King Vidor’s Americana: On The Big Parade
Note: This is the hundred-and-thirty-fifth in a series of historical/critical essays examining the best in film from each year. Essentially, I am watching films from the beginning of cinematic history that interest me and/or hold some critical or cultural impact. My personal, living list of favorites is being created at Mubi, showcasing five films per year. All this being explained, what follows is an examination of my fifth favorite 1925, THE BIG PARADE, directed by King Vidor.
THE BIG PARADE is Hollywood incarnate, an incredibly polished picture of the incredibly messy conflict that was World War I. And yet, the anguish and pain of war is still exquisite; the experience of the everyday soldier is sanitized only so far as was appropriate for media of the time. In fact, there’s a reason why the film was considered anti-war for so long, although these credentials have been questioned in modern times. THE BIG PARADE was terribly authentic when it came to its gritty battle scenes; as director King Vidor echoed from the inside joke of Hollywood, “A tree is a tree.” Never mind the eucalyptus in the “Belleau Wood” of “France.” This movie was World War I. And if you see World War I for what it was, you can’t possibly be for it.
Of course, some (perhaps too many) can. Regardless, the massive success of THE BIG PARADE, released only seven years after the end of the Great War, rested on the captivation audiences felt by seeing something that resonated as truly real. This was not a propagandist product of the war, full of shiny boots and helmets, nor is it even THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE (1921), which is cemented by the Rudolph Valentino image and the creation of a tango craze in America. THE BIG PARADE is cemented by John Gilbert, soon to succeed Valentino as “the Great Lover,” and still a romantic leading man in this film. But his status is subverted in a way that also subverted the war film as it was known before THE BIG PARADE.
But perhaps not until ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT (1930) was the war film subverted in quite the same way. And it wasn’t for lack of material to subvert. The incredible success of THE BIG PARADE, MGM’s biggest earner until GONE WITH THE WIND (1939), spawned a whole host of war films in subsequent years. WHAT PRICE GLORY? (1926), TELL IT TO THE MARINES (1926), WINGS (1927), FLIGHT (1929), and so many more took the model of THE BIG PARADE and ran with it. They probably ran it a little bit closer to the celebration of the military and war than away from it. But part of THE BIG PARADE’s appeal is its deliberate removal of itself from that conversation. Some might call that irresponsible. I think it reveals Vidor’s incredible dedication to Americana authenticity.
Vidor wanted to make his next film about war, wheat, or steel. He got his way with war on THE BIG PARADE, wheat on OUR DAILY BREAD (1934), and steel on AN AMERICAN ROMANCE (1944). And are things any more American than war, wheat, and steel? Well, he filled in the gaps between these films, and before and after, with earnest yet not overly sentimental works. Vidor was born in 1894 and lived in Galveston, Texas, and survived the hurricane that devastated the area in 1900. As he grew up, Vidor realized his fascination with photography and movement, working as a newsreel cameraman and eventually forming his own independent production company. He directed his first film, THE GRAND MILITARY PARADE, in 1913, and went out to Hollywood in 1915. He worked for Goldwyn, working his way up to directing films with the recently emerging star John Gilbert in 1924, and by way of Goldwyn’s merging into Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, joined MGM.
By the end of the silent era, Vidor became one of the most celebrated filmmakers because of films like THE BIG PARADE, THE CROWD (1928), and SHOW PEOPLE (1928). Some consider him the quintessential American director, strengthened by his work into the sound era. He’s the appropriate successor to D.W. Griffith. Vidor’s pairing with John Gilbert, a quintessential American leading man, was fateful, then. Operating without his pencil-thin mustache in THE BIG PARADE, Gilbert feels like a more…innocent lover in his scenes with Renée Adorée. Gilbert is more of an everyman, which would be superseded by his elevated lover image. He already kind of had it. I’ve addressed this.
But his pairing with Adorée is the heart of THE BIG PARADE. They chew gum together, they part with great sorrow, they reunite with such strong chemistry that it strengthens Vidor’s position that the human spirit pushes through war. So effectively does Vidor build camaraderie and romance in the first half of the film that when the second half, and true war, rolls around, the loss it entails is incredibly potent.
It’s a masterstroke in establishing idealized perceptions of fighting abroad just to bring it crashing down with the deaths of friends and a small, human moment when a young German soldier dies right in front of Gilbert. There might be nothing more powerful in THE BIG PARADE.
At two and a half hours long, THE BIG PARADE fully embraces its epic scope, revealing the dichotomy of the perception of war and how it really is. Of course, it’s still a Hollywood movie, but Vidor taps into the promise of film perfectly by presenting a compelling reality adjacent to, but not really, our own. In doing so, he also helped craft an American legacy with which we’re now all familiar, for good and bad. But THE BIG PARADE is one of the pinnacles of silent Hollywood film and a beautiful encapsulation of the Hollywood dream factory, the polish and romance put to tremendous artistic use.
