29. The Big Parade (1925)

Directed By King Vidor

Synopsis

The war film to start all war films, Jimmy is a well off boy in the US. WWI starts and due mainly to family and the pressure of his fiancee, he enlists in the army. Of course he is not the only one and bartender Bull and construction worker Slim also join in. Jimmy, Bull and Slim are sent to France where Jimmy develops a relationship with Melisande, a pretty French farm girl. All the while Jimmy keeps receiving leters from his fiancee Justyn, and feels torn between family obligations and his true love, the French girl. Eventually Jimmy is called to the front with his friends Bull and Slim. As soon as he arrives at the front his division is sent to scour a wood full of German snipers and artillery. Jimmy and the two others eventually get stuck in a shell hole in the middle of No Man's Land just out of range of a German mortar canon. The orders come for them to disable that mortar and Slim takes the initiative.

Slim obviously gets shot and killed. Jimmy and Bull, enraged charge the German position and Bull also gets shot. Eventually Jimmy gets shot in the leg but manages to shoot a German soldier who doesn't die immediately but accompanies Jimmy in a trench smoking his last cigarette until he dies from his wounds next to Jimmy. Jimmy eventually wakes up in a hospital and discovering that his love's farm has changed hands repeatedly and her village has been attacked runs away from the hospital with his leg still in a cast. Jimmy eventually arrives at the farm but it is destroyed and he gets hit by a German artillery shell.

Meanwhile Jimmy's mother has discovered that Justyn and Jimmy's brother have been seeing each other but Justyn is still disposed to take Jimmy because he has been in the war. Jimmy is eventually returned to the States where he shows up at home with a leg amputated and in a very emotional scene is reunited with his family, he tells his mother about the Melisande and she sends him to France where Jimmy eventually find his love. The End.


Review

Ok, this film contains most of the cliches of modern War films, but it invented it and therefore has the best of all excuses. Even Shakespere invented cliches. This film has many plus points to it, and few negatives. Firstly it is a very honest film, it is not pretentious, it doesn't try to be artsy, and all the effects used in it do much to contribute both to the story and the emotional impact, such as the scene where his mother remembers the scenes of her sons life in a flashback superimposed on her face while hugging her recently amputated son.

In the last review I said that the Gold Rush doesn't manage to have the right mix of comedy and drama, this film on the other hand does it, and does it very well. The first half of the film, before Jimmy is sent to the front is a very funny and light prelude to the horrors of war. And this is pretty much the first anti-war film reviewed here, Birth of A Nation doesn't really count as it is only partially about war.

The horror of war is very well captured here, particularly in the way that it completely breaks the comedic first half into a story of death, mutilation and despair to meet your loved ones. Again a bit like La Vita E Bella by Roberto Begnini where the drama is reinforced by the comedy by making you sympathise with the characters only to have them suffer terribly. Here also there are comic reliefs in the persons of Bull and Slim who get summarilly dispatched by German bullets in the second half. It's a bit like Scar killing Timon and Pumba from the Lion King.

So definitely a film to watch, if you like war films or just plain good cinema. Buy it at Amazon UK or US.

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

I cried a bit.

From Wiki:

Vidor entered in the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest career as a film director: beginning in 1913 with Hurricane in Galveston and ending in 1980 with a documentary called The Metaphor.

The Big Parade was one of the greatest hits of the 1920s, and made Gilbert and Adorée major stars. Tragically, Renée Adorée would soon be diagnosed with tuberculosis and die only a few years later. The film is the second-highest grossing silent film in cinema history (after Birth of a Nation), taking in $6,400,000 at the box office.

After the film's producers found a clause in Vidor's contract, entitling the director to 20% of the net profits, studio lawyers called for a meeting with him. At this meeting, accountants played up the costs of the picture while downgrading their forecast of its potential success. King Vidor was thusly persuaded to sell his stake in the film before receiving his percentage.