Das gottlose Mädchen

Godless Girl, The (1929)

*** (out of 4)

This here turned out to be DeMille final silent as well as his first sound film. Apparently the movie was shot completely silent but after filming and sound films had become popular, they went back and added a dialogue sequence but the version I watched, from Photoplay, doesn't have that sequence in it. The film is about two teens: Judy (Lina Basquette) a hard boiled Atheist and Bob (Tom Keene) a boy who believes in nothing but the Bible. Judy has a crush on him but he doesn't know it, which leads him and a gang of Christian to break into her meeting. A riot breaks out and an Atheist girl is killed so Judy, Bob and another kid end up at a reform school where they are abused by the evil guard (Noah Beery). Soon both Judy and Bob are rethinking what they believed when they entered the reformatory. This is a rather strange and bizarre film that's main goal is to preach intolerance but along the way we get all sorts of strange stuff from campy anti-God speeches to brutal violence against kids and then transforming into a tender love story. The movie starts to wear out its welcome in the final act but this remains a strange little film that is so well-told that even though who don't like silents would probably enjoy it. The first part of the film, involving the Christian and Atheist gangs, is rather campy because of how much the two sides are going after one another. Even though it comes off campy it leads to one of the most dramatic and rather beautiful scenes I've seen from any silent and that's where the girl, an Atheist, is afraid to die because she doesn't know what's next. She mentions she's afraid to be alone and a policeman tells her something, that I won't ruin, which comes off so tender that you somewhat feel bad for laughing at some stuff that happened before it. When the prison drama sets in we get some pretty strong violence, which is pure DeMille pulp. Beery is downright evil in his role and is a lot of fun to watch. Basquette, who apparently received a letter from an unknown Hitler after making this film, is very good in her role and really carries this thing from start to finish. Keene, probably best known today for his role in Plan 9 From Outer Space is very good as well. While this film isn't a complete success it remains a very entertaining one that manages to get its point across mainly because it beats the viewer over the head with a Bible. I don't like that much preaching in movies but whoever said DeMille would hold back when wanting to get a message across?

I don't usually like silent movies, finding them boring. But this one is actually very good and even quite dramatic. I wanted to comment on something said by another viewer about the score by Carl Davis. They said that the composer had stolen Paul Simon's "An American Tune". Actually, Paul Simon borrowed the theme from Bach's Chorale "Erkenne mich, mein Hueter" from the St. Matthew Passion. This is the actual theme that Mr. Davis used in his score, and he did give credit, listing this and other sources of his themes in the credits at the end of the film.

Also, while my wife and I watched the movie on TCM, we did not see any scenes with spoken dialog as another reviewer mentioned, even though TCM showed a version based on Cecil De Mille's personal nitrate print from George Eastman House. Maybe this version tried to recreate the film as originally envisioned as a full silent film with music.

Anyone who has seen a handful of Cecil B. DeMille pictures will be able to see that they are often contradictory on many levels, and can take some bizarre turns. In the Godless Girl – his last silent feature – an exaggerated and ill-informed attack upon atheism turns into what is for its era a rather grittily authentic portrayal of a penal institution.

Interestingly, the opening scenes show how fundamentalists such as DeMille and his screenwriter Jeanie MacPherson seem only able to picture atheists as having a ritualism and desire to convert similar to that of a religious group. It's also indicative of DeMille's fundamentalism that there are rarely actual arguments for belief in his pictures – just a sprinkling of quotations from scripture, a dash of Old Testament pyrotechnics and a reverent depiction of religious figures. Here that last tactic is reversed, with the unbelievers appearing as ridiculous caricatures, their tenets belittled rather than tackled. However the Godless Girl is rare among DeMille pictures in that it does contain a passing reference to an actual philosophical argument for the existence of God, one known as the argument from beauty. But this is rather overshadowed by DeMille's preferred method – to dazzle us with miracles. So we have cross-shaped burns appearing on Lina Basquette's hands, or Tom Keene's prayer being answered in the form of a falling electrical cable in the climactic fire sequence.

In contrast to this DeMillean theism is the thoroughly researched realism of the reformatory. Depictions of suffering and sadism do crop up quite a bit in DeMille's pictures, but they were rarely this convincing and this close to home. Particularly effective is the simplicity and relentlessness of the sequence in which Keene is tortured with a fire hose by the brutish Noah Beery. Beery is of course another caricature, but the starkness of the setting and the naturalism of the extras prevent this from becoming anything like a Sunday-school portrayal of Hebrew slaves toiling under the whip.

