Editing King Vidor (section)

==== Great Depression: 1933–1934 ====
''[[The Stranger's Return]]'' (1933) and ''[[Our Daily Bread (1934 film)|Our Daily Bread]]'' (1934) are Depression era films that present protagonists who flee the social and economic perils of urban America, plagued by high unemployment and labor unrest to seek a lost rural identity or make a new start in the agrarian countryside. Vidor's expressed enthusiasm for the [[New Deal]] and [[Franklin Delano Roosevelt]]'s exhortation in his first inaugural in 1933 for a shift of labor from industry to agriculture.<ref>Durgnat and Simmon, 1988 p. 138: "...an escape to family-owned land away from modern [urban] economic and spiritual problems." And also quotes passage from FDR inaugural And p. 154: Vidor's "admiration for the New Deal spirit..."</ref>

In ''[[The Stranger's Return]]'', a city girl ([[Miriam Hopkins]]) abandons her life in a great metropolis to visit her grandfather ([[Lionel Barrymore]]) in Iowa, the aging patriarch of a working farm. Her arrival upsets the schemes of parasitic relatives to seize the property in anticipation of Grandpa Storr's passing. The scenario presents the farm as "bountiful", even in the midst of the [[Dust Bowl]] where banks seized tens-of-thousands of independent family farms in the [[Midwestern United States|Midwest]] and drove millions into low wage seasonal agricultural labor.<ref>Durgnat and Simmon, 1988 p. 140: M-G-M studio and Vidor "hedge[s]" his depiction of [Depression-era] agriculture..." And: the farm "remains safely bountiful..." And: The Storr enterprise with its "expensive threshers" is not a "collective" but a "company".</ref> The picture is a paean to family "blood" ties and rural generational continuity, manifested in the granddaughter's commitment (though raised in New York City) to inherit the family farm and honor its agrarian heritage.<ref>Durgnat and Simmon, 1988 p. 139: "...her ultimate commitment to the land..." And p. 145: "blood" relations and rural family continuity</ref>

Vidor continued his "back to the land" theme in his 1934 ''Our Daily Bread''. The picture is the second film of a trilogy he referred to as "War, Wheat and Steel". His 1925 film ''[[The Big Parade]]'' was "war" and his 1944 ''[[An American Romance]]'' was "steel". ''Our Daily Bread'' – "wheat" – is a sequel to his silent masterpiece ''The Crowd'' (1928).<ref>Higham, 1972: "...his masterpiece, ''The Crowd'' And "... a trilogy Vidor thought of as "War, Wheat and Steel". It was not until 1944...that Vidor got the chance to make the "Steel" portion. He called it "An American Romance."</ref><ref>Baxter, 1976 p. 51-52</ref>

''Our Daily Bread'' is a deeply personal and politically controversial work that Vidor financed himself when M-G-M executives declined to back the production.  M-G-M was uncomfortable with its characterization of big business, and particularity banking institutions, as corrupt.<ref>Higham, 1972: "Thalberg of MGM said it was out of the question."<br />Durgnat and Simmon, 1988 p. 149: "...directly political" implications. And "...a politically charged subject" on the question of labor and land ownership. And p. 151; The studio viewed the film as "an attack on big business" and refused to finance it. And see p. 151 for Vidor's financing of project.<br />Baxter 1972 p. 158: "Vidor's more personal work...financed by him [with] a controversial theme."<br />Silver, 2010: "It is some measure of the ardor Vidor felt for Our Daily Bread that he managed to make it outside the studio system and in spite of American cinema's traditional aversion to controversial subjects.<br />Higham, 1972: "Vidor mortgaged his house and sold everything he owned to do the picture.</ref>
A struggling Depression-era couple from the city inherit a derelict farm, and in an effort to make it a productive enterprise, they establish a cooperative in alliance with unemployed locals who possess various talents and commitments. The film raises questions as to the legitimacy of the American system of democracy and to government imposed social programs.<ref>Durgnat and Simmon, 1988 p. 149-150: "The film touches on the implications that the whole American democratic system is corrupt and should be left behind by this [rural] community."</ref>

The picture garnered a mixed response among social and film critics, some regarding it as a socialistic condemnation of capitalism and others as tending towards fascism – a measure of Vidor's own ambivalence in organizing his social outlook artistically.<ref>Durgnat and Simmon, 1988 p. 149-150<br />Thomson 2007: " strange but stirring film that finds equal fault with socialism and democracy and sets about creating a system of its own, based on the charisma of one man..."</ref><ref>Silver, 2010: "[Our Daily Bread] is still naive, simplistic, and awkward, but it remains extremely lovely in its innocence."<br />Baxter, 1972 p. 158: "...one cannot accept Our Daily Bread as anything more than a well-mounted political tract from a theorist unwilling or unable see a situation with any real insight."<br />Durgnat and Simmon, 1988 p. 152: See here for Vidor's "political ambiguity."</ref>