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Online versions of the Goldenrod Handouts have color images & hot links August 28, 2018 (XXXVII:1) http://csac.buffalo.edu/goldenrodhandouts.html , (1925, 151 min)

DIRECTED BY King Vidor, George W. Hill (uncredited) WRITTEN BY (story), Harry Behn (scenario), Joseph Farnham (titles) (as Joseph W. Farnham), Laurence Stallings (screenplay) (uncredited), King Vidor (uncredited) PRODUCED BY (1988 Turner print), Gill (1988 Turner print), (uncredited), King Vidor (uncredited) CINEMATOGRAPHY John Arnold (photography), Charles Van Enger (uncredited) FILM EDITOR Hugh Wynn VISUAL EFFECTS Max Fabian (uncredited) STUNTS Allen Pomeroy

Selected for by the National Board, 1992

CAST ...James Apperson Renée Adorée...Melisande (as Renée Adorée) Before releasing Peg ‘o My Heart in 1922 and securing Hobart Bosworth...Mr. Apperson a contract with Goldwyn Studios, Vidor would direct films such Claire McDowell...Mrs. Apperson as The Jack-Knife Man (1920), Love Never Dies (1921), The Sky Claire Adams...Justyn Reed Pilot (1921), Real Adventure (1922), (1922), and Robert Ober...Harry (1922). The success of The Big Parade Tom O'Brien...Bull (1925) would establish Vidor as one of the premier directors at ...Slim the newly-formed MGM. Building up to his career-defining work Rosita Marstini...French Mother in The Big Parade, Vidor would direct Happiness (1924) and Proud Flesh (1925). The latter half of the would see such KING VIDOR (b. King Wallis Vidor, 8 February 1894, films as La Bohème (1926), The Crowd (1928), The Patsy Galveston, TX, U.S.A.—d. 1 November 1982, Paso Robles, CA, (1928), and Hallelujah (1929), his first . He is U.S.A.) was primarily a film director who also ventured into nominated for Best Director Oscars for The Crowd and screenwriting and production. He directed 78 films, beginning Hallelujah. with The Grand Military Parade and , After spending the first half of the 1930s directing such both released in 1913. In 1918, he began directing shorts for a films as (1930), Billy the Kid (1930), discredited juvenile court judge who had gone into producing (1931), Bird of Paradise (1932), Cynara (1932), and The films in a moral crusade to address problems faced by young Stranger's Return (1933), Vidor would return to the world he boys. Films in this series include Love of Bob, Thief or Angel, directed in his silent classic The Crowd (1928) with Our Daily The Accusing Toe, and Bud's Recruit, all released in 1918. In Bread (1934). At this time, he is, once again, nominated for Best 1919, he would direct, develop the story, and write the Director Oscars for The Champ (1931). After directing The screenplay for his first feature . 1919 would Wedding Night (1935), So Red the Rose (1935), The Texas also see the release of and Better Times. Vidor—THE BIG PARADE—2

Rangers (1936), Stella Dallas (1937), he is, again, nominated for the Kid (1930), The Champ (1931), Bird of Paradise (1932), Our the Best Director Oscar for The Citadel (1938). Daily Bread (1934), The Texas Rangers (1936), It would be over fifteen years before being nominated (1940), H.M. Pulham, Esq. (1941), and for a final time for the Best Director Oscar for 1956’s War and (1944). He continued producing films into the 1950s, such as an Peace adaptation. He would spend the intervening time directing early film, (1952). He produced such films as Northwest the final film he directed, 1980’s short documentary The Passage (1940), Comrade Metaphor. X (1940), H.M. Pulham, Esq. (1941), Duel in the GEORGE W. HILL (b. 25 April 1895, Douglas, , Sun (1946), The U.S.—d. 10 August 1934, Venice, CA, U.S.), at age 13, began Fountainhead (1949), and his film career as a stagehand for D. W. Griffith. He progressed (1949) into cinematography, noted for his skill in lighting female stars. in the 1940s. In addition After doing cinematography for 23 films throughout the 1910s, to his Oscar-nominated Will had moved into directing. He began directing films such as turn in , he While the Devil Laughs (1921), The Midnight Express (1924), would direct such films as (1924), and The Limited Mail (1925). He was Lightning Strikes Twice recognized for these early directorial efforts by MGM and began (1951), Japanese War directing exclusively for the company as it secured dominance in Bride (1952), Ruby the latter 1920s and the 1930s. While at MGM, he had an Gentry (1952), Light's uncredited role in co-directing King Vidor’s The Big Parade Diamond Jubilee (a 1954 (1925). Before death of apparent suicide in 1934, Hill had spent TV Movie documentary), nearly a decade directing such works as The Barrier (1926), Tell (1955), and and Sheba (1959) in It to the Marines (1926), (1930), The Secret 6 the 1950s. He would finally win an Oscar in the form of an (1931), Révolte dans la prison (1931), (1931), and, Honorary Award recognizing “his incomparable achievements as finally, Clear All Wires! (1933). a cinematic creator and innovator” in 1979, the year before he would release his final directorial outing, a documentary short about American painter , The Metaphor (1980). In lieu and in support of his primary directorial efforts, Vidor is credited with involvement in different stages of the writing process for 28 films. Moving to Hollywood in 1915, before making his feature directorial debut in 1919, Vidor took on work as a screenwriter and director of shorts. In 1916 and 1917 he developed the story for two shorts When It Rains, It Pours! and A Bad Little Good Man, respectively. In 