Picture-Play Magazine (Mar-Aug 1926)

92 The Man who Made "The Big Parade" Continued from page 53 a consequence, the general public were afraid that it was going to be a disappointment, and so did not go to see it. But those who did see it, though there were only a few, have always held for it a tremendous sentiment. It is one of the few pictures about which I can say that I have never heard an adverse word. At that time, Vidor was an easygoing, unself -conscious type, given strongly to reminiscences of his youthful struggles and of his experiences in going through three different tidal waves in Galveston ; and absorbed in his simple, almost rural, ideas of art in the movies. He was a believer then, even as he is now, loyally a believer in the films' great opportunity for artistic advancement. He talked with a marked Southern drawl, and made his pictures with a quiet form of persuasion that inevitably got results. The Vidor that I know to-day is different only in the more superficial attributes of personality. He is just as easy-going, in many ways, but he has lost the Southern drawl. He is as much a believer as ever in the artistic future of the movies, but he goes at his work now with the air of a professional rather than that of a somewhat blind novice.. He has acquired a new sort of determination, which sometimes may take the form of obstinacy. This has carried him along, and made possible the cultivating of bigger opportunities than were his in the earlier era. He has undergone a kind of awakening — one that is perhaps as much due to a certain personal defiance of conventions, as it is to any gaining of success that lie may have had as a result of recent pictures. This success seems, in truth, to have left him absolutely untarnished. In many respects, Vidor possesses the genius quality. He was fullfledged right from the beginning. He has an infinite capacity for taking pains with the details of his pictures. He works to a huge degree by inspiration— at any rate, very spontaneously. There was no script or story for "The Big Parade" that was worthy of that name. There were the broad lines of a theme and a plot provided by Laurence Stallings ; and there was a continuity which held the whole together, devised by a young chap named Harry Behn. These two, of course, deserve credit for their contribution to the idea and the form of the picture, as does Irving Thalberg, production manager of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, for his supervision of it. But the things that really tell — the intimacies of "The Big Parade," its magical processes (if motion, the fact that it stirs by its humanness and its reality in that it really gives an impression of a soldier's life during the war — are all owing to Vidor's effort. They are due fundamentally to that freedom from rote and rule with which he enters into the making of a picture — to the fact that he so often lets a chance incident develop itself on the set, while he himself stands by and acts as a stimulus and a critic. The chewing-gum scene between Gilbert and Renee Adoree, in "The Big Parade," was a mere happenstance, and it is perhaps one of the most broadly appealing heart-interest episodes in the whole picture. It was wholly and entirely the result of the fact that nobody knew just what to do, when the love scene was to be pictured, and that Miss Adoree happened to be chewing gum at the time. Vidor recalled the fact, through Miss Adoree's prompting, that gumchewing was an unknown dissipation among the French before the war, and that one of the quickest ways for the American soldier and the provincial girl to become acquainted was through his introduction to her of this familiar American custom. Had he not been alert to these small incidents, Vidor would probably never have made the scene. It is because nothing passes by his keen but calm sense of observation that bits like the one described above are so often incorporated in his pictures. I am reminded, when considering this phase of his character, of the statement once made by a famous writer that "He who would do a great thingwell must first have done the simplest thing perfectly," for it is in these minute pick-up details that Vidor truly wins his victory. The scene of the departure of the soldiers was accomplished by a different method. It was designed purposely to achieve a certain grand effect, and it discloses the newer and more self-conscious side of Vidor's character. It reveals him also as the expert technician. Every moment in that great episode was timed. "I have often used a metronome to get the tempo of a scene," Vidor told me. "Music and the perfect timing that results from music are absolutely essential for any scene of real greatness. Such a scene must have not onlv movement, but an increase of that movement — a stead}', beating, growing rhythm. "At the beginning of the shots of the departure of the soldiers, we used the simple steady rhythm of the march in ordinary time. When we were taking the culminating scenes, we went out on location and increased this movement to double time. "We found, subsequently, that some of the scenes that we wanted for the climax were in ordinary marching time, but by carefully cutting the picture, we were enabled to avoid any lack of harmony." The latter assertion discloses the very ready cleverness of Vidor. No proposition is too baffling for him to tackle, and when he cannot surmount an obstacle, he will get round it. He had such a problem with Tom O'Brien, the chap who played Bull in "The Big Parade." O'Brien had fared badly in films for a long time. He was thoroughly disheartened. He could not seem to rise to those lighter scenes that comprised the beginning of the picture. Vidor had intended to shoot the scenes in continuity. But instead of trying to force O'Brien to do the unnatural, he changed his plans and shot first those episodes which showed Bull after he had been stripped of his chevrons — when he was naturally depressed by this loss of rank. Before he had made "The Big Parade" even, he had applied for the privilege of being freed from program routine, in which he had long done such efficient service. His next production is "Bardelys the Magnificent," a colorful adventure story, written by Rafael S'abatini, in which Jack Gilbert is the star. He also made "La Boheme" recently, which was out of the ordinary as a subject. Though he has won his spurs, and may now have at least a small "bigger-and-better" complex, I do not believe that Vidor is ever going to run wild in the fashion of so many successful directors. He has won fame at a late date in the movies, when fame is not such a singular prerogative. He has also an estimable poise and balance, which come largely from the fact that he seems to regard himself as nothing and his work as everything. He has remarried, and always will remain to a certain extent isolated, although he is a thoroughly "good fellow." and knows well that most sagacious of all film precepts, that it is best to get out into the world and know what the world is doing, and not stay too close to the studios. He goes constantly to stage plays and to the opera, and he also associates rather widely with people not connected with his profession. He brings something to the business of picture-making as well as taking away from it his share of monetary gain. In all respects, indeed, he may be described as a splendid craftsman, with a rare perspective, who is just now reaping the reward of a long struggle for his rightful preeminence.