Before you go to bed Monday night, be sure to set your recorder to tape King Vidor's classic anti-war movie, The Big Parade. It's on Turner Classic Movies on Tuesday morning, May 26, 2009, at 2:15 a.m. It's part of TCM's three-day Memorial Day marathon.I'm sure you'll remember that The Big Parade turned up on my list of Twenty Silent Movies To Cut Your Teeth On. The scene where our boys march into the teeth of German sniper and machine gun fire at the battle of Belleau Wood is worth the price of admission alone.
There's also a nifty John Gilbert romance thrown in for good measure. That's for lupner.
The Big Parade is credited with being the first realistic war movie ever made. It was a huge hit in its day and was the biggest grossing movie of the 1920s, hauling in $22 million world-wide which considering that movie admissions cost, what, a nickel? is an astounding amount of money ...
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5 comments:
I don't question your emphasis on The Big Parade, but I wonder how you could fail to mention that 2pm to 8 pm on momnday will feature some of the finest movie-watching that any human could have. Any make human, or female who has not been brainwashed out of appreciating genius.
2:45 PM Dirty Dozen, The (1967)
A renegade officer trains a group of misfits for a crucial mission behind enemy lines. Cast: Lee Marvin, John Cassavetes, Charles Bronson. Dir: Robert Aldrich. C-150 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format, DVS
5:19 PM Short Film: Operation Dirty Dozen (1967)
C-9 mins,
5:30 PM Kelly's Heroes (1970)
An American platoon tries to recover buried treasure behind enemy lines. Cast: Clint Eastwood, Telly Savalas, Donald Sutherland. Dir: Brian G. Hutton. C-144 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format, DVS
ahem
It occurs to me that if you turned the sound down, you could count both of these fine feature films as must-see silent classics.
Checking my notes for 1967, I see The Dirty Dozen will definitely make the Must-See list. (I might also mention it won an Oscar for Sound Effects.)
As for 1970, a good friend of mine, the very popular blogger, trained actor and certified genius, Mouth O' The Mule (whom I believe you know), mentioned to me just the other day that Telly Savalas's performance in Kelly's Heroes is an unappreciated masterpiece, one of the finest acting jobs of his career. So I'll be blogging about that, as well as blogging about one of my heroes, Don Rickles (and the time he insulted me personally), and also almost certainly choosing Kelly's Heroes as the best Fun-Stupid movie of 1970.
At my current pace of one movie year per month, check back for those essays in July 2012 and October 2012 respectively ...
Lupner is sadly missing all these gems turning up on TCM, as her basic basic cable package does not provide for it.
I may have to go back to the dark side.
Dear lupner,
I feel very bad (and a little outraged) that your cable package doesn't include TCM. I thought this was one of those inalienable rights, like free speech or ice cream on the Fourth of July.
You're welcome to drive up and watch TCM at our house anytime.
Not sure what constitutes the dark side in your neighborhood, but we fled Comcast for Verizon and have been very happy with the change. Cheaper, more channels and the picture doesn't break up into digital tiles every time it rains ...
Mister Parker, you and Katie-Bar-the-Door are so kind. Sadly, my experience with Verizon for two of my years in Richmond (just pre-FIOS) was horrific in terms of billing errors and customer service. Simply didn't have any more time to hang around on the phone being transferred from person to person so they might 'fix' the latest error . . . Comcast has been good so far except for the part where the Triple Play runs out . . .
I shall ponder TCM. Heavy sigh.
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