Our Daily Bread

Director: King Vidor

Overview

Unable to secure Hollywood-studio backing for his Depression-era agrarian drama Our Daily Bread, director King Vidor financed the picture himself, with the eleventh-hour assistance of Charles Chaplin. Intended as a sequel to Vidor's silent classic The Crowd (1928) the film casts Tom Keene and Karen Morley as John and Mary, the roles originated in the earlier film by James Murray and Eleanor Boardman. Unable to make ends meet in the Big City, John and Mary assume control of an abandoned farm, even though they know nothing about tilling the soil. Generous to a fault, the couple opens their property to other disenfranchised Depression victims, and before long they've formed a utopian communal cooperative, with everyone pitching together for the common good. Beyond such traditional obstacles as inadequate funding, failed crops and drought, John is deflected from his purpose by sluttish blonde vamp Sally (Barbara Pepper), but he pulls himself together in time to supervise construction of a huge irrigation ditch -- a project which consumes the film's final two reels, and which turns out to be one of the finest and most thrilling sequences that Vidor (or anyone) ever put on film. The acting by Tom Keene and Barbara Pepper is atrocious, but John Qualen saves the show as a dedicated Swedish farmer, especially when he loudly rejects the notion that communal farming is a "Red" idea (this didn't stop the anti-New Deal press from labelling the film as "Pinko" back in 1934 -- and never mind that the communist press considered the film "capitalist propaganda"!) The optimistic finale, distinguished by its Eisentein-like "rhythmic" editing, fortunately lingers in the memory far longer than the film's dramatic and structural defects. Our Daily Bread is also enhanced by Alfred Newman's stirring musical score, later borrowed by Darryl F. Zanuck for his production of Les Miserables (1935).

Product Details

Release Date:	01/24/2012
UPC:	0874757019598
Original Release:	1934
Source:	American Pop Classics
Language:	English
Time:	1:14:00
Sales rank:	56,615

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Karen Morley	Mary Sims
Barbara Pepper	Sally
John Qualen	Chris Larsen
Addison Richards	Louie
Harry Holman	Uncle Anthony
Billy Engle	Abie Cohen (uncredited)
Frank Minor	Plumber
Henry Hall	Frank - the Carpenter
Ray Spiker	Ex-Convict (uncredited)
Lynton Brent	Bully (uncredited)
Alex Schumberg	Violinist (uncredited)
Bud Ray	Stonemason
Harry Samuels	Italian Shoemaker (uncredited)
George Duryea	John Sims
Lionel Baccus	Barber
Alma Ferns	Mrs. Larsen
Harris Gorden	Cigar Salesman
Frank Hammond	Undertaker
Alfred Newman	Composer

Technical Credits

King Vidor

Joseph Mankiewicz

Elizabeth Hill

King Vidor	Producer,Director,Screenwriter
Joseph Mankiewicz	Screenwriter
Elizabeth Hill	Screenwriter

Editorial Reviews

Terribly uneven but with a stirring climactic sequence that redeems many of its flaws, Our Daily Bread suffers most from being a film that puts ideology above dramatic considerations. The ideology is fine, even commendable, but it's presented in such a bald-faced manner, relatively free of nuance, that it frequently comes across as alternately naïve and laughable. Still, while it's a long way from the snappy repartee in All About Eve, Joseph Mankiewicz has managed to add a little seasoning to the dialogue, especially in the salty slang he supplies for Sally. This tarty role is played with obvious enjoyment by Barbara Pepper, and the potentially annoying Chris is handled with sensitivity and flair by John Qualen. Unfortunately, the all-important leads are given to two actors who seem to hail from the "gee whiz!" school of acting, and the overly obvious dialogue they are given doesn't exactly inspire them to dig deeper into their roles. Tom Keene does do reasonably well with his big scene during the dark night of his soul, and Karen Morley is good at conveying the requisite inner longing, but on the whole their work is substandard. Fortunately, director King Vidor scatters several visually impressive sequences throughout, and saves a genuine stunner for the final irrigation sequence. That segment -- with its expert use of editing and framing to achieve maximum dramatic tension and release -- is one of the most joyous pieces ever captured on celluloid.