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 (MGM) and directed by King Vidor.
Printed for the film's original theatrical release in Sweden, the image features artwork depicting a close shot of American 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. It 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.
*"The Big Parade is a 1925 American silent war drama film directed by King Vidor, starring John Gilbert, Renée Adorée, Hobart Bosworth, Tom O'Brien, and Karl Dane. Written by World War I veteran, Laurence Stallings, the film is about an idle rich boy 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, experiences the horrors of trench warfare, and finds love with a French girl.
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 1920s 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 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."
*(source: Wikipedia)
The cast includes John Gilbert, Tom O'Brien, Karl Dane, Renée Adorée, Hobart Bosworth, Claire McDowell, Claire Adams, Robert Ober, George Beranger, Julanne Johnston, and Kathleen Key.
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