When the First World War ended in November 1918, the public was not only sick of war, they were sick of movies about the war. It’s no exaggeration to say that the last few war movies released at the end of 1918 and early 1919 died the proverbial death of a dog at the box office. For many years thereafter Hollywood wouldn’t touch a war story. But the public’s mood was changing by the mid-1920s and the world war was beginning to be placed in an historic perspective as folks moved on with their lives – or tried to. The newly-formed Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer decided the time had arrived to produce a new film every bit as epic as its subject:
Perhaps due to the recent Academy Award-winning film, THE ARTIST (2012) – which is only the second SILENT film to ever win the Best Picture Oscar – a new gold standard has been established for the home video release of silent films with the release a few weeks ago of THE BIG PARADE on both DVD and Blu-ray in HD. To set the film’s mood, click below to hear the 1926 recording, “My Dream of the Big Parade.”
The sixteen pages that follow comprise the complete original souvenir program of THE BIG PARADE when it premiered in 1925. Click on each image to enlarge:
Hopefully, support for the Blu-ray release of THE BIG PARADE will encourage more state-of-the-art releases on home video of landmark silent films. I bought my copy from Amazon (below) but this film is widely available from many retailers both online and brick-and-mortar:
http://www.amazon.com/Big-Parade-Blu-ray-Book/dp/B00D9BNOKK/ref=sr_1_2?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1381899698&sr=1-2&keywords=the+big+parade+1925
OLD HOLLYWOOD IN COLOR 