The Big Parade [Blu-ray]

Director: King Vidor King Vidor

Overview

A rich, carefree young American lad called to the battlefields of World War I departs a naive, gung-ho gloryhound and returns, older, wiser and a cripple. Endlessly borrowed from over the years, this seminal big-budget war drama is still affecting, with tensely horrifying combat sequences.

Product Details

Release Date:	08/25/2020
UPC:	0883929722006
Original Release:	1925
Rating:	NR
Source:	Warner Archives
Presentation:	[B&W, Wide Screen]
Language:	English
Time:	2:31:00
Sales rank:	18,970

Special Features

Audio Commentary by Historian Jeffrey Vance with Director King Vidor; Vintage Short 1925 Studio Tour; Theatrical Trailer; Silent Film with Original Music Score Composed by Carl Davis

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Renee Adoree	Melisande
Hobart Bosworth	Mr. Apperson
Claire Adams	Justyn
Claire McDowell	Mrs. Apperson
Robert Ober	Harry
Tom O'Brien	Bull
Karl Dane	Slim
Rosita Marstini	French Mother
Rosita Marshni	French Mother
John Gilbert	Actor
Carl Davis	Composer
William Axt	Composer
David Mendoza	Composer

Technical Credits

Laurence Stallings

Harry Behn

King Vidor	Director,Producer
Irving Thalberg	Producer
Kevin Brownlow	Producer
Laurence Stallings	Screenwriter
Harry Behn	Screenwriter

Editorial Reviews

The first major American war film about World War I since D.W. Griffith's Hearts of the World (1918) and a key film in the development of the genre, King Vidor's The Big Parade (1925) effectively blended a punishing spectacle of warfare with the personal trials of one American doughboy. Based on a story by What Price Glory? scribe Laurence Stallings, and starring John Gilbert as the soldier, The Big Parade was originally intended to be a smaller production. When MGM exec Irving Thalberg saw the footage of improvised vignettes like a battlefield rapprochement between Gilbert and a dying German soldier, however, he urged Vidor to expand the film. The move paid off, as The Big Parade was lauded for the landmark realism of its battle scenes and the sensitive love story between Gilbert and Renée Adorée's French girl, establishing Vidor and the newly merged MGM studio's artistic prestige. The biggest box office hit of the 1920s, The Big Parade played for 86 straight weeks in New York and confirmed Gilbert's place as one of the top stars of the decade. It remained MGM's biggest moneymaker until (what else?) 1939's Gone With the Wind.