whether engaged in by adults or children.”2 The film was released in the warm afterglow of Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night (1934), and Columbia seemed poised to make a clean sweep of the box office while bestowing a moral lesson on the movie-going public.

No Greater Glory was a financial bust. One exhibitor complained about the picture’s lack of stars; the two most well-known of the leads were Frankie Darro, who previously played a Depression-hardened wild boy on the road for director William Wellman, and Jackie Searl, who was Hollywood’s favorite brat, usually seen playing the heavy to Jackie Coogan and Jackie Cooper. However, No Greater Glory‘s failure was rooted less in its lack of star power than in its social context. Produced at the end of the Pre-code era, the film not only criticized combat, but challenged the values of American boyhood and, by extension, manhood: camaraderie among peers, loyalty, honor, and patriotism. As a result, the intended moral message was lost as critics found the film artistic, if not profitable, and the picture booted audiences from the bijous.

No Greater Glory opens with a montage from the anti-war Great War picture All Quiet on the Western Front (Universal, 1930), with doughboys crumbling in a No-Man’s Land of machine gun fire. Cut to a hysterical solider screaming, “They made me fight against my wishes . . . Patriotism is a lie!” Years later, a history teacher says otherwise, calmly informing his pupils that “there’s nothing finer than patriotism. Nothing finer than war in defense of the country we love.” (Figure 1, above) His all-male class ignores him, having already internalized the lesson as they pass notes to elect the president of their gang, the Paul Street Boys. The leader’s sole responsibility is to protect their turf, an abandoned lumberyard, from the Red Shirts, a group of older boys. The latter’s colored shirts are not seen on orthochromatic film, but more visible are the Paul Street Boys’ uniformed caps. All the members have one, save the youngest, Nemecsek (George Breakston). Without the headgear, he’s the sole private in an officer’s club and is reprimanded in a “black book” for everything that goes wrong.

In a near unanimous vote, the boys select Boka (Jimmie Butler) as President (Figure 2). Boka’s best friend, Gereb (Jackie Searl), is disappointed and turns traitor, allowing the Red Shirts’ leader, Feri Ats (Frankie Darro), to capture the Paul Street flag. Nemecsek tries to retrieve the flag and is waterlogged by the Red Shirts. Although he catches pneumonia, Nemecsek doesn’t waver; his loyalty is absolute. An impressed Feri Ats releases him with a full salute. The Paul Street Boys, also awed, buy Nemecsek a cap and expel Gereb from their ranks. When Feri Ats proposes an all-out brawl and Boka agrees. Shortly after, Gereb’s father intrudes and demands an explanation for his son’s expulsion, and Nemecsek covers for the turncoat. A determined Gereb returns, enlists as a private, and volunteers to man the front while Boka orders an ailing Nemecsek home. Nemecsek views his sick leave as desertion, returns to the battle underway, and dies. The last scene features both groups raising a flag as a memorial, but it is also a ceremony of last rites as bulldozers tear down the lumber yard to build an apartment complex.

Mustering the Troops

In the interwar years in which No Greater Glory was released, Hollywood, along with the rest of America, considered the Great War an anathema. Films readily showcased the shell-shocked aftermath of traumatized soldiers, ranging from disillusioned doughboys in The Big Parade (MGM, 1925) to ex-servicemen turning into fugitives from chain gangs, or veterans as forgotten men in Gold Diggers of 1933 (Warner Bros., 1933). Borzage himself was an anti-war monger, and used All Quiet on the Western Front as a background for the picture, updating Molnar’s 1907 novel to 1934 and links the lumberyard’s watchman as a decorated hero from that inglorious conflict.

Despite the antiwar cycle in motion pictures, one segment of the population still revered the call to arms: boys. For those too young to have witnessed the front lines, playing soldier was still an approved means for boys to develop social skills and group solidarity. In When a Feller Needs a Friend (MGM, 1932), the aptly nicknamed Limpy (Jackie Cooper) is physically unable to lead his gang over the top, and his peers shun him as an unworthy playmate. Writing for Boys Life, the Boy Scouts’ magazine, Myron M. Stearns confirmed that military schools of all sizes and costs were “designed to give boys during their formative years a set of valuable habits that will stand by them all through later life.”3 Furthermore, military schools were tailored to “likable boys who have become careless and undisciplined” but were not delinquents. Instead, military schools helped “in the formation of good habits of work and study and conduct at the right time.”4 Stearns shrewdly directs readers away from the battlefield, positing that “good habits of work and self-control” were important for civilian life. “All those things are military school habits, and well worth cultivating,” Stearns concludes. “If you can develop them by yourself, they’ll prove good friends all through your life.”5

