Charles Meredith comes back from the war an officer. He turns down his father's offer as a executive in his steel plant. He worked his way up in the army on his abilities, and he'll do the same in civilian life. So he takes a manual job in the plant and makes friends while his father works himself to death.
After that, he takes over, and runs things exactly by the book... his father's book of "no sentimentality". This doesn't please Florence Vidor, who has turned activist and whom he asks to marry; nor David Butler, who is blinded when Meredith refuses to make improvements for safety, nor Zasu Pitts (who, as usual, steals the show), who's going to marry Butler.
This activist movie may seem a bit odd compared to some of the blaring anti-Communist films that the industry was turning out at the time, but it's directed by King Vidor, and he did this sort of thing occasionally: THE CROWD and OUR DAILY BREAD were just two of the movies in which he offered old-fashioned decency as a balm to the wearying and sometimes deadly hand of capitalism. This is a third.
After that, he takes over, and runs things exactly by the book... his father's book of "no sentimentality". This doesn't please Florence Vidor, who has turned activist and whom he asks to marry; nor David Butler, who is blinded when Meredith refuses to make improvements for safety, nor Zasu Pitts (who, as usual, steals the show), who's going to marry Butler.
This activist movie may seem a bit odd compared to some of the blaring anti-Communist films that the industry was turning out at the time, but it's directed by King Vidor, and he did this sort of thing occasionally: THE CROWD and OUR DAILY BREAD were just two of the movies in which he offered old-fashioned decency as a balm to the wearying and sometimes deadly hand of capitalism. This is a third.
