"THE BIG PARADE."

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19165, 23 November 1927, Page 13

"THE BIG PARADE."

OPENING ON MONDAY. Ever since "The Big Parade" started oat on its triumphant world tour, men in all stations have endeavoured to find the something that makes this picture so different from the rest. Some describe its secret as war, pure and simple. But war does not fascinate and amuse women and children, nor does it inveigle into the theatre men and boys who have lived through it* horrors. Others say it is conflict in romantic vein, but men of the Anglo-Saxon race do not run eagerly to see a war picture that is a succession of pretty love scenes and tender vows. 'When patrons at the Grand Theatre next Monday sit enthralled by its grandeur and power, they will agree that "The Big Parade" is unique in film* because it was made by a team of Anglo-Saxons and Teutons for the Anglo-Saxon-Teutonic world. It is, broadly, a drama for all humanity, it is so gonerous and indulgent towards the puppets floundering blindly through Flemish mud, the filth and stench and twisted machinery that made a battlefield. It is the first war pcture that incorporated in its terrific and sombre drama a purely comedy role —"The Big Parade" was made before "What Price Glory"—and, just as the Captain Flagg opus was the very spirit of Mars incarnate, primitive, bold, and lustful, so "The Big Parade" is, for all its virile undertone) of fight, blood, and thunder, the essential spirit of Romance. It is tho romantic side of war, quite different from the snatched flirtations behind the lines, or the wild revelries of six days' leave; Melisande and her "Jimmee." the one teaching a good "doughboy" how to say "Jo vous aime," the other teaching the little peasant how to chew gmn, are lyric, and sincere, and faithful; true love in a smashed village of France. Keneo Adoree, a Frenchwoman born. plays Melisande in this production, with all the warmth and feeling of "La Belle France." John Gilbert plays the "doughboy" hero with much fire and energy, while Karl Dane us "Slim," and Tom O'Brien as "Bull" give rollicking comedy performances, not untinged with the carefully-hidden and ribald tragedy of war; for "Slim" is knocked out by a Boehc bomb, and there are blasphemous tears in n dirty ostnminut. A great picture, nnd when one says that, one immediately follows it up with tho fact that King Vidor directed it; lie is us much "The Big Parade" as are ghastly battlefields, the big parades of lorries, "planes, and battalions; as Melisande nnd her "Jimmee." To-morrow morning the box plans will open at The Bristol Piano Company.