1918, he developed the story for the short The Pursuing Package. In 1919, he developed the story and wrote the screenplay for his first feature as a director, The Turn in the Road. In the 1920s, he was active in the writing process. For example, he adapted Love Never Dies (1921), wrote Three Wise Fools (1923), came up with the titles for (1924), had an uncredited contribution to The Big Parade (1925), wrote the screenplay and developed the story for The Crowd (1928), and developed the story for Hallelujah (1929). In the 1930s and 1940s, he would remain at times involved in the writing process. For instance, he had an uncredited writing contribution to Susan Lenox (1931), he developed the stories for Our Daily Bread (1934) and The Texas KEVIN BROWNLOW (b. 2 June 1938, Crowborough, Sussex, Rangers (1936), and wrote the screenplay for H.M. Pulham, Esq. England) has spent most of his career documenting and restoring (1941) and Streets of Laredo (1949). He significantly earned his film, rescuing many silent films and their history. He broke final Oscar nomination for his adaptation of ’s tome ground in preserving the legacy of early cinema in the 1960s and War and Peace (1956). 1970s by interviewing many then largely forgotten film pioneers. Vidor also spent a significant portion of his career He was the first film preservationist honored by the Academy of producing 23 films. He was very active in production in the Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, receiving an Academy 1920s, producing such films as (1920), The Honorary Award in 2010. He has produced 24 films and film Jack-Knife Man (1920), Love Never Dies (1921), Real Adventure restoration projects. His production work includes It Happened (1922), Dusk to Dawn (1922), Conquering the Woman (1922), Here (1965), Winstanley (1975), Hollywood (1980), a TV Mini- Alice Adams (1923), (1924), The Big Parade Series documentary, two episodes of the TV Series documentary (1925), The Patsy (1928), (1928), and Hallelujah American Masters (1989-1993), the TV Mini-Series (1929). In the 1930s and 1940s, he remained active in documentary Cinema Europe: The Other Hollywood (1995), and, production, producing such films as Not So Dumb (1930), Billy most recently, Letters from Baghdad (2016, consulting Vidor—THE BIG PARADE—3 producer). His production work in film restoration has focused Heidelberg (1927) and The Crowd (1928); The Broadway on films from the 1920s, such as his 1987 restoration of Fred Melody, The Trial of Mary Dugan, The , Niblo’s Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925), a 1988 restoration Hallelujah, , and The Kiss in 1929; Anna of King Vidor’s The Big Parade (1925), the 1986 restoration of Christie, Billy the Kid, and The Big House in 1930; Trader Horn, ’s Greed (1924), an adaptation of the Frank The Champ, Private Lives, and Mata Hari in 1931; Freaks, Norris’s novel McTeague. Perhaps his major restoration project Tarzan the Ape Man, Grand Hotel, Red-Headed Woman, Strange has been ’s Napoleon (1926), which was first Interlude, Red Dust, and in 1932; exhibited in 1980. He’s continued working on it ever since. Annie and Eskimo in 1933; The Barretts of Wimpole He has also directed 19 documentaries, including Ascot, Street, The Merry Widow, What Every Woman Knows in 1934; A a Race Against Time (1961, documentary short) Nine, Dalmuir Night at the Opera and Mutiny on the Bounty in 1935; Romeo West (1962, documentary short) (1965), Abel and Juliet and Camille in 1936; The Good Earth and A Day at Gance: The Charm of Dynamite (1968), Winstanley (1975), the Races in 1937. The final film he produced, Marie Antoinette Hollywood (1980, TV Mini-Series documentary), Unknown (1938), was released two years after his death from pneumonia in Chaplin (1983, TV Mini-Series documentary, 1 episode), Millay 1936. at Steepletop (1983, Short documentary), : A Hard Act to Follow (1987, TV Mini-Series documentary), American JOHN ARNOLD (b. 16 November 1889, , NY, Masters (1993, TV Series documentary, 1 episode), Cinema U.S.—d. 11 January 1964, Palm Springs, CA, U.S.) was chosen Europe: The Other Hollywood (1995, TV Mini-Series by the newly-established MGM studios to head their camera documentary), Universal Horror (1998, TV Movie department because of his work on The Big Parade (1925). He documentary), : A Thousand Faces (2000, TV Movie was cinematographer for 92 films, some of which are: Springtime documentary), The Tramp and the Dictator (2002) Cecil B. (1914) and Children of Eve (1915); Rosie O'Grady and The Girl DeMille: American Epic (2004, TV Movie documentary), So Without a Soul in 1917; A Weaver of Dreams (1918) and The Funny It Hurt: Buster Keaton & MGM (2004, TV Movie Parisian Tigress (1919); Dangerous to Men, The Chorus Girl’s documentary), Garbo (2005), I'm !: The Exploits of Romance, Blackmail and Cinderella’s Twin in 1920; The Off- Merian C. Cooper (2005), Lennons Winstanley (2015, re-edit of Shore Pirate and The Match-Breaker in 1921; The Like ‘Em Bronlow’s 1975 documentary). Rough (1922); The Fog and Crinoline and Romance in 1923; Don’t Doubt Your Husband and So This Is Marriage? in 1924; Dance Madness, The Auction Block, and in 1926; The Understanding Heart and Heaven on Earth in 1927; Rose-Marie and Detectives in 1928; (photographed by) and The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (photography) in 1929. From 1931 to 1936, he was the president of the American Society of Cinematographers. He won two Oscars for Technical Achievement in 1938 and 1940.

