Four Horsemen Squared

The silent version of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse is in the opinion of the cool cat the best anti-war film ever made. Anti-war films generally are too preachy, a sin a silent film cannot commit.

Based upon Ibanez's novel of the same name, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse shows  in the microcosm of a single family the devastation war wreaks on nations. Madariaga, the richest man in Argentina, has two daughters. One is married to a German national;; the other to Frenchman, Marcel Desnoyers. When Madariaga dies, he does not leave his estate and vast fortune to his favored grandson, Julio Desnoyers, as promised, but rather to his two daughters. The product of Madariaga's lifetime of work, is sold. Now incredibly wealthy, both families return to the respective countries of the daughters' husbands, the German and his wife and three sons to Germany; the Desnoyers to France. One wonders why Madariaga never realized his sons-in-law were not committed to Argentina.

When World War I erupts, the German cousins join the German Army. Julio, a libertine like his grandfather, remains neutral like Argentina. But soon Paris isn't so gay anymore and the horrors of war infringe. His lover's husband is blinded in the fighting and her conscience demands that she return to him to take care of him. Julio enlists in the French Army, and in the end, he and his German cousin kill each other in the trenches, his other two cousins having already predeceased them. Madariaga's family is devastated as are their respective nations.

The silent film made Rudolph Valentino a superstar, and after seeing the 1962 remake starring Glenn Ford, there is no question why. Casting is everything, and Valentino was perfectly cast as Julio Desnoyers. In the cabaret scenes, he looked like he definitely belonged there. Ford looked as out of place as a visiting preacher. He was too old for the part and never was quite believable as a playboy whose only goal in life was the pursuit of personal pleasure and sexual conquest.

The remake moved the time to the Second World War, and though it followed the general plot of the silent film, fell into the trap of making the Nazis the focus and not war itself. In the end, all of Madariaga's grandchildren are dead, but the tragedy is lost because the movie became an anti-Nazi film not an anti-war film. Even the four horsemen don't seem so bad when compared to  Hitler's Third Reich.

The modern film had the advantage of dialogue, filming on location, improved camera techniques and incredible special effects, but unlike the silent version, lacked soul and vision. And, of course, Rudolph Valentino.