The Big Parade (1925) **

Why is this 1925 King Vidor classic the top-grossing (worldwide) silent film of all time? I suppose people were willing to pay the price of admission to see one of the most realistic war films of the silent era.

Released just eight years after the end of the Great War, this film follows the story of Jim Apperson (played by John Gilbert) from reluctant volunteer to disabled war hero. Jim is a bored, rich young man who allows his naive fiancée to convince him to enlist. Off to war and quartered in France, Jim befriends Slim Jensen and Bull O’Hara (no relation to Scarlet) and falls for French shop girl Melisande. She’s easy on the eyes, but what makes her really attractive to Jim is that he can’t understand a word she’s saying. Any man’s dream…

Later on his unit is ordered to the front at Belleau Wood. The battle scenes are elaborately designed and heart-wrenching to watch. When they get bogged down in No Man’s Land, surrounded by snipers and a machinegun nest, the commander orders Jim, Bull, and Slim to take out the nest. Slim goes first and takes out the nest, but on his way back he’s injured and lies in the battlefield moaning in agony. This is too much for Jim and Bull and they try to rescue him, but Bull is killed and Jim is shot in the leg. Jim becomes enraged—comparable only to the rage of a man who has been stood up at the altar by a Swedish beauty. Anyway, this is where one of the more memorable scenes takes place. Jim stalks a German sniper into a trench and is about to slit his throat when the German motions for a cigarette. Compassionately, Jim gives him one and soon the soldier dies right next to him.

Later Jim is rescued by a Red Cross truck and while recuperating in the hospital he learns that Melisande’s village has been bombed. He grabs a crutch and hitches a ride on a truck. He finds Melisande’s village leveled and as he’s calling out for his love the town is shelled again. Jim is injured again in the leg, so much so that it is amputated. Returning home crippled he finds his finance in love with his brother and he returns to France and is reunited with Melisande.

The battle scenes in this film are great. This is not a sanitized view of war. The drudgery, cruelty, and mind-blowing death and destruction that encompass war are realistically depicted. John Arnold’s photography is superb.

This film literally reinvigorated the public’s interest in war films. If you are a fan of such films as Saving Private Ryan or Paths of Glory you must watch this film. A true cinematic gem from the silent era.

Stella Dallas (1937) **1/2

Throughout her storied career Barbara Stanwyck played every female character produced by Hollywood: ingénue, seductress, bad girl, gangster moll, heroine, entertainer, con woman, socialite, etc. While she carried every role off like a true professional, it was the working class girl who wanted to make good role that she most excelled at.  This most probably had to do with her meager, but colorful, upbringing. Orphaned at the age of four, she spent time in foster homes, but was primarily raised by her showgirl sister, Mildred. It was on the vaudeville circuit with Mildred that Stanwyck learned what it took to get ahead in life: strength, determination, and ambition. These, of course, are the same characteristics that many of Stanwyck’s working class roles required—especially Stella Dallas.

Considered one of the best female character roles of all time, Stella Dallas earned Stanwyck the first of her four Academy Award nominations for Best Actress. The daughter of a mill worker, Stella schemes to marry her father’s boss, Stephen (John Boles).  Although they are from two very different backgrounds—he is reserved and refined, while she is loud and crass—they find themselves married and raising a daughter. As Stella finds herself bored with Stephen’s ways, she begins to revert to her tacky ways.  Eventually Stephen leaves her, but leaves their daughter Lollie (Anne Shirley) with Stella because he knows that she is a good mother. As time passes, Stephen finds a much more suitable (and wealthy) woman (Barbara O’Neil) to marry, but Stella doesn’t want to give him a divorce because she’s afraid she’ll lose Lollie. In the end, when she realizes that she cannot give Lollie the life she wants her to have, she makes the ultimate sacrifice.
Of all her roles, and there were many to choose from, this was Stanwyck’s favorite. What’s interesting about this is that Samuel Goldwyn didn’t want to give her the part. He thought she lacked the necessary sex appeal for Stella and wanted Ruth Chatterton for the role. All I can say is: Really? Thankfully director King Vidor and hunky Zeppo Marx (her agent—yes, really) finally convinced Goldwyn that Stanwyck was the right woman for the role.

Based on the Olive Higgins Prouty’s popular novel of the same name, Stella Dallas is considered one of the greatest tearjerkers ever produced. It is a melodramatic film, but it isn’t schmaltzy. This, of course, has to do with Stanwyck’s multifaceted performance. At times, she plays her character as a conniving shrew and you just want to slap some sense of decency into her. Then, she plays Stella as a loving and devoted mother and you just want to wrap your arms around her and give her a hug.  I suppose the scene where she convinces Lollie that she wants to get rid of her so she can run off to South America with her salesman boyfriend is my favorite because Stanwyck plays it with such raw emotion.  Knowing that the only way she can get Lollie to leave her is to convince her that she doesn’t want or need her, Stella is almost ruthless in the act she puts on for Lollie. Not every actress could pull this off, but Stanwyck does a wonderful job of having the audience both hate and admire her at the same time in this scene. It is difficult to watch this, but at least the final scene in the film heals some of the hurt that the audience has endured by Stella’s sacrifice.