JOHN GILBERT (b. John Cecil Pringle, July 10, 1899, Logan, UT, U.S.—d. January 9, 1936, Bel Air, CA, U.S.), born to stock- company parents, built his career as a film actor by filling different acting, writing, and directing duties in the 1910s before landing a three-year contract at Corporation where he assumed the role of in 1921. In 1924, he joined MGM to fully realize his potential as a popular leading man. Rivaling , he was deemed “The Great Lover.” IRVING THALBERG (b. 30 May1899, , NY, U.S.— He acted in 100 films, some of which are: The Sin Ye Do (1916); d. 14 September 1936, Santa Monica, CA, U.S.) began working The Weaker Sex, The Millionaire Vagrant, and The Devil Dodger for the New York office in the 1910s. After in 1917; The Mask (1918), Shame (1921); Arabian Love, The Universal president and founder Carl Laemmie had temporarily Yellow Stain, Honor First, Monte Cristo, and The Love Gambler given Thalberg authority to manage the production in 1922; The Wolf Man (1923); A Man’s Mate and He Who Gets facility, Thalberg suggested the need for Laemmie to create and Slapped in 1924; The Merry Widow, The Big Parade, and Ben- fill a new position, “production manager,” to which Laemmie Hur: A Tale of the Christ in 1925; La Bohème and Flesh and the agreed and promptly informed Thalberg: “All right. You’re it.” Devil in 1926; Man, Woman and Sin and Love in 1927; Show His youth led columnist to dub him “Universal’s People, The Masks of the Devil, and in 1928; Boy Wonder.” He would go on to work for Louis B. Mayer’s , The Hollywood Revue of 1929, and His Glorious studio in 1922 and, after Mayer became part of MGM, would be Night in 1929; Gentleman’s Fate, The Phantom of Paris, and instrumental in establishing MGM’s dominance in the 1920s and West of Broadway in 1931; Downstairs (1932), Queen Christina 1930s. In this timespan, he produced 89 films. He produced such (1933), and The Captain Hates the Sea (1934). films as Reputation (1921) The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), and Greed (1924); The Merry Widow, The Big Parade, RENEE ADOREE (b. Jeanne de la Fonte, 30 September 1898, and Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ in 1925; La Bohème, Brown of Lille, Nord, France—d. 5 October 1933, Tujunga, CA, U.S.), the Harvard, in 1926; The Student Prince in Old daughter of circus artists, Adorée got her start touring with minor Vidor—THE BIG PARADE—4 stage productions throughout Europe before the breakout of Professor's Wooing (Short), The Polo Substitute (Short), A . She emigrated to New York in 1919 and was cast Messenger to Kearney (Short), A Messenger to Kearney (Short), as a dancer in a traveling vaudeville-inspired production, Oh, In the Tents of the Asra (Short), Land Sharks vs. Sea Dogs Uncle and then was cast in her first film The Strongest, a 1920 (Short), The Trade Gun Bullet (Short), The Pirate's Daughter dramatic written by France’s then prime minister, (Short), Monte Cristo (Short), Getting Atmosphere (Short), The Georges Clemenceau. She acted in 42 films, some of which are: Fisherboy's Faith (Short), Atala (Short), Miss Aubry's Love 500 Pounds Reward (1918); A Self-Made Man and Monte Cristo Affair (Short), The Vintage of Fate (Short), The Girl of the in 1922; Defying the Law and The Bandolero in 1924, Parisian Mountains (Short), Harbor Island (Short), and Arthur Preston Nights, Exchange of Wives, and The Big Parade in 1925; La Hankins (Short). At this point, his career shifts to feature-length Bohème, Exquisite Sinner, films, such as: The Sea Wolf and Tin Gods in 1926; (1913) and Martin Eden (1914); Heaven on Earth, Mr. Wu, The Iron Hand, The Way of the and Back to God’s Country in World, Oliver Twist, and Joan the 1927; The Cossacks, The Woman in 1916; 1920 Below the Michigan Kid, The Mating Surface (1920) and Vanity Fair Call, and Show People in (1923); Bread and Sundown in 1928. Her final two films 1924; The Big Parade and The Redemption and Call of the Golden Strain in 1925; Annie Flesh were released the same Laurie and The Blood Ship in year (1930) she would be 1927; The Smart Set and Sawdust diagnosed with tuberculosis Paradise in 1928; King of the that would take her life three Mountain (1929), Abraham years later. Lincoln (1930), and Dirigible (1931); No Greater Love and HOBART BOSWORTH (b. Million Dollar Legs in 1932; August 11, 1867, Marietta, Together We Live, The Crusades, OH, U.S.—d. December 30, and Steamboat Round the Bend in 1943, Glendale, CA, U.S.) took his first film acting gig in 1908 1935; The Dark Hour (1936) and King of the Sierras (1938); for the -based , which he and The Died with Their Boots on in 1941; convinced to move operations to Los Angeles, earning him credit , Bullet Scars, I Was Framed, Escape from from some as the first film star of the West Coast. His pioneering Crime, The Gay Sisters, and Sin Town in 1942. He also directed role earned him the honorific the “Dean of Hollywood.” In 1913, 59 films and was a writer for 41 films. he started his own company, Hobart Bosworth Productions Company, which produced a series of Jack adaptations. TOM O’BRIEN (b. July 25, 1890, San Diego, CA, USA—d. Between 1913 and 1921 Hobart Bosworth Productions produced June 8, 1947, Los Angeles, CA, USA) was primarily a comic a total of 31 pictures, most of which starred Bosworth. In the actor cast as a stereotypical Irishman. He acted in 85 films, some 1920s and 1930s, Bosworth began acting in a mix of secondary of which are: McCarn Plays Fate (Short) and Granny (Short) in roles in films helmed by leading figures like King Vidor, 1914; Their Mutual Child (1921) and The Gentleman from , and and primary roles in “B” America (1923); Wives, Never Say Die, and So This Is westerns and serials. In total, he acted in a stunning 293 films, Marriage? in 1924; Winning a Woman, White Fang, Crack o’ some of which are: The Count of Monte Cristo (Short), Dr. Jekyll Dawn, and The Big Parade in 1925; The Frontiersman, The and Mr. Hyde (Short), Rip Van Winkle (Short), and On Private Life of Helen of Troy, and That’s My Daddy in 1927; The Thanksgiving Day (Short) in 1908; The Tenderfoot (Short) and Official Scandal and Untamed in 1929; Moby Dick and Midnight Boots and Saddles (Short) in 1909; In the Frozen North (Short), Special in 1930; Hell-Bent for Frisco and The Phantom in 1931; The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Short), The Common Enemy The Phantom Express (1932); The Woman Condemned and The (Short), and (Short) in 1910; A Frontier Girl's Murder in the Museum in 1934. Courage (Short) and A Modern Rip (Short) in 1911. Bosworth’s acting output was notably prolific in 1912, the year before he KARL DANE (b. Rasmus Karl Therkelsen Gottlieb, 12 October began his own production company, appearing in films such as: 1886, , —d. 14 April 1934, Los Angeles, The Mate of the Alden Bessie (Short), The Other Fellow (Short), , U.S.) acted in 53 films, some of which