No relative of America's King Vidor, Charles Vidor was born in Budapest, Hungary, on 27 July 1900. He gained his education at the University of Budapest and the University of Berlin, learning civil engineering and indulging his interest in music, writing and sculpture via a general arts course on the side. He served in the German army during the First World War, was wounded thrice and decorated on four occasions. After the armistice he tried first to use his engineering knowledge to earn a livelihood, then his singing voice. The first landed him only a chance to dig ditches, the second to sing in beer halls.
It was then that he turned to films.
Commencing at the UFA studio in Berlin doing odd jobs, he in time graduated to the position of an assistant editor, then a chief editor, and finally an assistant director. After serving in this latter capacity on Fridercus Rex ('21), he left Berlin for New York.
America's first response to his motion picture ambitions was such that he had to fall back on his singing voice, joining a Wagnerian opera company as a bass-baritone. His goal was still set on directing motion pictures, however, so that after three years of Wagner he headed for Hollywood. There he worked in various minor capacities at several studios, but never came within sight of realizing his ultimate ambition.
Then in 1930, on his own time and financed by his own savings, Charles Vidor directed this two-reel adaptation of Ambrose Bierce's celebrated short story, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. This film was originally called The Spy, but so as not to be confused with Berthold Viertel's 1931 film of the same name, it was later re-titled simply The Bridge.
The picture opens with the spy (Nicholas Bela) walking between the ranks of a firing squad. Everything seems quite casual, except for a slight tenseness in the face of the spy. We see the preparations for the hanging: A bayonet is driven into the masonry of the bridge, the rope is fastened, a command is given, the drums begin to roll, the commanding officer orders the drummer-boy to turn his face away from the scene, the noose is placed, the condemned man climbs up to the bridge parapet. Now the drum beats are intercut with the victim's beating chest. Suddenly we see a close-up of a mother - all sweetness and light - and a child.
At this point the unexpected occurs: The noose seems to break, the spy plunges into the river. He quickly recovers and begins to swim away in a bid to escape. The soldiers set after him, shooting but missing, pursuing him through the woods until it appears certain their prisoner has eluded them. At the moment of realization that he is free, the film cuts back to the bridge. The spy is suspended from the parapet where he had been hanged. He is dead.
True to Bierce's theme, the escape was only a flash-forward of a dying man's last thoughts, a kind of wish fulfillment, presented in such a manner that the spectator was led to believe that what he saw was actually taking place in reality instead of only in the condemned man's mind.
In style The Bridge is highly realistic. There are no camera tricks, no special effects. The actors, non-professional, used no make-up. Sets were not painted flats or studio backgrounds but actual locations. The impact depended entirely upon straightforward cutting and mounting.
This movie induced such widespread critical acclaim, Vidor was signed up by M-G-M. His first assignment was to assist Charles Brabin (The Beast of the City, Call of the Flesh, etc.) on The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932).
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