American culture confirmed that military schools were appropriate environments for boys. In Percy Crosby’s Skippy, a 1929 novel based on his comic strip, the titular ten-year-old’s gang breaks up as their small town grows up. Nevertheless, one of Skippy’s pals takes comfort in being sent to an academy, describing his future attire as a means of fitting in: “Gee, ya oughta see it! It’s all blue, and the pants have wide stripes down ’em. An’ I have brass cross-guns on my collar, an’ brass buttons all the way down my coat. An’ think of it, I’m goin’ to live with hundreds of fellows!”6 The movie Skippy (Paramount, 1930) dropped the connection, although the sequel, Sooky (Paramount, 1931), reinforced the notion that military clothing makes the man. Despite the effects of war upon combatants, other films suggested that a military lifestyle was an appropriate model for the young. The Last Flight (Warner Bros., 1931) featured the aftermath of war with a band of grounded aviators suffering from battle fatigue; however, its predecessor, The Flying Fleet (MGM, 1929), highlighted the pact that would sustain the cadets through life: “Navy wings or . . . angel wings! The flying six!”

Hollywood catered to both boys and battle-weary vets, showcasing young sons fawning over idealized memories of missing-in-action fathers, only to find out that the “unknown soldier” dads are washouts (Square Shoulders, [Pathé, 1929]) or shell-shocked (Tom Brown of Culver [Universal, 1932]). The idealism of young boys could even remold the most cynical of veterans. In Square Shoulders, “Slag” Collins (Louis Wolheim) is a bitter war hero-turned-drifter who runs into his former superior officer and his son, Eddie (Philippe DeLacy). After witnessing Eddie defend himself against a gang of newsboys, Slag realizes that one of the newsies, Tad (Frank Coghlan, Jr.), is actually his son, and secretly sends Tad to Eddie’s military school (Figure 3). Tad is eager to go, mostly out of respect for his lost war-hero father, whose medal he proudly wears. The remaining running time chronicles Slag’s redemption: he teaches Tad how to blow taps, Tad straightens Slag’s stooped posture and squares his view of humanity. When Slag’s former gang threaten Tad, Slag takes a bullet. Tad repays Slag by burying him with military honors and his father’s medal.

Tom Brown of Culver employs the same theme, which an opening title card: “to the future defenders of our nation — in peace or in war — this picture is dedicated.” War orphan Tom Brown (Tom Brown, a happy coincidence) is selling his body as a punching bag for heavyweights in the boxing ring. When army officers spot the youngster’s Congressional Medal of Honor, given to his father killed in action, they award him with a scholarship to Culver Military Academy. Brown is reluctant; regarding the medal, he shrugs, “It don’t do me no good. They pay off in medals, but try to buy grub with one.” At Culver, Brown has a change of heart, thanks to his gung-ho bunkmate Robert Reynolds III (Richard Cromwell). The army helps as well: when Brown’s father turns up alive and AWOL, they forgive his desertion with an honorable discharge. A remake, The Spirit of Culver (Universal, 1939), was similarly dedicated “to our future citizens — our country’s youth. May they always be ready to protect with their hearts, minds, and bodies those things without which life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness cannot be maintained.” Set in the desperate year of 1932, the film opens with a newspaper headlining the plight of “Thousands of Juvenile Tramps Taking on the ‘Open Road.'” In the context of American economic and social instability, military schools were firm foundations on which to build American youths.

For boys in public schools, similar lessons were emphasized on and off campuses. According to one historian, high schools reinforced togetherness as a hallmark of growing up: “socialization, training for social cooperation, experience of group life, improvements in discipline, and training for leadership in a democracy.”7 Although No Greater Glory‘s characters attend public school, they mimic the activities of a military academy, as the boys practice guard duty, respond to bugle calls, and Boka drops the title of President for General when serving as Commander-in-Chief.