are: My Four Merely a Millionaire (Short), The Test (Short), Bunkie (Short), Years in Germany and The Triumph of Venus in 1918; The Disillusioned (Short), The Danites (Short), A Cowboy Damon Whirlwind (1920); The Everlasting Whisper, The Big Parade, and Pythias (Short), As Told by Princess Bess (Short), The Lights of Old Broadway, and His Secretary in 1925; La Bohème, Shrinking Rawhide (Short), A Crucial Test (Short), The Girl of Monte Carlo, , The Scarlet Letter, and the Lighthouse (Short), The Junior Officer (Short), The Hobo in 1926; Show People and Alias Jimmy (Short), Tenderfoot Bob's Regeneration (Short), Darkfeather's Valentine in 1928; and Navy Blues in 1929; Strategy (Short), The End of the Romance (Short), The Hand of The Big House, Billy the Kid, and A Lady’s Morals in 1930; The Fate (Short), The Price He Paid (Short), The Love of an Island Whispering Shadow (1933). Maid (Short), Rivals (Short), A Child of the Wilderness (Short), A Reconstructed Rebel (Short), The Vision Beautiful (Short), The Vidor—THE BIG PARADE—5

situational…. The individualism of the film is sketched in the positive attributes of friendship and democratic solidarity. Transferred to the emotional level of the viewer, these become the admirable qualities of loyalty, devotion, and dedication to service. Here patriotic impulse overcomes the horrors of war, not vice versa. (4)

I disagree with the last sentence and argue instead that the film contains several ambivalent sequences that neither affirms a pro-war nor anti-war stance but question whether the role of agency, always ideologically promoted in a Hollywood film, can actually exist within a complex 20th century society. A choice may be made which a character thinks is due to individual choice but such choices are often socially determined. Stella Dallas may bask in the joys of a mother after seeing her daughter Tony Williams: “The Big Parade” (Senses of Cinema, married but she is still an outcast removed from the society that Septembeer 2013) (See the version online at SoS for the has accepted her daughter and rejected her. Such issues notes: http://sensesofcinema.com/assets/uploads/2013/09/The- concerned Vidor from the beginning to the end of his career as Big-Parade1.jpg ) films like The Crowd (1928), Hallelujah (1929), Billy the Kid (1930), The Champ (1931), Our Daily Bread (1934), Stella Viewing The Big Parade 88 years after its initial Dallas (1937), Northwest Passage (Book I – Rogers’ Rangers) release, and 25 years following its inclusion in my upper-level (1940), H. M. Pulham, Esq. (1941), Duel in the Sun (1946), course on the , elicited complex feelings. On the one Beyond the Forest (1949), Ruby Gentry (1952), and War and hand, although the film still stands as a great achievement of Peace (1956) show in various ways. The Big Parade is the first classical Hollywood silent cinema, it, like many others, has of his major films to confront such issues and its happy ending is become dated by the inclusion of elements that were once fresh as ambivalent as those concluding The Crowd, Stella Dallas, and but have since appeared in so many other war films. Take, for especially War and Peace – an appropriate Vidor filmic example, its use of the bildungsroman of the young man going to adaptation whose seemingly positive conclusion cannot banish war and returning home more experienced, a form that so many from the spectator’s mind those dominating historical forces that successive films, such as The Red Badge of Courage (John affect its Russian characters as much as its American ones, Huston, 1951) and Platoon (Oliver Stone, 1986), have followed. though in a different era. Certain sequences in The Big Parade The sudden change from comedy to carnage also links The Big reveal the early presence of telling contradictions that Vidor Parade to the narrative reversal of works such as The Dirty would later develop in his cinematic depictions of 20th century Dozen (, 1968). However, other features still American society, contradictions not just confined to his version genuinely affected me such as the clockwork mechanical of the World War I combat film. The film begins by introducing movements of the doughboys marching towards a retreating its three main characters separated from each other by cinematic camera in the Belleau Wood sequence (1), revealing the new face space and class barriers in an America “occupied in peaceful of 20th century warfare as akin to an industrial machine; the progression”, an ideologically loaded phrase as any reader of anguished cries of Jim (John Gilbert) as one of his friends American history and Kevin Brownlow’s cinematic study of this perishes on a deadly mission in the trenches and his touching era well knows (5). Slim (Karl Dane) may be a yeoman of reunion with his sweetheart at the end – all filmed in a manner industry who puts aside his rivet gun to pick up another weapon free from the overtly manipulative techniques of such directors when the war siren summons – as Bull will stop wiping his glass as Hitchcock and Spielberg. The Big Parade is actually complex in a Bowery bar – but like the character of Jim, he heeds his and contradictory. Filmed seven years after the war when country’s call to arms like a clock wound up to beat a new time memories of the conflict were still fresh in the minds of its sequence by the invisible hand of ideology. Even slacker Jim, contemporary audiences, The Big Parade is definitely not a pro- who resembles George Minafer in The Magnificent Ambersons war film but neither is it as anti-war as its director once thought (, 1942), responds to the call of duty stimulated first (2). by his upper-class sweetheart, who will never see him in the As Michael Isenberg has pointed out, the film neither officer’s uniform she desires, as well as his chums in the first of applauded the war effort nor indicted American war policy. the film’s various big parades. As the band plays on, Jim taps his Instead, it moulds the director’s humanistic concerns to the left foot responding to the rhythm on a leg he will later lose, salesmanship techniques of Irving Thalberg – responsible for before rushing to join his peer group “over there”. Notably, no developing the hero’s family background as well as the romantic attention is given either to the actuality of the war or its causes: themes (3). Isenberg defined the complex structure of The Big only mindless conformist pressure. Jim acts one-dimensionally Parade in the following fashion: because he is an American (though not necessarily motivated patriotically). A touching family sequence before Jim will do his The themes of nationalism, honor, duty, and egalitarian heroism “bit” (as expressed by his father played by Hobart Bosworth) are all common to the war-adventure genre. Plots threaded with concludes with a mid-shot of the father beaming with pride on them cannot make a coherent antiwar or