This is a film ruled by women---the men are totally forgettable.  Besides Stanwyck’s great performance, the audience is treated to two standout offerings by Shirley and O’Neil. Nominated for Best Supporting Actress, Shirley does a nice job of playing a young woman who loves her mother but is conflicted by her desire to live a more respectable life.  This may have been the finest performance of her career (I do like her in Murder, My Sweet though), but sometimes it is difficult for me to suspend my belief that Stanwyck was old enough to play her mother (they were only eleven years apart in age). That said, she does give a touching performance. An interesting aside about the Stanwyck/Shirley connection is that Shirley played Stanwyck’s younger self in So Big (1932). In addition to Stanwyck and Shirley, O’Neil also does a fine turn as Stella’s polar opposite. I enjoyed watching her scene with Stanwyck.  It was one of those only another mother could understand moments that pull at your heartstrings.

In the end, Stella Dallas is a film you don’t want to watch without a box of tissues.  It is a prime piece of evidence that Stanwyck was one of the greatest actresses to grace the silver screen.

The Crowd (1928) **1/2

We are born just like everyone else, right? So, why do we always think we are "special"? That’s the question director King Vidor indirectly asks us to ponder in this classic 1928 silent social commentary film.

Everyman John Sims (James Murray) is born on July 4, 1900. He passes through his adolescence confidently believing that greatness lies ahead. This confidence is severally shaken when he arrives home one day to find a crowd gathered outside his home. As John ascends the stairs Vidor captures the boy’s true insignificance in a fixed shot from the top of the stairs where John appears as a tiny figure at the bottom of the stairwell. Before reaching his destination John learns that his father has died and he is now expected to be a brave man.

At the age of 21 John decides to head to Manhattan to make his name. On the ferry ride John meets a cynical man who warns him, "You've gotta be good in that town if you want to beat the crowd." After reaching the city John is introduced to New York in King Vidor style. Hustle, bustle, confusion, traffic, large buildings and even larger crowds greet a dizzied John—I mean this literally, as Vidor used a continuous clockwise turning shot to emphasize just how massive and confusing the city can be. John takes am insurance clerk job and finds himself seated with hundreds of other Everymen—this scene is recaptured in Billy Wilder’s The Apartment. How can he distinguish himself from the others? John hopes that he can win $100 for winning a product naming contest and he also attends night school.

He meets his soon-to-be wife Mary (Eleanor Boardman, Vidor’s wife) via a blind date at Coney Island. In a rather quick courtship (1 night) John asks Mary to marry him after seeing an advertisement on the subway that reads: "You furnish the girl, we'll furnish the home!" After honeymooning in Niagara Falls they find themselves living in a cheap apartment right next to the subway. Her family thinks he’s a bum and he doesn’t do much to disprove their doubts about him. He finds fault with everything they have and takes out his frustration on his wife for what they lack—mostly due to his own inadequacy. When she tells him she’s pregnant he swears he will treat her much better and try harder to be a success.

Fast-forward five years and the Sims have a son and a daughter, John has gotten an $8 raise, and he wins a $500 slogan contest. The family is happy for about two seconds and then the daughter is run over by a truck. As his daughter is dying John watches how little his (or any other) life means to the crowd as it noisily continues raging outside his windows. As he rages against the crowd to be quiet a policeman says one of the most salient things ever expressed in silent film: "The world can't stop because your baby's sick."

After his daughter dies John becomes depressed and has a breakdown at work and quits. He then goes from job to job (very quickly) and soon finds himself virtually unemployable. Mary has to become a dressmaker to support the family. Her brothers beg her to abandon John, especially after he turns down their offer of a job. She calls him a quitter and tells him she’d almost rather see him dead than the way he is. John contemplates suicide but lacks the courage to go through with it. Luckily for John his son gives him the courage to try to rebuild his life. He takes a job juggling balls to attract attention to the sign he is wearing—a job he earlier scoffed at in the film as beneath him. When he returns home to tell Mary he’s taken a job he finds that she’s packed up her stuff and is leaving with her brothers. Just as she’s about to leave he offers her some violets and tickets to a variety show. She stays and they go to the theatre, which provides the viewer with one of the most amazing closing shots in silent film. As the family is laughing Vidor uses an overhead trolley shot to pull away from them and show an indistinguishable crowd of laughing faces.

First, let me say Mary was a saint—I would have shoved those violets down his throat. That said, this is one of my favorite silent films of all-time. The camerawork is top-notch and Vidor’s overall vision for this film is stunning. This may have something to do with my love of German Expressionism, because this film was undoubtedly influenced by the work of Fritz Lang and F. W. Murnau. What I find truly exceptional about this film is the overall message that it sends to the viewer: for 99.9% of the population life is tedious, unassuming, and unspectacular. It’s that whole debunking of the childhood fantasy that the world revolves around you. You are a part of the crowd—no more, no less, now deal with it as best you can.

King Vidor was rightly nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director and the film was nominated for Best Unique and Artistic Picture. This is a true silent gem that all film lovers should see.