The Big Parade (1925)

THE BIG PARADE  (1925)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: King Vidor
    John Gilbert, Renée Adorée, Tom O'Brien,
    Karl Dane, Claire Adams, Hobart Bosworth
John Gilbert in what's widely considered to be his best role, as the pampered son of a wealthy family who goes off to fight in World War One. Claire Adams plays the girl he leaves behind, and Renée Adorée plays the girl he finds in France. The middle third is mostly comedy, some of it surprisingly silly, but then the call to battle comes and the war becomes hell, the Yanks in a line marching forward through the gas and smoke, the machine guns mowing them down, till finally Gilbert finds himself sharing a foxhole and a cigarette with a dying German. By the time he gets home, he's lost a leg and most of his sanity. He's survived the war, but the war won't leave his head, and you wonder whether a reunion with the girl in France will be enough to provide a durable cure. It's the same now as it was then. Even some of the guys who make it back don't make it back.