pacifist statement, since the left-hand-side of the screen as Jim and his mother embrace on the focus of such themes is individualistic rather than the centre and right. When the non-prodigal son returns minus Vidor—THE BIG PARADE—6 his left leg, the father will be on the right-hand-side of the screen recognition by Vidor of his hero’s desire to frag those in the rear with a mournful expression on his face. Jim, again, has not really with the gear. He soon loses Bull in a battle scene giving the lie matched his expectations. The Big Parade is full of such to his earlier comment, “This ain’t such a bad war”. Wounded in meaningful resonances, and it is important to recognise them his leg and discovering that a more seriously wounded German when they appear. Vidor may have later disliked such scenes but soldier is as much a victim as himself, Jim cheers doughboys on Brownlow is correct in stating that the director underestimates in the penultimate big parade of the film, one he cannot join in. them and is actually “reaching his emotional high point here” (6). The last big parade is the procession of ambulances Jim’s sweetheart Justyn (Claire Adams) eventually removing the survivors to hospitals. When Jim awakes he sees a reveals that gentlewomen prefer deferred slacker brothers and not traumatised soldier strapped to his bed suffering badly from what returning veterans who are neither officers nor gentlemen was then called “shell shock”, a condition that (“You’ll look gorgeous in an officer’s uniform. I’ll love you all attempted to depict in his later war documentary Let There be the more then.”) Jim’s Light (1946) before it was mother may want to spare banned from public display her household later outbursts by the authorities. like that of Tom Cruise’s Obviously, that soldier Ron Kovic in Born on the represents Jim’s real Fourth of July (Oliver Stone, condition, one that the film 1989), diplomatically suppresses by contrasting it performing her own form of with the figure of the lucid anger management by soldier near Jim’s own bed. sending him back to France Vidor may need to repress despite what she says: “Then the implications of Jim’s you must find her. Nothing real condition but allows the else matters.” Was Vidor repressed to return in this satirically sentimentalising doubled figure (8). MGM the “Dear John” syndrome thus supplies a “happy for an unaware MGM? ending” for Jim and the If no atheists spectator. He supposedly supposedly exist in foxholes finds peace in Vidor’s neither do class barriers in many war movies. Slim and Bull version of “the stuff that dreams are made of”, the dialogue welcome Jim as one of their own as they march and perform featured on a titlecard that foreshadows the final ironic line of chores to the “titled” musical accompaniment of the perennial The Maltese Falcon (John Huston, 1941). But like the black bird “You’re in the Army now”, a song that will also feature on the of that later film it is not the real thing and no substitute for the soundtrack of The Dirty Dozen before things get really serious grim actuality of postwar trauma. over forty years later. Humour abounds as Slim and Bull perform However, Timothy Barnard notes that Jim’s return is their own version of a Quirt and Flagg routine from What Price also rhythmically different from that earlier metronomic bloody Glory (, 1926), and Jim finds a more pure version of ballet of death in Belleau Wood since it may act as a Charmaine in Melisande. But all good things will come to an end counterpoint to that deterministic patriotic motion that eventually – especially in a war film – as Jim leaves Melisande alone in that led to destruction. A veteran’s disabled body becomes “tied to famous desolate long shot after tossing her his dog tags, watch new postwar hopes represented as individualistic, and extra boot, an object that Isenberg correctly sees as “a transcendentally different and ultimately redeemed” (9). I would symbol of [Jim] Apperson’s forthcoming injury” (7). Never add that Jim also returns to an agrarian France bearing no underestimate the power of Hollywood symbolism nor the fact resemblance to the urban America of the opening scenes of that the boot will soon never again be on Jim’s “left foot”. skyscrapers and “mills humming away”. As Doc Boone says in Captions state in bold type – “IT HAD BEGUN. THE Stagecoach (, 1939), he is “saved from the blessings of BIG PARADE. TO THE FRONT TO THE FRONT. TO THE civilization” – at least temporarily. FRONT” – as soldiers march to a different drummer in contrast The Big Parade is a film of ambivalence and to the first big parade of the film. The next big parade will be contradiction. Touching in its narrative of an individual caught in slow and deadly as the doughboys march slowly to encounter circumstances beyond his control and trapped by conventional machine gun fire in Belleau Wood where writer Lawrence ideology that cannot allow an alternative picture of World War I, Stallings lost his own leg. it is nevertheless an accomplished film. Veterans and later When Slim is ambushed on his night mission, Jim audiences may be fully aware of the conventions used and deeper begins shouting and waving his arms in non-military despair: “I implications existing within a narrative whose postwar American want to fight, not to wait and rot in a lousy hole while they sequences contains the seeds of The Best Years of Our Lives murder my pal”. This parallels the What Price Glory? (1924) (, 1946) (10). Isenberg may be formally correct in moment in Stallings’ original theatrical version: “Orders! Who his assertion that “None of its ingredients were new; they were the hell is fighting this war? Men or orders?” War is no longer a only packaged differently”, but parts of the film gained laughing matter for Vidor’s “soldiers three”, nor can Jim engage significant responses from the veterans who saw it at the time, as in any more “skirt” duty. While Bull attempts to calm him down, Brownlow reports (11). They did not see the film as mindless Jim waves his bayonet in the direction of the officers, an obvious entertainment. Neither should we. Vidor—THE BIG PARADE—7