Casualties of War

No Greater Glory enthusiastically showcased these boyhood ethics. Ironically, the boys’ one-track adherence to arms cast ambiguity on Borzage’s moral message. One biographer asserts that the director focused on the “salvation of his characters . . . his concern is not with the external but with internal order.”8 In the climax, the boys witness Nemescek’s death, and the boy’s stricken mother carries him off with the teary-eyed youngsters following in a silent procession. However, after a fade-out, we see the boys performing a tribute to their fallen peer, casting doubt on the intended salvation of the boys’ internal order or Borzage’s exterior visuals. While the bulldozers mow down their fort, the lads gather for a military funeral on hallowed ground. With flags fluttering, the cast stoically stands at attention, with tears streaming down their stiff upper lips. Even with their country’s destruction, the boys reflect a military mentality, still in service to their country.

That the boys continued to be soldiers regardless of the cost left critics unsure as to what to make of the film. One exhibitor reported, “I could not make this picture click for me. It lacked something.” More blunt, Variety found the boy actors “unable to bring real appeal” and said that the “average mind [is] not attuned to the symbolic, [and] it puts a final touch of futility to what has seemed a rather senseless story.”9 The New York Times was befuddled, claiming that “there is a somewhat obscure suggestion of allegory in its theme,” but the vague hint of possible significance was elusive.10 Joseph Breen, soon to head the industry’s censorship regulatory body, was more clear-headed, assuring Harry Cohn that “the excellent work of the director and cast, as well as the fine message which the film carries, will win it the success at the box office which its outstanding qualities undoubtedly merit.”11 Julia Kelly, the secretary for Breen’s boss, Will Hays, wasn’t as enthusiastic, calling the boys “latent gangsters.”12

Kelly’s connecting the Paul Streeters with public enemies was a stretch. Nevertheless, her concern was rooted in a cycle of juvenile boy gang pictures. One year earlier, the book Our Movie Made Children, a study of the detrimental effects of motion pictures on impressionable youngsters, found a disturbing trend of little kids identifying with little Caesars on screen. The study concluded that the gangster cycle, contrary to studio assertions that their films were preventive measures against crime, influenced youngsters to emulate racketeers.13 Youth gangs were prominent in prison pictures such as Hell’s House (B. F. Zeidman, 1932) and The Mayor of Hell (Warner Bros., 1933), movies that cast delinquents into underworlds of miscarried justice.

Kelly’s fears aside, No Greater Glory had little juvenile misbehavior. The characters, as Molnar writes, were all “good boys” who studied their Latin, none were thugs; no laws were broken.14 More alarming were the first and final reels, with a World War I backdrop serving as a historic reference and the loss of comrade and kingdom in the final shot. The two bookmarked a cycle of militarism reflecting the generations of youths doomed to repeat Santayana’s famous axiom, itself a grim outlook for the film that had the working title “Men of Tomorrow.” In the novel, Boka explains trench warfare to his troops; in the film, the boys are well versed in such modern tactics. The lumberyard’s sorrowful warden, himself a war veteran, recognizes the senselessness of the conflict but is resigned to let fate run its course.

The other adults in the picture are similarly on the sidelines. Their history teacher praises patriotism, yet is uncomprehending when they enact his teachings. He orders the Paul Streeters to disband and vows to resolve their dispute through school channels; neither occurs. Gereb’s father is fooled when an ailing Nemecsek covers for his son’s duplicity; he is more concerned about keeping his good name intact. Nemecsek’s father promises to buy his son a military cap, but cannot afford one, and cannot fathom his son’s insistence on returning to the battlefield. Nemecsek’s mother manages to follow her son to his final moments, yet is too late to save him. Neither parent has a voice in the funeral arrangements when the boys bid farewell to their fellow officer.

With the grownups left out of the picture, the camera trails the boys. Variety’s adult sensibilities aside, the boys’ acting was purposefully exaggerated. One reviewer for the Motion Picture Herald understood the puerile perspective. “It’s only play-war — fought with fists, sandbags, and blunted spears — but it’s serious to these boys . . . [who,] unaware of war horrors, know and think of only the glories.”15 On their own, the juvenile cast exemplifies their concept of honor as they address each other by surnames only, puff their chests for inspection, and read World War I tactics. Only when the boys are “off duty” do they assume a relaxed pose. When visiting a sick Nemecsek, Boka smiles to comfort his friend; as President, his lips are curved in the other direction. The film’s enclosed lumberyard reflects the sanctum of the boys-only club: the one girl in Molnar’s original novel is dropped. In other pictures, camaraderie among boys trumps mingling with the opposite sex. In Square Shoulders, Tad and Eddie vie for the daughter of their academy’s commandant. Their efforts are in vain, since she dumps them when another cadet outspends them in ice cream. Nursing their broken hearts, Eddie and Tad head to the local movie house to “forget wimmin” and emerge as pals, sharing a banana. In Tom Brown in Culver and its remake, Reynolds is obsessed with a Hollywood actress: she turns out to be a cold fish, and leaves Reynolds high and dry (Figure 4).

