Today, TCM airs one of the biggest big budget, all-star cast movies of all time, producer David O’Selznick’s 1947 Duel in the Sun, the movie he hoped would equal the success of his previous big budget extravaganza, Gone with the Wind. It didn’t and ultimately was a disappointment, also because he wanted it to succeed for the lovely Jennifer Jones. Despite the disappointment, it still performed well and has a lively pace, directed by the great King Vidor. Perhaps it’s best that it’s remembered as a Selznick film and not a Vidor film since Selznick had so much control over his films he was often considered the defacto director anyway. But Vidor had a long and varied career (a 67 year long career!) and has directed some of my favorite movies. With a filmography as extensive as his, it’s tough to whittle it down to just five, but that’s I’m going to do: My top five favorite movies from the King himself, King Vidor.
King Vidor’s early career produced many amazing films, including important early sound films like Hallelujah, in 1929, that featured African-American actors and used location filming. He also made one of the biggest and most highly praised war films ever, The Big Parade, that dealt with war in a deeply personal story of fighting and coming back home. But it’s his The Crowd that is his first film on my list, a movie that remains one of the greatest films I have ever seen. It is also the centerpiece of one of my most amazing theatrical experiences ever when I saw it on the big screen, at the AFI, with an accomplished organist playing the original organ score composed for the smaller theaters around the country that would run it (many silent films left it up to the local organist or pianist to compose the music themselves while others supplied it). The Crowd stars Eleanor Boardman and James Murray as a couple in the big city trying to make their way, suffering through economic woes and personal tragedy. It is often called “one of the greatest silent films” but there is absolutely no reason for the insertion of the word “silent.” Like any other great silent film, it’s a great film, period, and stands as one of the cinema’s best.
Next up on my list is his 1937 classic, Stella Dallas. With a central performance by Barbara Stanwyck that should have easily taken home the Oscar (sorry, Luise, I loved you The Good Earth, but Babs was amazing in this one), the story of a long suffering mom sacrificing her entire relationship with her for the sake of her daughter’s happiness, it became known as the ultimate weeper and it delivers. The moment on the train, as Vidor holds the camera on Stella’s face as she realizes the woman being mocked is her, is heartbreaking every time. Stanwyck, guided by Vidor, gives the performance of a lifetime.
The Citadel, from 1938, isn’t a King Vidor film much remembered these days but I recommend it if you ever get a chance to see it. If only for the cast alone, it’s worth a watch. Vidor assembled Robert Donat, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Richardson, and Rex Harrison, in a medical drama exploring the ethics of doctors in it for the status and money. They all do a great job, as expected, and Vidor, along with Donat, was nominated for an Oscar but neither won.
In 1940, Vidor directed Spencer Tracy and Robert Young in Northwest Passage, and if you’ve been reading me here for even only a brief period of time, you probably already know this is one of my favorite movies ever, as in top ten favorite. The movie follows the adventures of Rogers’ Rangers (Spencer Tracy is Major Rogers) as they plan a raid on St. Francis in what is now Quebec. As I’ve written before, the scene where they make a human chain to cross the river was all done for real and is one of the best scenes in a great adventure movie.
Finally, there is The Fountainhead. Despite coming from one of the dullest books ever written, this movie absolutely sings and the song it sings is utter weirdness. Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal join Raymond Massey for one of the most bizarre love triangles in movie history, complete with the crazy courtroom speech, written by Ayn Rand herself from her novel, in which the Coop convinces a jury to forget all about that big blowing everything up thing he was on trial for in the first place. Vidor, as always, chooses his shots well and the final shot, as Neal ascends towards her hero/lover/god in his billowing pants, is one of the best closing shots going.
King Vidor, as I said before, had a long and varied career. He directed the Over the Rainbow scene in The Wizard of Oz, as well as the tornado sequence, but didn’t ask for onscreen credit. He directed Wallace Beery to an Oscar in the male weeper, The Champ. He directed Bette Davis delivering her famous line, “What a dump,” in Beyond the Forest. And he actually managed to make a version of War and Peace that wasn’t an utterly truncated mess. Tonight, watch his sex-western-soaper Duel in the Sun but keep your eyes open for more Vidor on TCM anytime they come up. You won’t be disappointed. After all, he was the King.