The saga of Tom Holmes - a man of principles - from the Great War to the Great Depression. Will he ever get a break? His war heroics earn fame and a medal for someone else, and his wounds result in a morphine addiction that costs him a job, his reputation in his home town, and months in a clinic. He goes to Chicago, where he's enterprising and dedicated to his work and his fellow workers, but an invention he champions results in the opposite of his intentions, leading to loss... (Full plot summary below)
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The saga of Tom Holmes - a man of principles - from the Great War to the Great Depression. Will he ever get a break? His war heroics earn fame and a medal for someone else, and his wounds result in a morphine addiction that costs him a job, his reputation in his home town, and months in a clinic. He goes to Chicago, where he's enterprising and dedicated to his work and his fellow workers, but an invention he champions results in the opposite of his intentions, leading to loss of life and an unjust imprisonment. After release, during the Depression, he must face local "red squads" and vigilante groups jousting out jobless men. Will anyone see his true heroic character?
Leave your thoughts about Heroes for Sale.
| Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)John BeifussAn astonishment: a no-punches-pulled social history of America from World War I to 1933 that covers trench warfare, drug addiction, Communism, automation, labor riots, false imprisonment, xenophobia, bread lines and more. |
| Ozus' World Movie ReviewsDennis SchwartzA satisfactory but vexing populist social conscience film from the Depression-era. |
| New York TimesFrank S. NugentMany a mystery is less bewildering than Heroes for Sale, which was not intended as a puzzler at all. |
| User ReviewVeronique KLoretta Young shows her star power and acting chops. |
| User ReviewMJS MA crushing film. I guess I'm just a huge sucked for movies like this, but it's just beautiful. Heartbreaking and hopeful at the same time, and a great example of exactly how powerful pre-code films could be. |
| User ReviewZoran SBrilliant and often bleak social-satire from William A. Wellman. (Even the communist becomes a capitalist big with fascist impulses). It might be a bit confused in the end but this pungent stuff. |
| User ReviewJohn KWithin its 71-minute time frame, this film (co-written by "professional cynic" Wilson Mizner) tackles such issues as disenfranchised war veterans, misguided hero worship, drug addiction, the Depression, capitalism, labor relations and communism. |
| User ReviewDaniel K3: The film is not particularly well written or structured, but the ending more than makes up for this. I couldn't really figure out where it was heading for the longest time, but this was mainly because I wasn't actively considering the social conditions surrounding the creation of the film. In the end both the rich man that was given everything on a silver platter and the poor man for whom everything was a struggle end up with nothing, as was the case with many during the Great Depression. The message is all about giving rather than taking and the rehabilitation of the American dream via the policies of FDR. It is actually quite effective, especially since I didn't see it coming. I can see why pictures made under the code largely failed to discuss topics like this, at least in such an overt and obvious manner. I suspect it wouldn't always be good for business, nor fit in with the rigid puritanical notions of those controlling the code. |
| User ReviewPrivate UOn one hand, it's a movie showing just what was wrong with America during the Depression, focusing on a morphine-addicted WWI veteran. On the other hand, it's about a guy who might just be the unluckiest person alive. It's got an ambiguous downer of an ending, naturally, since it was filmed when the Depression was at its worst. The suspicion and criticism towards both radicals and workers and the police is interesting, but the soap opera just gets in the way of the message. The death of a major character is shocking, and is probably the saddest part of the film. |
