The Conquerors

Take heart, Depression-era America: the nation has faced dire economic crises in years past and with pluck, honest work and persistence has pulled itself aright. The Conquerors combines its morale-boosting message with a tale of one family's lives and times, misfortunes and fortunes from 1873 to 1930. Richard Dix, star of the prior year's sprawling Cimarron, plays dual roles as smalltown banker Roger Standish and his grandson (in a filmmaking virtuosity rare for the era, the two share the final sequence). The passage of time and events is conveyed in acclaimed montages by Slavko Vorkapich, whose masterly visual compressions also grace David Copperfield, The Good Earth and other classics.