on digging it. The sequences were shot by Vidor as if it were a ballet (Vidor 224). The films end with the ditch being a success, with full and health crops in a very fantasy like endingIt is this lack of realism that makes Our Daily Bread an inferior film, especially as a follow up to The Crowd. The Crowd was a heart-wrenching look at the insanity of city life that showed how contentment could only be achieved by losing one’s sense of self. Our Daily Bread is an unrealistic solution to the Depression, which is also hindered by its poor acting and characters, in particular John, played by Tom Keene. The bad acting can perhaps be excused by the fact that Vidor hadn’t much of a budget to work with, but the character he presented in John was not a good example of a working class hero. John is weak and incompetent and it does not stand to reason that the co-operative would elect him as their leader. When things get tough John makes it his opportunity to run off with Sally. And it is not guilt of leaving his wife that brings him back, but his vision of an irrigation ditch that makes him turn back.His insight into the irrigation ditch is also a questionable plot mechanism. John is not the experienced farmer, but the immigrant who was first to arrive at the co-operative is. It is unreasonable to conceive that thousands of years of humans developing farming techniques would be lost on this poor Swede to where he would never come up with the concept of an aqueduct. This is one of several agricultural inaccuracies. The water they use in the end supposedly comes from a mountain stream. If this is true then mountain land is not fertile enough to grow corn and wheat, like what was being done in the co-operative. Also, it was suggested that the co-operative was growing their crops to sell, not just subsistence. During this time period there was a surplus of corn and wheat. There was no market for their crops.What makes this film particul...
