"THE BIG PARADE."

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19168, 26 November 1927, Page 6

"THE BIG PARADE."

THE WAR PICTURE FOR ALL TIME. I GRAND THEATRE, MONDAY. War stalks in many guises. -Mainly, so blinded by the smoke and flares and deafened by the shrieks and crashes around, one 6ees only the bloody spectre of Mars, forgets for the space of a battle that where once a garden smiled, the fair figure of Romance must always abide. That is the lasting impression'left by the picture, "The Big Parade." Wars may come and wars may go; men may slaughter and treachery may be afoot; tragedy may steal into the lives of everyone, but where one French peasant, tilling the fields in her sabots, meets one adventurous soldier from the New World, the noise of howitzers and the moan of the wounded are forgotten; all is well, evidently, with the war that is the direct cause of so delightful a happening: "The Big Parade," obviously, is the war picture that is different, and Christchurch theatregoers will have the opportunity at long last of seeing this production. It opens a season at the Grand Theatre on Monday, when it will be compared with other war films of the past, and sentence will be delivered. When the late Marcus Leow and King Vidor decided to stake their all on this unborn picture of war, they launched what is now the biggest gamble ever dared during the history of tho industry. Laurence Stallings, the author (and the coauthor of "What Prica Glory"), was only a struggling journalist on the N.Y. "World"; John Gilbert, the leading man, was practically anknown; Mademoiselle Adoree, the feminine lead, had not had a part worth mentioning for a few years; and lastly, Vidor, the director had handled the megaphone for only snappy little society dramas, comedies, and melodramas. What did any of these people know of war as the theatre-going public want itf They took their lone chance. And from the day that "The Big Parade" was launched on a waiting world, it has swept everything before it, even English hostility and conservatism. Its secret of success is that the picture was built in a spirit of studious sincerity, by a team of brilliant men and women, that no monetary obstacles were placed in the way of production when it came to photographing the war scenes; lastly, there is not the faintest suggestion in it of the good old battle cry, "We Won the War"; its phenomenal popularity is not difficult to understand. "The Big Parade" is the first war picture to incorporate into it a purely comedy role. The "Slim" of Karl Dane is a moving bit of humour in the wreckage and carnage of slaughter, humour not untinged with pathos and the carefully-hidden and ribald tragedy of war; for Slim is knocked out by a Bosch bomb, and there are blasphemous tears in a dirty estaminet. It may be the romantic part of war, but its war scenes are shatter- i ing examples of the camera's art. Those who were in France from 1914 to 1918 will not gloat over the printed account of these red barbed, and ironic panoramas; but they will be drawn into the theatre to see again all those useless sights and bunds; war has its appeal and its fascination, and ' The Big Parade," for all its lyric moments of love and youth, and its pleasant humour in the ruins of villages, is a lineal descendant -of Mars. John Gilbert has leaped into the front rank through his playing of Jim Apperson, Melisande*s "Jimmee;" Renee Adoree is the personification of the courageous women of France, nor is she without their charming coquetry, while teaching the gallant James French grammar, in the form of "Je vous Aime"; Claire McDowell is admirable in her role, while Tom O'Brien, Claire Adams, and Hobart Bosworth are other members of the cast. The box plans are now open at The Bristol Piano Company, where seats may be reserved.