The Big Parade (1925)

If you like films of the silent sort, definitely check this one out. It was on TCM the other day and caught my eye as the heroine was played by Renee Adoree who was a silent film star I had often heard of but hadn't actually seen any of her films yet. A long time ago her biography caught my eye as she passed away very young of tuberculosis, after having had a very successful silent film career that did transition well over to talkies. Her eyes are STUNNING and just jump off the screen!

The film was very moving, tells the tale of a young American man who ventures off to fight in World War I, experiences the atrocities of war, and also falls in love with a French woman. Lots of emotions involved here and then more showing his return home to his family having been also physically scarred from war. It's a touching film and apparently was a huge blockbuster back in its day and also was a big inspiration for many future war films. So much so that in 1992 it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".