Wooden Crosses

Wooden Crosses follows Gilbert Demachy, a law student who volunteers for the French army in 1914 out of patriotic conviction. Assigned to an infantry section in Champagne, he is taken under the wing of Sulphart, a bluff factory worker, and Corporal Breval, a former baker waiting in vain for word from his wife. The enthusiasm the recruits brought with them does not survive contact with the trenches, where the fighting drags on and the wooden crosses of the title multiply for the men sent forward as cannon fodder. Sources differ on whether the story opens in 1914 or 1915; what they share is the gradual erosion of Demachy's idealism.

Raymond Bernard directed and co-wrote the film with André Lang, working from Roland Dorgelès's novel. It was the first of the two features listed for Bernard, made before his 1934 Les Misérables. Pierre Blanchar plays Demachy, with Gabriel Gabrio as Sulphart, Charles Vanel as Breval and Antonin Artaud, Paul Azaïs and René Bergeron among the soldiers of the section. Pathé-Natan produced the film in France.

The film runs 110 minutes. On IMDb it holds a rating of 7.7 from around 1,900 votes, while on TMDB its rating is 7.1 from a much smaller base of 53 votes; the narrower sample there is likely to make that figure less settled than the larger one.