The Big Parade: Shoe Throwin

 My grandmother loves the sappiest of silent films.  Broken Blossoms beats out most talkies for her now.  She also loves war films, and Karl Dane.  So naturally "The Big Parade" was made for her.  TCM  ran it last night for the first time in FOREVERZ.  Los Angeles doesn't believe in TCM so I didn't get to see it.  I hope it was the Photoplay reproduction; because that's what was shown at the Karl Dane event last year and it was just marvelous. 

Spoilers ahead!  The film is so iconic that its a shame we don't know it now as a whole.  Things in it were the first, and have been reused for the past 80 some years.  Its like watching "City Lights"...you have this feeling every filmmaker since has ripped it off.

The Big Parade hovers between epic war film and cute love story.  And bromance story.  For the love story we have Renee Adoree as a cute little French girl, who meets John Gilbert the big nosed American, and the two fall in love.  When John and his pals march off to battle Renee tries to chase him, and as the two can barely say goodbye he starts throwing a whole bunch of things her way (he's on a wagon, she's on foot).  This cumilates with a shoe for the final throw.  This is considered one of the more poignant scenes of the film.

When it screened last year I laughed, and found myself not alone.  Inappropriate laughs at silents piss me off worse than anything, but other people laughed too.  I laughed as to me, the scene was so bittersweet that the shoe was a bit of comedic relief in a tense and sad moment (who knows if he'll come back?  Let alone if they will be reunited?)  Dane's biographer felt differently, that it was too deep a scene to laugh at.  This has led me to ponder that very thing for awhile now.

My Grandmother thought the scene stuck out, and she hit on one of her rare but deep insights with it.  I hate when people read too much into things, but now I wonder if Vidor did not plan it, that this scene ended up having unintentional symbolism.  MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD.

At the end of the film Gilbert comes home, missing half a leg.  He does get Adoree after hobbling through the fields of France.  My Grandmother wondered: could the shoe not have been a hint at what was to come?  He threw some smaller things, but the big punctuation mark to the scene was the shoe.  He loses his leg below the knee.  Hmm?

I thought it was a bit deep.  If you haven't been able to see The Big Parade you just need to.  Huge shame on Warner Brothers for not putting it out, as it is under copyright by a hair.  They could, hell they have a whole thing dedicated to cheaply releasing their old films.  Nope.  Not The Big Parade.  The second highest grossing silent film of all time (well people debate about it vs Birth of a Nation, I still believe its second.)

You can watch the scene here.