King Vidor's THE BIG PARADE (1925) John and 23 similar items

Vintage original 27.5 x 39.5 in. Swedish poster from the epic 1920's WWI-themed silent film drama, THE BIG PARADE, released in 1925 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and directed by King Vidor. Based upon a story by World War I veteran, Laurence Stallings, the film is about an idle rich boy (John Gilbert) who joins the US Army's Rainbow Division and is sent to France to fight in World War I, becomes a friend of two working class men (Tom O'Brien, Karl Dane), experiences the horrors of trench warfare, and finds love with a French girl (Renée Adorée). The cast includes Hobart Bosworth, Claire McDowell, Claire Adams, Robert Ober, George Beranger, Julanne Johnston, and Kathleen Key. This poster was printed for the film's original theatrical release in Sweden and depicts a close shot of America doughboy James Apperson (John Gilbert) trying to express his feelings to Melisandre (Renée Adorée) by the use of an English/French dictionary. This poster is a stone lithograph, which produces very fine details and beautiful rich colors. The poster is in almost unused condition; however, it has one very faint extra fold crease and light wear along a portion of one edge, keeping it from grading higher. There are no pinholes, tears, stains, creases, writing, or other flaws. The film has been praised for its realistic depiction of warfare, and it heavily influenced a great many subsequent war films, especially All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). The Big Parade is regarded as one of the greatest films made about World War I and, in 1992, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. The Big Parade was one of the great hits of the 1920's, earning gross rentals of $4,990,000 in the United States and $1,141,000 overseas on a budget of $382,000 during its initial release, with MGM recording a profit of $3.4 million, its biggest of the silent era. The domestic earnings were MGM's biggest until the release of Gone with the Wind (1939). It played in some larger cities continually for a year or more, boosting Gilbert's career and made Renée Adorée a major star, although Adorée would soon be diagnosed with tuberculosis and die only a few years later. The film ultimately grossed $18–$22 million in worldwide rentals and is sometimes proclaimed as the most successful film of the silent era, although it is most likely this record falls to D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (1915). The film won the Photoplay Magazine Medal for best film of the year in 1925. The medal is considered the first significant annual movie award, prior to the establishment of the Oscars. After the film's producers found a clause in Vidor's contract that entitled the director to 20% of the net profits, studio lawyers called for a meeting with him. At the meeting, accountants upgraded the costs of the picture and downgraded their forecast of its potential success. Vidor was thus persuaded to sell his stake in the film before he could receive his percentage. However, the film's tremendous success established Vidor as one of MGM's top directors.