When compared to the first anti-war film of the talkie era,All Quiet on the Western Front (1930),The Big Paradeis more a film of escapist entertainment rather than an anti-war treatise, although its powerful battle scenes and staging undoubtedly influenced director Lewis Milestone""s later film.He easily upped bets to a quarter a game, without objection, and graciously purchased another bottle for the players.The exterior of a Chicago steel mill, and a view of junk pickers (one of whom is Abby) searching through industrial scrap.He refused to call what he was doing looting: "It""s called doing what you gotta do."As they watched the footage from the original crime in Homestead, Debra realized, in voice-over, that the footage had been altered: "The media were lying to us, or the government was lying to them.He amuses them with his country manners, awkwardly carrying a cage of home-ing pigeons (his "little-feathered friends") and continually fumbling with his hat in his hands.