The Big Parade publicity photo John Gilbert in the center 1925
by David Lee Guss
Title
The Big Parade publicity photo John Gilbert in the center 1925
Artist
David Lee Guss
Medium
Photograph - Photography
Description
"The Big Parade is a 1925 American silent film directed by King Vidor and starring John Gilbert, Renee Adoree, Hobart Bosworth, and Claire McDowell. Adapted by Harry Behn from the play by Joseph W. Farnham and the autobiographical novel Plumes by Laurence Stallings, the film is about an idle rich boy who joins the US Army's Rainbow Division and is sent to France to fight in World War I, becomes a friend of two working class men, experiences the horrors of trench warfare, and finds love with a French girl.
Although other anti-war films chronologically preceded it, The Big Parade is nevertheless an early film to have neither glorified the war nor ignored its human costs. It heavily influenced a great many subsequent war films, especially All Quiet on the Western Front (1930).
The Big Parade was one of the greatest hits of the 1920s earning gross rentals of $4,990,000 in North America and $1,141,000 overseas on a budget of $382,000 during its initial release, with MGM recording a profit of $3.4 million. It played in some larger cities continually for a year or more, boosting Gilbert's career and made Renee Adoree a major star, although Adoree would soon be diagnosed with tuberculosis and die only a few years later. The film ultimately grossed $18-$22 million in worldwide rentals and is sometimes proclaimed as the most successful film of the silent era,although it is most likely this record falls to The Birth of a Nation.
After the film's producers found a clause in Vidor's contract that entitled the director to 20% of the net profits, studio lawyers called for a meeting with him. At the meeting, accountants upgraded the costs of the picture and downgraded their forecast of its potential success. Vidor was thus persuaded to sell his stake in the film before he could receive his percentage. However, the film's tremendous success established Vidor as one of MGM's top directors for the rest of his career."
{NOTE: I met Vidor at a Western Film Festival held in July 1976 in Sun Valley, Idaho.}
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November 7th, 2016
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