DeMille and MacPherson would probably not have regarded these changes in tone as inconsistent, and there is in fact one consistency in the Godless Girl that we can all appreciate – a formalist one. It's rarely noted that DeMille was a master of space and framing, and he always used his command of cinematic form to serve the story. It's natural that any competent director would depict the reformatory as Spartan and enclosed – and DeMille does that with visible ceilings, tight framing, swathes of barren grey and high angles in the yard so as not to show the sky or the outside world. However, DeMille also employs similar devices in the earlier scenes at the college. Why? Because the point of the story is that both the atheist girl and the Christian boy are close-minded and prejudiced, and DeMille's formalism is echoing this. They escape into the outside world at the same time as their convictions are beginning to soften, and DeMille takes full advantage of the outdoor setting with delicate framing, dappled lighting patterns and soft focus. It also gives him the perfect backdrop for his aforementioned argument from beauty.

The acting of the two leads is not at all bad, and for the most part tends more towards naturalism than melodrama (performances in DeMille pictures tended to go one way or the other – contradictions again!) The one moment of painful exaggeration from Lina Basquette is, unsurprisingly, in her early scene at the atheist meeting. The only sour note among the cast is comical character actor Eddie Quillan as "The Goat". In a rare display of deference to an actor DeMille apparently allowed him to improvise many of his scenes, but his style of comedy is at odds with the tone of the picture and spoils some of the deeper moments. This is not to say that Quillan had no talent, or that a picture such as this has no need of comic relief. It's simply that he is effectively a clown, and would fit better in a more light-hearted picture. Marie Prevost's sardonic sidekick actually provides much more effective comic relief.

On a final note, thanks to Filmfour we now have a very fine restored print of the Godless Girl. The score is by the unparalleled Carl Davis, and like all his work is listenable without being intrusive, and has a canny use of signature themes and classical interpolations. This new edition, occasionally shown late at night on the Filmfour channel in the UK, is well worth catching.

Having viewed a new sound-free print accompanied by a top silent-film pianist, I have developed a new respect for Cecil B deMille. I used to regard him as unwatchable. Being a little deaf, I was able to lip-read in the close-ups, so I was highly amused by the witty colloquialisms in the captions. I wonder how the people who later applied a sound track handled that! Judging by the other posts, I think this print had more in it than was shown in other countries. Comments in the foyer afterward: "Television still has a lot to learn" and from a film producer: "It's time to re-evaluate Cecil B". This retired cinematographer saw a very fine piece of direction.

"The Godless Girl" was director Cecil B. DeMille's last silent film. At the time, he was Hollywood's most successful director, but his last film--"The King of Kings"-- had angered some Christian viewers and he wanted a film to placate them. His idea for "The Godless Girl" came from a real news story about Hollywood High School, which was greatly embellished.

The film starts with a boy and girl who are attracted to each other. But the girl, Judy (Lina Basquette), is the head of "The Godless Society" (GS), an organization of students who wish to "kill the Bible". And the boy, Bob (Tom Keene), is student body president, devout Christian, and a model citizen. When the school's principal discovers that the nefarious GS is working to undermine society's laws, he sets out to destroy it. But Bob intervenes and says he will take care of it.

Events get out of hand and three students--Judy, Bob and class clown Samuel "Bozo" Johnson (Eddie Quillen)--are deemed responsible for a death and sent to a reformatory. This institution is like the worst adult prison. The especially sadistic head guard even twists his mustache like all respectable villains. Though there is a final act, the bulk of the film is dedicated to showing what a horrible place such institutions can be.

The film is not heavy-handed in promoting its Christian message, but it has its moments when Judy's atheistic philosophy is tested. Two such moments involve the "no atheists in foxholes" canard. The other is a simple appeal to the intelligent design view of the universe.

Regardless of DeMille's philosophical intentions, his skills as a director are remarkable. Inventive camera movements, wonderful nighttime scenes, convincing uses of fire as a dangerous element, and crowd choreography all demonstrate his talents.

The acting is true to the tradition of overacting in silent films, especially in the case of Miss Basquette. Tom Keene plays the comic part of Bob with a facility that still seems appropriate to a serious drama with deeper underpinnings.

Although the film hits the viewer over the head with its depiction of an atheistic character, to the point of putting a monkey in the scene of the GS meeting, the story still demonstrates some subtlety--sometimes feeling off track--and even some objectivity in portraying the two sides of the theistic question. Still, DeMille has stacked the deck enough to make audiences of 1929 feel that theism is the easy victor in the "war" for their souls. Religious imagery and emotional appeals to faith abound.

The restored copy (without sound) is well worth seeing.