Everyone,
Hey people, please don't forget that King Vidor's
THE BIG PARADE is running on TCM this Monday early Tuesday Morning for the first time in 5 full years. Not shown since Memorial Day of 2004. Between 1999, and 2004 TCM ran this picture at least 4 or 5 times. But then the film just disappeared, and has not resurfaced until now. Part of the story is that the 2004 restoration was expected to be ready for airplay a long time ago, and that still has yet to happen. Warner's and Eastman House restored both the 1925 cut of the film, as well as the 1931 sound re-issue. TCM Programmer Charles Tabesh told me that they had deliberately been holding out for the latest restoration for quite some time.
It is possible that TCM is running the 1931 re-release, and not the Thames Silents version from 1983 on Monday (Early Tuesday Morning)? Although I assume that it will be the Thames print? Maybe a new NTSC broadcast master of that version from Kevin Brownlow's Photoplay Productions? The sound re-issue would be somewhat abridged, compared to the Thames edition. However, the new master is about 20 minutes longer than any version since 1925, with footage not previously available. Not to mention all the reinstated tints. I still hope that it will pop up before the end of 2009.
