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World War I Films Of The Silent Era (1917)
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The astonishing films on this DVD show and explain essential news and propaganda functions of the movies during the Great War of 1914-1918.In those days before television and even before radio, fiction films in movie theaters were the most widely shared public experience while news film were the most potent and detailed public images of armament, military life and even front line action.Some news film was faked and much of it was censored, but some was authentic, obtained at great risk by daredevil combat cameramen.
Fighting The War (1916) is the work of 26-year-old American adventurer Donald C. Thompson, who managed to get to France on Canadian credentials with English troops.He photographed some of the most amazing front line films of the entire war.This film was taken February - June 1916 during the Battle of Verdun in which the French suffered staggering losses defending the same-named town and its associated forts.With his keen photographic eye and iron nerves, Thompson shows not only troop movements and trench life but also authentic battle from positions within a few hundred feet of the German lines.Then Thompson takes to the air and photographs an actual dogfight between British and German aircraft from an open-cockpit plane.
The Log Of The U-35 is a totally authentic filmed account of sinkings on one Mediterranean cruise in April 1917 by a submarine commanded by Lothar von Arnauld de la Perriere, Germany's U-Boat Ace of Aces, during the period of unrestricted submarine warfare.This edition is a combination of the of the 1919 British and the 1920 American versions of a jaw-dropping German film of 1917, Der Magische Gurtel (The Enchanted Circle).
Producers of commercial feature films were eager to please not only the audiences but also the United States Government's Committee on Public information which determined what films would be licensed for export to earn important foreign revenue.Many productions thus followed official points of view in patriotically reflecting and shaping changing attitudes towards the war.
Representing this genre is The Secret Game (Paramount, 1917) directed by William C. de Mille and starring Sessure Hayawaka, Florence Vidor, Jack Holt and Charles Ogle.Reported when new as a "timely release," it's a detective story in which representatives of Japan [our ally in 1917-18] and the United States work hand-in-hand to frustrate German agents in their effort to get information about American transport sailings on the Pacific.Sessue Hayakawa was the only Asian star of American silent film and after the war established his own company to produce some twentyHollywood vehicles which avoided ethnic stereotyping.He moved to Europe in 1923 and continued to star in French, British and Japanese films until the 1960s, with a notable appearance as Colonel Saito in The Bridge on the River Kwai.
The Moving Picture Boys In The Great War (1975) is a compilation documentary narrated by Lowell Thomas, illustrating changing attitudes toward the war and its participants, as well as toward the movies themselves.Every shot is an image preserved from those days - actual and faked news films, government propaganda films, fiction films that range from the sensational excesses of "Hun brutality" to the sentiment of D.W. Griffith, as well as magazine covers, posters, lantern slides and still photographs.The soundtrack similarly draws upon period music taken from Edison cylinder records.The filmmakers were doctoral candidates in American studies, and apart from being quite entertaining, the film has been praised by historians for its balance and accuracy.Winner, Gold Medal, 1975 Chicago Film Festival.
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