Peter Tonguette: “King Vidor: The Editor’s Director” concerns the immigrants,” Vidor explained to Dowd, “what (Senses of Cinema, June 2011) happened to them, and how they built this country.” The film’s No editor won an Academy Award for cutting a King earnest expression of an immigrant’s love of his adopted country Vidor film, yet bravura editing distinguishes all of his best films, calls to mind the opening lines of ’s 2006 poem, from The Crowd (1928) to Our Daily Bread (1934), from “America”: “We are the dream that other people dream / The Hallelujah! (1929) to Duel in the Sun (1946). land where other people land.” With its justly famous finale of Depression-era By the end of An American Romance, Stefan cooperative members digging a ditch to supply water to dying Dangosbiblichek (now called Steve Dangos) has gone from crops, this is especially true of Our Daily Bread, edited by Lloyd labouring in iron mines and steel mills to become a wealthy Nosler. Perhaps Nosler’s best-known film is the silent Ben-Hur automobile executive, married with children. On the eve of (, 1927), starring , but Our Daily America’s entry into World War II, he finds himself Bread, above all in its closing montage, represents his most discontentedly retired in California—until he hears the radio enduring achievement. In their book, King Vidor, American, bulletin reporting the bombing of Pearl Harbor. “I bet they could and Scott Simmons wrote that, with this make planes just like they make cars. All they need is an sequence, “Vidor… reveals himself assembly line and they drop the— as a formalist in the class of aw, none of my business,” he says Eisenstein or Pabst,” though surely to himself. But it is his business. Nosler deserves an equal share of What follows is the film’s the credit. most stirring montage, depicting Vidor later recounted that marching soldiers in uniform, vast “the movements of the ditch diggers ships being built, men in hardhats was choreographed as if it were an going to work and nurses being earthbound ballet… a metronome trained—a whole country established the pace and each scene mobilizing in a common cause. was speeded up over the previous Steve’s grown son is in charge of one. The ditch was dug in 4/4 time, supplying the government with picks coming down on 1 and 3 with over four thousand planes. Steve shovels on counts 2 and 4. When comes out of retirement to offer his the water reaches the thirsty crops assistance. In the film’s memorably the exultation is expressed pungent last line of dialogue, he musically.” says, “We’ll turn out planes here Similar montages, King Vidor. Sun Valley, 1976. faster than bullets coming out of a both “balletic” and documentary-esque, are strewn throughout machine gun!” another major Vidor film, 1944’s An American Romance (1944), An American Romance concludes with a remarkable edited by Conrad A. Nervig. starred as Stefan four-minute sequence depicting the manufacture of dozens upon Dangosbiblichek, a Czechoslovakian who immigrates to the dozens of B-17s in assembly line-fashion, just as Steve promised. in the late nineteenth century to work in a In a torrent of action, bolts are fastened, wings attached and tires Minnesota iron mine. Warner Archive released the film, long wheeled on. The shimmering, metallic colours of the planes and unavailable on home video, on DVD in 2010. their parts are set sharply against the dark corridors of the hangar. An American Romance is an epic. But its status as such “It was a beautiful factory, and we didn’t have to change it at is most obvious in these montage sequences, which critic Dave all,” Vidor said to Dowd of the Douglas Aircraft factory, where Kehr considered so fine that they elevated “the documentary this material was shot. “The assembly line process was really sections of the film to the level of [Vidor’s] best work.” The first refined then. They had parts rolling off the line every five comes as Stefan travels by foot from New York to Minnesota. In minutes and it looked great on film.” As Our Daily Bread ends early versions of the film, Vidor “had signs of towns in with water rushing through the ditch, An American Romance practically every state that he went through, or was supposed to reaches its conclusion with the planes rolling out of the hangar go through during the story,” as he told interviewer Nancy and taking off, Steve and his son looking up with satisfaction as Dowd. The images depicting his journey are masterfully cut they soar above them in formation. together by Nervig; it’s all but impossible to single one out over These sequences depend less on composition or camera another. There’s the overhead shot of Stefan walking past movement than they do on editing. “I used to reject the idea of a railroad workers. Moments later, the camera pans across movie camera photographing a series of static objects… with the monumental steel mills as Stefan makes his way through hope that movement would be supplied to the finished product on Pennsylvania. He trudges through the rain as he stops in the cutting table,” Vidor reflected in his book, King Vidor on Wapakoneta, Ohio. A tracking shot gracefully glides with him as Film Making, “but recently I have revised some of my feeling he walks across a bucolic farm landscape. about this technique. Scenes static in themselves but cut The shots build toward Stefan’s arrival in Minnesota, synchronously to a music track take on the rhythm of the music.” where, backlit by a setting sun, a young boy points the way to In an unpublished interview with Rudi Fehr, film town. It may be modest, and Stefan may only have four koruna to scholar Tag Gallagher asked him about Vidor’s role in the his name, but he is overjoyed to have at last reached his editing of Beyond the Forest (1949). Fehr insisted that the destination. “I think one of the greatest stories in America director “never” sat with him as he was working. He said, “I Vidor—THE BIG PARADE—8 never in my entire career had a director in my cutting room, room from him making cuts. Once in a while he’d come over and never. And they had no intention of coming. It wasn’t done in look at it. I think he found the 16 mm Moviola difficult because those days. In those days, we made sixty movies a year, and as it had such a small screen and really only one person could see soon as a director finished a picture he was handed another script it.” for his next assignment. So they didn’t really have time to come. Despite McGee’s inexperience, Vidor welcomed his And they had faith in the editors.” Even so, it is hard to imagine participation in the editing process. “He certainly wanted to hear that Vidor didn’t have something to do with the editorial what I thought,” McGee remembers. “It wasn’t him laying down concepts at work in the sequences described above from Our orders at all. We’d run it, and he’d say, ‘What do you think?’ I’d Daily Bread and An American Romance. say, ‘Maybe we should move it back to there or start it later.’ Vidor was born in 1894 and died in 1982, but in 2011 And he’d say, ‘Let’s try it.’” there are still people living who knew and worked with him, and McGee worked on the film for about three months. many of them happen to be Since most of what Vidor editors. Perhaps this is fitting. shot found its way, in one “The editor’s craft is a large part form or another, into the final of the elusive magic of the cut, the editor’s task consisted medium,” Vidor acknowledged in mostly of giving shape to the his book. work as a whole rather than “To Whom It May removing entire sequences. Concern,” the director began a “That’s an experienced 1975 letter. “Rex McGee has director for you,” he notes, worked for me as chief editor on a “shooting just what he needs. documentary film on Andrew I don’t remember any missing Wyeth… I thoroughly recommend scenes… As I watched it, him for any capacity in the editing especially the beginning, it room for his capability and felt like I was watching a dedication.” silent movie. The set-up, the The documentary Vidor drive to the mailbox, the shot was referring to is Metaphor: King of him reading Wyeth’s letter, Vidor Meets with Andrew Wyeth, edited by McGee and Chris the shot of the letter itself. It just felt like, Okay, this guy knows Cooke, A.C.E. Made thirty years after An American Romance, it how to tell a story without sound.” was to be Vidor’s final film. Rarely screened following its McGee is right: Vidor’s canny instinct for visual premiere at the American Film Institute in 1980, Metaphor storytelling enlivens what could have been merely a filmed presents a series of conversations between Vidor and the great record of three people talking. Relevant clips of The Big Parade American painter (and his wife, Betsy) at their home in Chadds and insert shots of particular Wyeth paintings are cut to as they Ford, Pennsylvania. The meeting took place after Vidor received come up in the course of conversation. McGee worked a letter from Wyeth expressing his admiration for his silent extensively on integrating clips of The Big Parade into classic, The Big Parade, which Wyeth insists he has seen 180 Metaphor. “I know we worked at matching them to the Wyeth times. paintings,” he says. “I was a USC film student at the time and King was When McGee left the project, his sense was that it coming down to talk to film historian Arthur Knight’s class. I wasn’t in a completed state. But then another film student, Chris was asked to go pick him up at his house in Beverly Hills.” Cooke, who was then attending UCLA, entered Vidor’s life. “My McGee recalls. “We found that we were both Texans and both roommate had a family connection who was a neighbor of King had been movie projectionists in our youth. We just kind of hit it Vidor’s in central California,” he remembers. “He considered off. He had me call him. He said, ‘I’ve got some work around the making a documentary about him but eventually abandoned it. I office and I need some help and would you be interested?'” was interested in Vidor, so I asked him if I could take it up. My Initially, McGee found himself working more or less as introduction to Vidor is basically I walked up to his house in a secretary for Vidor. “There was lots of paperwork. He was Beverly Hills and he was standing in his driveway picking up his always trying to get things organized,” he says. “There was a lot newspaper in his bathrobe. I walked up and said hi. He was very of filing and typing and he had a lot of correspondence. I was just nice and we talked about this project. He was very interested in happy to be around him and to hear his stories and to go out to doing it. My problem was always financing. I could never get the lunch with him. financing lined up for it.” “One day, we went out to this French restaurant for At one point, Vidor invited Cooke to his ranch in Paso lunch. He and I kind of made it a game to flirt with the Robles, California, to work on Metaphor. “I went up there and waitresses. And he was always doing better than I was! He had a did some editing on the film with him over three or four charm and a twinkle in his eye. It was just irresistible.” weekends,” Cooke recalls. McGee had edited his own student films at USC, “Back in those days, you were working with film,” prompting Vidor to invite his acolyte to work on Metaphor. “He Cooke says. “He did something that I had heard about but never had to rent a Moviola and he put that Moviola in his office seen actually happen. He took a piece of 16 mm film off a hook there,” McGee says. “He sat at his desk, that same one that’s in and held it up in the light and said, ‘This looks like a good close- The Men Who Made the Movies, and I was just right across the up.’ Then he held one end of it to his nose and stretched it out to Vidor—THE BIG PARADE—9 the end of his reach and said, ‘Here, cut that in.’ That is so silent rank of directors and proved John Gilbert was more than just a filmmaking because the length of a close-up was like three feet.” matinee idol. According to Cooke, “the film was pretty much built” King Vidor had been working in films for nearly a by the time he came on board. “It was really pretty minor what I decade and had even run his own small studio. His champion at did.” Durgnat and Simmons maintain that Metaphor was “never MGM was the young production chief Irving Thalberg, who was finished to [Vidor’s] satisfaction.” But Cooke says, “I don’t dedicated to producing quality films. Frustrated with making recall that moment where he goes, ‘Ah! We’re done!’ but from pictures that played for a week and vanished, Vidor told what I remember, we were pretty much there by the time I Thalberg he was ready to tackle bigger films and more important finished working with it.” subjects. He wanted to make films about the three things he Meanwhile, Cooke persevered in his efforts to get his believed had built America: “war, wheat, and steel.” Thalberg own documentary made. Thanks to funding provided by the felt that enough time had passed since the Great War and Directors Guild of America, Cooke eventually filmed several Americans might be ready for a film that realistically examined interviews with Vidor at his ranch and on the MGM backlot. In conflict. the latter interview, the director reminisced about making films So “war” it would be. Thalberg hired playwright there in the silent era. Laurence Stallings to work on a story with Vidor. “The ability to go on the MGM backlot, which was Stallings’s What Price Glary? had recently opened on Broadway, about to be bulldozed for condos, and see all of those standing and was hailed as an honest look at war. Vidor wanted The Big sets…” Cooke remembers. “MGM went full out with everything Parade to show war through the eyes of an ordinary soldier. “He they did. It was just spectacular, even though it was in a level of was neither a patriot nor a pacifist,” Vidor said in a 1970s decay because it had been a decade or so since anything had been interview. “He wasn’t a hero. He was just a guy who went along, shot on it. But to be there with somebody who had worked there and watched, and observed, and reacted.” To play this Everyman during the glory days, it was very exciting.” Regrettably, Cooke soldier, Thalberg suggested John Gilbert, whom he’d personally was never able to finish his project. signed for the new Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio. Cooke was among those who saw Metaphor when it Gilbert was born John Cecil Pringle in 1899 (sometimes was shown at the American Film Institute. “I thought it was