Heroes For Sale (1933)

During WWI, a soldier (Richard Barthelmess) captures a German but is shot. His cowardly friend (Gordon Westcott) leaves him for dead and gets a medal for bravery for capturing the German while Barthelmess gets addicted to morphine in a German hospital and returns home a drug addict. Thus begins Barthelmess's nightmarish journey in an unforgiving America where the good suffer while the bad profit. This William Wellman film has a lot in common with another depression era drama, I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG from the year before. While both are bleak and neither have conventional happy endings, there is still a glimmer of hope in HEROES that is lacking in FUGITIVE. The film takes an interesting if ironic look at the role of communism as well as fear of "reds" in the depression era, most notably in the radical anti-capitalist played by Robert Barrat who betrays his beliefs when he becomes rich. With Loretta Young, Aline MacMahon and Grant Mitchell.