(1925, King Vidor) John Gilbert teaches French peasant girl Renée Adoree proper gum-chewing technique before taking on the Huns, in Vidor’s blockbuster WWI epic — the biggest hit of the decade. Print courtesy Library of Congress. 

REVIEWS

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"Vidor's great silent film gives a fairly realistic account of an American private's experience of World War I. It came at the beginning of a swing against the romantic view of war—public opinion was ready to see it depicted with intelligence and truth, and this MGM epic added visual beauty to those qualities."
– Elliott Stein, Village Voice

"A masterpiece. Accomplishes what few war epics ever do: it captures the immense sweep of cataclysmic events while maintaining its focus on the ordinary people whose lives are changed forever by those events."
– Don Druker, Chicago Reader

"The war scenes are handled by Vidor with a skill that remains astonishing."
– David Shipman

"There is undeniable power in Vidor's vision of a doughboy's episodic odyssey through the vast landscape of war. One is never left in any doubt that he was, even then, a major talent."
– Tom Milne, Time Out (London)