"THE BIG PARADE."

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19166, 24 November 1927, Page 6

"THE BIG PARADE."

OPENING ON MONDAY. Ever since "The Big Parade" started out 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 Becret as war, pure and simple. But war does not fascinate and amußo women and children, nor does it inveigle into the theatre men and boys who havo lived through its horrors. Others say it is conflict in romantic vein, but men of the Anglo-Saxon race do noti run eagerly to see a war picture that is a succession of pretty love scenes and tender vows. When patrons at tho Grand Theatre nest Monday sit enthralled by its grandeur and power, they will agree that "'Tho Big Parade" is. unique in films because it was made by a team of Anglo.-Saxonß and Teutons for tho Anglo-Saxon-Teutonic world. It is, broadly, a drama for all humanity, it is so generous and in&ulgent towards tho puppets floundering blindly through Flemish mud, the filth and stench and twisted machinery that made a battlefield. It is the first war picture 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 tho lines, or the wild revelries of six days' leave; Melisande and her "Jiramec," the one teaching a good "doughboy" how to say "Jo vous aime," the other teaching the little peasant how to chew gum, are lyric, and sincere, and faithful; true love in a smashed Village of Franco. Renee Adoree, a Frenchwoman born, plays Mclisande in this production, with all the warmth and feeling of "La Belle France." John Gilbert plays tho "doughboy" hero with much fire and energy, while Karl Dane as "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 Boche bomb, and there aro blasphemous tears in a dirty estaminet. A great _ picture, and when one says that, one immediately follows it up with the fact that King Vfdor directed it; he is as much '"The Big Parade" as are ghastly battlofields, the big parades of lorries, 'planes, and battalions; aB Melisande and her "Jimmee." This morning the box plans will open at Tho Bristol Piano Company.