NFR Project: 'Our Daily Bread' (1934)

 

NFR Project: ‘Our Daily Bread’

Dir: King Vidor

Scr: King Vidor, Elizabeth Hill, Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Pho: Robert H. Planck

Ed: Lloyd Nosler

Premiere: Aug. 1, 1934

80 min.

The 1930s were a time of ideological upheaval. The Great Depression had made many lose faith in capitalism, and many saw Franklin Roosevelt’s ambitious social and economic plans as dictatorial in nature. Communism and even Fascism were touted as viable alternatives to American democracy. Society and the economy were broken, and everyone was looking for a viable path back to stability and success.

Into this situation strode director King Vidor [we have previously written about his silent hits The Big Parade (1925) and The Crowd (1928)]. Vidor was a big believer in the common man. He took the married couple, John and Mary, from The Crowd and reimagined them, without a child as in the previous film, trying to get by during hard times.

He resurrected them in order to make a controversial political point. An uncle gives them a deed to an abandoned farm, and they decide to move there and make a go of it. John is a good leader and organizer, but knows nothing about farming. Providentially, a car breaks down by the farm. In it are Chris (the always-dependable John Qualen) and his family. Chris knows how to farm, so John and Mary take him and his family in.

Soon all sorts of people are moving to the farm and staying, building makeshift shelters, trading skills with others, sharing food and resources . . . basically creating a little communist utopia in the midst of hard times. (The farmers debate what kind of government to have, and both democracy and socialism are rejected. In fact, Nazis who saw this film thought it articulated fascism quite eloquently.)

Temptation strikes John when an attractive but lazy city gal, Sally, comes to the farm and takes a hankering to him. The crops are dying due to a lack of rain, and John feels that all his work has come to nothing. He leaves with Sally but shortly comes to his senses, running back to the farm with an idea.

His plan: to dig a two-mile-long ditch to bring water to the crops. Time is of the essence; everyone pitches in.

What follows is a rousing closing sequence. Working like a many-handed machine, shuffing sideways in a closely choreographed bunch, men dig a trench, advancing steadily across the landscape in a beautifully timed and edited illustration of the efficacy of group effort. After frantic work on the ditch, they let the water into the channel, and finally it makes its way to the crops. Everyone jumps for joy, wallowing, prancing, and leaping the water, as the long overdue irrigation begins. We move to one final image, that of the successful harvest of the crops, as John, Mary, and Chris drive past the camera in an overflowing wagon. It’s the ultimate happy ending.

So was Vidor being subversive, or was he merely naïve? Perhaps a bit of both. This film takes a bright view of human nature, and posits a cooperative method of existence that one would hope could really come true and thrive. In Our Daily Bread, dreams of a just and equitable society come true.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Punch Drunks.