AN AMERICAN ROMANCE (1944)

Present at creation (1923 - ‘24) as Goldwyn, Metro & Mayer confusingly merged into M-G-M, director King Vidor ‘made’ the company when THE BIG PARADE/’25 became the top-grossing pic of the silent era.*  (https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-big-parade-1925.html)  For a while, it gave him unusual artistic latitude at the studio, just not enough to complete his dream project of following up that WAR classic with big films on WHEAT and STEEL.  WHEAT wound up as a self-financed low-budget indie: OUR DAILY BREAD/’34  -  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2018/11/our-daily-bread-1933.html), then twenty years after PARADE, finally tackling STEEL here, ending Vidor’s M-G-M career not with a bang but a whimper.  The studio getting cold feet on his 1910 to WWII industrial pageant.  Envisioned for Spencer Tracy & Ingrid Bergman, Vidor settled for Brian Donlevy & Ann Richards as ambitious immigrant/builder & helpmate/teacher/Mom.  Worse, thirty minutes were ineptly cut after early trade & premiere showings.  (Note some abrupt music cue cut-offs.  Does the full 2'31" edit still exist?)  Vidor never worked for M-G-M again.  Even sadder, it’s not very good.  Certainly no match for the first two in the trilogy.  Naiveté of characters & concept less problematic than clichéd dramatic incidents, charmless perfs and an ungainly mix of stylized studio exteriors rubbing against spiffy documentary inserts on early industrial work practices.  (A long sequence covering steel production terrifyingly good; and in crazy ‘40s TechniColor.  It overshadows all the homey drama.  A poor showing by studio, actors, script and director.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: When Donlevy becomes a citizen, listen closely to the text in the Pledge of Allegiance.  ‘Under God’ not there.  Added on by Eisenhower as a sop to coddle the Commie Witch Hunt crowd in the 1950s.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *D.W. Griffith’s THE BIRTH OF A NATION/’15 may have been seen by more people than BIG PARADE, but as it was sold via State’s Rights contracts (L. B. Mayer had most of New England) actual numbers/equivalent grosses impossible to know.