Adult inattention, juxtaposed with puerile patriotism, produced a plethora of marketing methods reflecting the film’s mixed meanings. Photoplay’s edition of Molnar’s novel illustrates the various surface readings with a collage of stills. Readers see Nemecsek’s mother cradling her son’s body while in mourning. However, above the boy’s death hovers a vindication of the youngster’s sacrifice as he guards the Paul Street colors, illuminated by a dramatic sky (Figure 5). From the boy’s perspective, he did not die in vain. Even the Red Shirts warrant such glorification; Feri Ats and his band brandish swords in the name of a higher duty.

The Motion Picture Herald cautioned that the usual ballyhoo might not work for the film. No Greater Glory “is the type of picture that one should see before he attempts to sell it” because a “personal understanding of its values is most necessary.” The magazine added that “it has potentialities as a money-maker, yet because of the subject with which it deals and the way in which it treats that subject, specialized knowledge of it as well as experience with peculiar local likes and dislikes assumes an unusual importance.”16 Shortly before the film’s release, the magazine placed Borzage’s “microcosmic indictment of war” in a larger context, saying that “with the European pots boiling and some sections of American simmering, the picture has a real timelessness” and could take place “anywhere in the world, including any American community.” The Herald noted that “the picture is likely to prove as good as the showman makes it.”17

Early reports suggested that extra effort on the part of theater owners was lacking. “Not the type liked by our patronage,” one theater owner groused. “Women came out, eyes reddened by weeping. Men walked out calling it a kid picture.”18 “A good picture of its kind with a four-star rating but it did nothing at the box office,” another sighed.19 “This is the worst one from Columbia this year for us,” another harrumphed, after the success of It Happened One Night. “They rate it a special [with a higher rental price] but it is on our books as the lowest gross in several months.”20 At the Filmarte Theater in Los Angeles, the management recommended the film only to those “tired of sex dramas, racing movies, gang wars and other such movie plots.”21 One delayed the inevitable as long as possible, reporting, “Put this one on 10¢ night. Have been putting off running it as long as possible. Columbia sure made a lemon when they produced this. It doesn’t please 10 per cent of those that saw it.”22

Mehr als der Tod

No Greater Glory left a sour taste among the masses. However, some exhibitors found a niche for the film among the discriminating public. “Here is a show, if properly billed, [that] will make you money,” advised one. “Have your Boy Scouts or some other organization sponsor it, and it will please 95 per cent.”23 Youth groups, such as the Boy Scouts, who exemplified the kind of brothers-in-arms behavior critiqued in the film, could sell the picture with their seal of approval. “Get it in a day early and show it to the boy scouts, ministers, and some of the thinking parents, it will do business,” instructed another showman.24 At the end of its run, one exhibitor described his ploy for profits: “Played under the auspices of local PTA and they put it over for us. Properly sold, this picture will produce business. Wrong selling of this picture will result in total flop.”25

The Boy Scouts themselves are silent on the picture. Boys’ Life did not review the film, although some of the “thinking parents” endorsed Borzage’s cautionary tale and its critique of extreme patriotism. However, another reading spins the film in the opposite direction. The Paul Street Boys, after all, solider on until the end. This commitment to king and country is duplicated in other productions with the Boy Scouts as quasi-deputized agents of the state. In Tex Rides with the Boys Scouts (Grand National, 1937), the local chapter joins singing cowboy/lawman Tex Ritter to dispense frontier justice to sneaky desperadoes. In the serial Scouts to the Rescue (Universal, 1939), the local Scout troop is the epitome of American youth, saluting stock footage of President Roosevelt and battling counterfeiters and “savage Indian hordes.” Their eagle master is an undercover, gun-toting G-Man.

