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Our Daily Bread

Der letzte Alarm
Retrospective 2020
Source: akg-images/Album, © Lobster Films
“Back to the land!” To escape the massive urban unemployment of the Depression, John Sims and his wife Mary take President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s exhortation to heart and take over an uncle’s run-down farm. But it soon becomes clear that the two city-dwellers have taken on more than they can handle. When a landless farmer pitches in, John decides to gather more unemployed into the collective. Soon the arcadian farm is filled with tradesmen, farmers, and their families. Together, they fend off foreclosure and speculators. Until a drought threatens to destroy the harvest … King Vidor made one of the first films of the New Deal era with the intention of contrasting the glamour of Hollywood with the harsh realities of American life. In reference to real institutions such as Texas’ Woodlake Community, he created a conservative social utopia in the form of a collective based on faith and a barter economy. Denounced sometimes as communist, sometimes as fascist, Our Daily Bread glorifies, above all, the American work ethic. In the lyrical tradition of poet Walt Whitman, Vidor celebrates the power of the human body, on full display in the rhythmic choreography of the final scenes.
by King Vidor
with Karen Morley, Tom Keene, Barbara Pepper, Addison Richards, John Qualen, Lloyd Ingraham, Sidney Bracy, Henry Hall, Nellie V. Nichols, Frank Minor USA 1934 English 74’ Black/White

With

  • Karen Morley
  • Tom Keene
  • Barbara Pepper
  • Addison Richards
  • John Qualen
  • Lloyd Ingraham
  • Sidney Bracy
  • Henry Hall
  • Nellie V. Nichols
  • Frank Minor

Crew

Director King Vidor
Screenplay Elizabeth Hill
Dialogue Mortimer Offner, Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Story King Vidor
Cinematography Robert Planck
Editing Lloyd Nosler
Sound Vinton Vernon
Assistant Director Ralph Slosser

Produced by

Viking Productions, Inc.

Additional information

DCP: Lobster Films, Paris

King Vidor

Filmography (selection)

1919 The Turn in the Road; Lost film 1925 The Big Parade (Die große Parade) 1928 The Crowd (Ein Mensch der Masse) 1929 Hallelujah 1934 Our Daily Bread (Der letzte Alarm) 1938 The Citadel 1940 Northwest Passage (Nordwest-Passage) 1947 Duel in the Sun (Duell in der Sonne) 1949 The Fountainhead (Ein Mann wie Sprengstoff) 1956 War and Peace (Krieg und Frieden) 1959 Solomon and Sheba (Salomon und die Königin von Saba)

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2020