La Boheme (1926) Lillian Gish & John Gilbert in a King Vidor film

Once upon a time, in fact, 1924, Marcus Loew teamed up with Louis B. Mayer to by the Goldwyn studios in Culver City.  The entity became MGM.  In 1925, a blockbuster would help MGM to the forefront where it would stay for many years.  That blockbuster was THE BIG PARADE, brilliantly directed by King Vidor and elegantly played by John Gilbert and Renee Adoree. It was so successful that it still was in the theatres in 1931, when it almost disappeared.  But that’s another story and only included here to set the stage for this silent movie opera.

Reportedly wooed by Irving Thalberg whose letters addressed her as Mimi, the tragic heroine of La Boheme, Lillian Gish was a big box office draw in the early twenties.  In fact, she was already quite the veteran, had script approval, choice of director of leading man and director.  She was a star and was associated which most of D.W.Griffith’s biggest hits.  In fact, she had top billing in that very controversial film THE BIRTH OF A NATION and though shown only rocking the cradle in INTOLERANCE, was present for most of the shooting of that masterpiece.  After ORPHANS OF THE STORM, her last movie with Griffith, she was very much sought and can be said, one of MGM’s first stars.

For her first MGM movie, she was responsible for bringing Victor Seastrom, an outstanding director from Sweden, and Lars Hanson, also from Sweden as her leading man for THE SCARLET LETTER.  Willing to remain silent about the identity of the father of her child, Gish was pretty much peerless as the tragic heroine of the silent era.

With Gish in the picture, a picture that Thalberg effectively cast Lillian first, Adoree had to settle for third billing and very much a supporting role when she reunited with Vidor and Gilbert for LA BOHEME. In fact, most of this movie seems intent of making Gilbert a major star with many scenes the iconic tragic Gish.  What they may have lacked in physical chemistry, they make up with classic silent movie acting that neither could get away it just a few years later.

The movie starts out with Gilbert a frustrated writer with three room mates, one being a young Everett Horton.  They can’t pay the rent and neither can the waif down the hall, played by Gish.  She makes hers by selling her belonging while the four men get their after getting a monkey, that they curiously want to get rid of once they made the rent.  Adoree lives downstairs and invites her boyfriend who invites his two friends.  Meanwhile, Gilbert is able to see Gish their each other’s windows and acting very much like Douglas Fairbanks, defies death to talk to her at her window sill. 

The most charming scene happens when Gish and Gilbert go on a picnic and do a dance together.  She runs away, he catches up to her and she declares her undying love.  Gish rarely showed such playfulness here.  However, what lessens this movie are major plot holes.  He forgets to write articles to focus on his play and she has a rich suitor who’s unsuccessful bedding her.  Instead, she stays up nights to make clothes and gives money to Gilbert who thinks he’s getting money from the publisher.  When he discovers he’s actually been fired for over five weeks, he goes to Lillian’s place and actually stops the rape that the wastrel suitor almost gave her.

He jumps to the wrong conclusions and as over the top as silent acting gets, especially on her part, they have a violent break up.  He becomes a successful playwright while she works in some horrid manufacturing plant and succumbs to tuberculosis, ironically the disease that Adoree would die of just a few years later.  Even more ironic, it is Adoree who is with Gish when she dies.  As Gish remarked, though she would roll up her eyes and die many times on screen, in fact, she was the last major silent star to die and lived to be ninety-nine years old.

There is evidence of Vidor’s talent in this one and if the script is bit nonsensical, it’s really the opera’s fault.  Not given much to do here was Karl Dane, whose comic relief spitting routine helped make THE BIG PARADE a success.  The director and leads all made better films but I did find this very watchable and should be better known than it is.

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