The ultimate service to the fatherland found favor with those demanding blind obedience to the state. In Germany, No Greater Glory played to full houses, with one newspaper commenting that the picture “could very well have been filmed in the New Germany,” with the young protagonists giving all to the fatherland.26 Indeed, fascist fanatics welcomed Nemescek’s undying loyalty as they did their own young Heinie Völker’s in Hitlerjunge Quex (UFA, 1933). Based on the unhappy story of Herbert Norkus, a lad murdered by communist thugs for distributing Nazi literature, Hitlerjunge Quex starred a sacrificial lamb, Heinie “Quex” Völker (Jürgen Ohlssen), who escapes the brainwashing of his communist father and the jazz baby femmes of the Communist Internationale who enjoy spanking parties. Overjoyed with the Hitler Youths’ snappy uniforms and marching songs, Quex gives his life for the state without hesitation. (Figure 6, below) The film ends with the theme “Unsere Fahne flattert uns voran,” with overlapping shots of fluttering flags leading the youngsters forward; hardly a farewell to arms. In Italy, No Greater Glory was awarded the National Fascist Party’s cup for the most artistically accomplished film. One newspaper stated the film was “too European to be understood by the average American who is not imbued with the militaristic spirit inculcated in the schoolroom,” while ignoring exhibitors who used Scouts to generate hullabaloo.27 The film’s “deeper significance” lay in “the struggle of nations to conserve or expand territories, and the mistaken patriotism and useless sacrifice of the soldiers engaged in the conflict.”28 More critical, one critic noted that “some commentators appear to believe that the film will leave spectators, especially child spectators, with the opposite impression.” Phillip Scheuer adds that “it is scarcely news that warfare generates excitement; that the warfare in No Greater Glory (for all it is mimic warfare) accomplishes precisely this, is certainly not to be denied.”29

Conclusion

After No Greater Glory‘s financial fiasco, no other military school-themed film criticized the glorification of preparing youngsters for battle, albeit in peacetime settings. In Borzage’s Flirtation Walk, released later that year (Warner Bros., 1934), a strict adherence to military tradition at West Point was observed by all, even song-and-dance men bucking family tradition. Transferring to another branch, Borzage’s Shipmates Forever (Warner Bros., 1935) shifts the scene to Annapolis, although the crooner, Dick Powell, is the same, as is the lesson learned. College-aged and kiddie films were not mutually exclusive: in Rosalie (MGM, 1937), Caisson cadets indoctrinate young Mickey (Tommy Bond) as their mascot. Mickey plays the role with gusto, fawning over the Army’s football quarterback and besieging the graduate for all of his gear as mementos, short of his underwear.

Military cadets continued to rally ’round the flag; snobbery may besiege the schools in some pictures, but the military institutions themselves remained pillars of idealized models of boyhood. In Dinky (Warner Bros., 1935), the academy houses stylish stuck-ups who thumb their noses at the orphans next door, but a football game settles the score by the final reel. In Lord Jeff (MGM, 1938), the pampered con artist (Freddie Bartholomew) is sent to a naval academy and learns that having calloused hands brings respect. When his former associates try to re-enlist him, Geoffrey snaps, “I’m a man now, and can stand to whatever comes.” In The Spirit of Culver, Jackie Cooper is tough guy Tom Allen, who eventually checks his attitude. When Allen’s dad surfaces as a deserter, the army happily forgives him with twelve years of back pension.

The outbreak of World War II led to a celebration of everyman Americana: combat films often comprised of cosmopolitan casts of characters giving all for Uncle Sam. The regiment as microcosm of melting-pot America reflected the group solidarity instilled into them as youths. Naval Academy (Columbia, 1941), Cadets on Parade (Columbia, 1942), and Junior Army (Columbia, 1942) all starred Freddie Bartholomew as the posh English outsider who is Americanized thanks to the rigors of ROTC. In seriousness or in satire, filmdom’s boys could not contain their passion for joining the front lines. In Hail the Conquering Hero (Paramount, 1944), writer/director Preston Sturges presented a farce about the home front’s disconnect with front-line realities. Among the snappy folks who lionize a secretly 4F hero, Sturges allows for the sincere admiration from the uniformed trumpeter from the local school band. German American Teddy Schultz (uncredited), hoping to be a marine before the war ends, asks the hero’s mother, “How many Nips did he get?” Before she can respond, Teddy uses his trumpet as a machine gun, mowing down an invisible enemy. Young Schultz’s pointed question concerned the non-Aryan Axis only, but racial roots aside, surely the youngster’s bellicose daydreams enlisted him among the ranks who found no greater glory than defending the American way.