a listed as 1895 or 1897). His father was the producer and his great document of this synergy between two people,” he says. mother the leading lady of the Pringle Stock Company. The “The fact that these inspirations came to Wyeth from the films of couple soon divorced, and Cecil, as he was then called, went on King Vidor hammered home this whole idea of what creativity is the road with his neglectful mother. When Cecil was eight, his and what a limited definition we have of it in this country. I mother married a man named Gilbert, who adopted the boy and found it really inspiring.” gave him a new surname, as well as the nickname Jack. The “I remember now always coming away from him marriage didn’t last long. His mother died of tuberculosis when feeling very refreshed,” McGee says. “Just being with him was a Gilbert was 13 and his stepfather gave him ten dollars and a kind of tonic.” ticket to . Gilbert spent two years at odd jobs, then, in 1915, drifted into work as an extra and bit player at Thomas Ince’s Film studio in Santa Monica. Within a year, he was playing feature parts. By 1919, Gilbert was working with such respected directors as , Clarence Brown, and Sidney Franklin. By the time he met Thalberg, Gilbert was a veteran of dozens of films and was under contract at Fox. At MGM, Gilbert’s dashing good looks soon typed him as the studio’s romantic leading man, and, in 1925, he played Prince Danilo in Eric von Stroheim’s lavish adaptation of the Franz Lehar operetta The Merry Widow. King Vidor, however, was not looking for Prince Danilo but for Ordinary Soldier Jim, and he didn’t like Thalberg’s casting choice for The Big Parade. The director and star had clashed on their previous collaboration, The Wife of the Centaur. Vidor was an autocratic director and Gilbert, who had earlier written and directed films, had his own ideas. Vidor even went so far as to claim that Gilbert, who was being touted as the screen’s Magarita Landazuri: “The Big Parade” (San Francisto Great Lover, “had never played a role where he got his Silent Vilm Festival, 2005) fingernails dirty.” But any concerns evaporated once production In 1924, three companies merged to form Metro- began. As Vidor later told film historian Kevin Brownlow, the Goldwyn-Mayer. The new studio’s first original production two were so attuned that “I actually remember moments where I was He Who Gets Slapped (1924), starring Lon Chancy and two didn’t say a thing. I’d just have a quick thought, and Gilbert who soon became bright MGM stars: John Gilbert and would react to it.” . That same year, director King Vidor made two French actress Renée Adorée costarred in The Big films for MGM starring Gilbert: His Hour and The Wife of the Parade as the farm girl Gilbert romances. Adorée came to Centaur. But it was Vidor and Gilbert’s third MGM film Hollywood in 1920 and had already made three films with together, The Big Parade (1925), that moved Vidor into the top Gilbert when she was cast for The Big Parade. In a 1925 interview, Vidor said he found her input invaluable. “We Vidor—THE BIG PARADE—10 achieved a truthful director of prestige films, most presentation not only by her significantly with The Crowd(1928), acting, but by her constant which many consider his masterpiece. It suggestions to the minute was another story of an ordinary man, domestic details.” distinguished by superb performances, Among Vidor’s breathtaking visual inventiveness, and a innovations in The Big humanistic point of view. Vidor easily Parade was a technique he made the transition to talkies, called “silent music.” In a demonstrating not only his mastery of the scene where soldiers are camera, but also experimenting with marching into battle, Vidor sound to achieve dramatic effects. He wanted to establish an made his last film, , in ominous cadence in the march. 1959, and died in 1982. So he choreographed their Gilbert’s transition to sound was less movements to the beat of a successful. For many years, the myth metronome. As there was no persisted that Gilbert’s voice was thin and amplification on location, he King Vidor, Diane Christian, & Arthur Knight. Sun Valley, 1976. high, and at odds with his romantic used a bass drum to beat out the metronome’s rhythm and set the image. The truth is more complex. His voice was a light baritone soldiers’ pace. Vidor would use this rhythm-marking technique and perfectly adequate, according to reviews of Gilbert’s first in subsequent films, perhaps most memorably in Our Daily talkie, His Glorious Night (1929). The problem was the film’s Bread (1934), for a scene in which farmers dig an irrigation silly dialogue, consisting of “I love you, I love you, I love you!” ditch. endlessly repeated and over-precisely enunciated. The Big Parade was an enormous hit with both critics As a 1930 Photoplay magazine article commented, “The and audiences. It was MGM’s highest-grossing , same amorous techniques that made Jack adored and famous in earning somewhere between $18 and $22 million. Vidor and the dear old days is inclined to raise a of titters in the Gilbert followed this success with two more hits, La new.” Gilbert remained under contract to MGM until 1934, but Bohème (1926) and Bardelys the Magnificent (1926). Both films the choice roles went to a new breed of actor, like . added to Gilbert’s growing reputation as the screen’s Great The loyal Garbo insisted that Gilbert play opposite her in Queen Lover. But it was his next film, Flesh and the Devil (1926), with Christina (1933). Although he received good reviews, the film the new Swedish star , which cemented it. Their was not a success. Morose and drinking heavily, Gilbert’s health chemistry fired their love scenes with a blatant eroticism that deteriorated. He died of a heart attack in 1936, at the tragically blazed through two more silent films together and an offscreen young age of 36. Sadly, his Big Parade costar and friend, Renée affair that lasted for several years. By 1927, John Gilbert was an Adorée, had died of tuberculosis more than two years earlier. She idolized superstar. was just 35 years old. Vidor, meanwhile, was adding to his reputation as a

COMING UP IN THE FALL 2018 BUFFALO FILM SEMINARS SERIES 37:: SEPT 4 AND ROBERT ROSSEN, SCARFACE, 1932 SEPT 11 DOROTHY ARZNER, CHRISTOPHER STRONG, 1933 SEPT 18 OTTO PREMINGER, LAURA, 1944 SEPT 25 GIUSEPPE DE SANTIS, BITTER RICE, 1949 OCT 2 , , 1950 OCT 9 PIER PAOLO PASOLINI, THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW, 1964 OCT 16 ROBERT BRESSON, MOUCHETTE, 1967 OCT 23 MIKE HODGES, GET CARTER, 1971 OCT 30 , THE ELEPHANT MAN, 1980 NOV 6 KRZYSZTOF KIESLOWSKI, THREE COLORS: BLUE, 1993 NOV 13 ALAN MAK AND WAI-KEUNG LAU, INFERNAL AFFAIRS, 2002 NOV 20 , THE DEPARTED, 2006 NOV 27 TOM MCCARTHY, SPOTLIGHT, 2015 DEC 4 JOHN HUSTON, THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING, 1975

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