July 10 John Gilbert

To celebrate John Gilbert’s birthday I watched The Big Parade. He plays a rich man’s son who is not as industrious as his brother but is his mothers favorite. War breaks out and he has no plans to go. As he is driving he is stopped by a parade of people and sees his friends in the parade to enlist. Gilbert is caught up music and excitement in the air and enlists. When the men get to France they stay at barn in Champillon. There he falls in love with Renee Adoree a farmers daughter. When the men are called to battle the couple are separated and search the lines to find each other. When they finally see each other they run to each other and kiss. This is the scene that is used in Silent Sunday Night sequence. The sergeant drags them back to the truck where Renee grabs his leg and starts to run along. She then grabs a chain at the end and is drug along the ground for as long as she can hold on.

The scene then changes to a long line of trucks and men marching. This is the big parade. The men are shot at by planes. Once they get to the front lines the men are told to add their bayonet and to make attack formation. The men look stunned and hesitant. They then march into a field. They march and march and march. Men are shot and fall and yet men keep marching. Gilbert and two other men take refuse in a shell hole. Orders come for one man to go to take out one of the machine guns. Karl Dane goes after winning a spitting contest of tobacco. He is wounded after taking out the gun and the two men worried about him go out after him. Gilbert finds Karl dead. He then goes mad and shouts and fights the other man is killed. He is wounded in the leg. He shoots an enemy soldier who comes after him. The soldier crawls away once he sees Gilbert come after him with a bayonet. They end up in a shell hole together. Gilbert has the knife to his enemy’s throat but cannot kill him. He gives the soldier his last cigarette. The allies attack and Gilbert is taken to a hospital.

At the hospital Gilbert finds out that Champillon has been fired upon. He is wearing a cast from foot to hip. He climbs out of the bed, goes out the window and gets a ride on a truck to Champillon. Once he gets there the town is deserted and destroyed. Renee and her mother are walking away from the city. There is more fire and Gilbert collapses. An ambulance picks him up. He is yelling Renee name. War is over and Gilbert goes home. His fiancée is now interested in his brother. Gilbert in a dramatic homecoming has lost part of his leg. The filming of this was extraordinary done. He is hugged by his mother who is holding him like a little boy as a montage of images as a young child flash across the screen. He tells her about Renee with such love and light in his eyes. The it last scene is of him with an awkward gait running towards Renee. They are once again reunited.