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To: nopardons

I always had a fondness for “Hallelujah.” Had it on tape from thirty years ago. Anyway, Vidor was still around until fairly recent times, and I’d think he’d probably been interviewed somewhat, allowing us to gauge him a bit better. I seem to recall when he died. Although I might be thinking Allan Dwan, another old-time director who lived a long time. I just never could quite put Vidor in the same box (”Our Daily Bread” not withstanding) as the usual crowd of 30s/40s Hollywood commies. He seemed to be of an earlier generation and earlier mindset (sort of more populist, with an interest and affection for American history and culture), and his films were generally not prone to the kind of ham-fisted, anti-capitalist, class-warfare obsessed nature of those Hollywood Ten ilk.

There’s a town not too distant from me, Vidor, TX, and I’ve always wondered if it had a connection to his kin, as he himself was from Galveston. Some people have told me yes, and some told me no. I do have a few silent-era stills of his one-time wife, Eleanor Boardman. I distinctly remember when she died. I’d always hoped she might appear at one of the film festivals, where I could get one of them autographed. No such luck.


75 posted on 11/08/2015 6:36:18 PM PST by greene66
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To: greene66
peon should be paean

I've always liked HALLELUJAH; however, OUR DAILY BREAD, THE CROWD, and STREET SCENE, not to mention not to mention the early '20s THE OTHER HALF ( an earlier version of SOCIALIST/COMMUNAL living thing ), and the anti-war THE BIG PARADE would all seem to contradict you. Vidor seems to have changed hid mind later on, but he certainly did, early on, seem to have very lefty leanings. It all may have been naivete, or something else, but it's very much there.

Outside of OUR DAILY BREAD, which has freaked me out since I first saw it in my teens, I've enjoyed most of his films and love his book about the death of William Desmond Taylor.

77 posted on 11/08/2015 7:56:45 PM PST by nopardons
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