'THE BIG PARADE'

Evening Star, Issue 19549, 6 May 1927, Page 2

'THE BIG PARADE '

SPIEKDID WAR FILM

On Friday next, at the Octagon and Empiifa. Theatres, ‘The Big Parade’ will have its initial screening. _ ‘ The Big ns the name implies, relates to the Great War, and tells an epic story of love and sacrifice. Tho love which is the central theme is not that of a man for a woman, though that side of human passion is also part of the story, but of three men for one another. As told in tho film, it was “ Passing tho love of women.” These three men, each playing his part in the trench warfare of Flanders, came from entirely different walks of life, trained in different ideals, and with an entirely different view of life. One, before he donned the uniform of a soldier, was a wealthy young man about town, used to the niceties of life, in which the ladies played a very prominent part; the second was a barman, used to all the roughness that characterises that kind of life in the larger cities of civilisation; while the third corner of this strangely-assorted friendship was a riveter, used to working on tho world’s highest buildings. Brought together under conditions which could onlr exist in war time, these three became friends to the death, and passed through many heroic incidents in the trenches. The riveter is killed during a big “push,” and the wealthy young man loses a log in the same struggle and is invalided home. During his residence in France he meets Melisnnde, who provides the feminine love element in the stnrv. She follows her “Jimmee” into the war area, where she suffers all the misery and fear that must of necessitv he her nortiou under such conditions, and when her sweetheart is invalided home she disnunenr*. After his recover? he returns to France to sfek for MoHsande. and this side of the story is intenselv human. As the three friends John Gilbert, Karl Da no, and Tom O’Brien are doli'orlitfnl ; Renee Adoree is irresistihle as the French girl.