She Goes to War

The problem with this film is that it has been so heavily chopped down from its original length, it is difficult to make sense of the story. I watched (and bought) the film to see Alma Rubens. Although Rubens' appearance clearly suffers from the ravages of her years as a heroin addict, she has one substantive scene (where she pretends to be the mother of a dying soldier) that is overwhelmingly moving and proves that she was a powerful actress. Also interesting is a scene in the beginning of the film where Rubens plays a ukulele's and sings. For some reason, Rubens fascinates me, and if there are other die hard silent movie fans similarly smitten, they will find viewing this film an interesting experience.

Henry King's "She Goes To War" (1929) was originally a silent film with talking sequences. It ran a total of 105 minutes. Alas, it survives only in a ruthlessly cutdown version of 50 minutes. All the original inter-titles have been removed, but the talking sequences and sound effects have been retained. As a result, the story is a little difficult (but not impossible) to follow, although it still has quite an impact in its harrowing, blistering action scenes which are far more shattering than anything in "All Quiet on the Western Front". Eleanor Boardman is competent as the lead, but it is Al St John and Alma Rubens (in her final film) who give scorching performances.

Henry King paralleled one of those directors like Robert Z. Leonard and Wesley Rugles who had the misfortune of doing their best work in the early sound period when the film making conventions and technique limited its impact in later viewings.

This film is a remarkable pacifist statement, even though offering valiant Doughboys battling menacing Huns, their eyes hidden in steel helmets. The battlefront image making is exceptional.

The story is far fetched, offering strikingly filmed Boardman (from THE CROWD) following Burns, her drunken fiancé, into the front line and, disguised as a soldier, experiencing the horrors of combat first hand. While we know the set piece is as preposterous the depiction of a bombing raid in King's YANK IN THE RAF it is still strong stuff with the sweating troops trapped inside the tank engulfed in a flame barrier, losing their nerve and facing incineration.

The surviving copy of this part talkie has been severely reduced to feature the sound material.

The original "She Goes to War" was a late silent-early talking hybrid. Much of the film was silent but sound effects, music and a bit of dialog were added--something not at all unusual for 1929. As far as the plot goes, I am not even 100% what I saw!! This is due to the editing and the choppy nature of the plot and characters.

The film is a rather incomprehensible mess of a film--even though it claims to be the greatest WWI film of all. Perhaps this was just hyperbole--though we'll probably never know. A decade after this film debuted, some idiot cut nearly half the film and re-edited it to make a supposedly improved film. Instead, it's a total mess which makes little sense and which is probably not worth your time. Sadly, it's the only version of this film known today and whether or not it was a worthwhile film or not is uncertain.

If you do want to see it (but why?!), the film is available at archive.org--as it's in the public domain and may be downloaded and watched for free.

Others have talked about the chopped-up, difficult-to-follow nature of this film. Knowing all that, it's still worth seeing for:

• Alma Rubens' two poignant performances of There is a Happy Land. Eleanor Boardman's facial reaction to the second performance helped make that a powerful scene.
• The battlefield scenes, which are as harrowing as anything in Big Parade, All Quiet on the Western Front, Wings, and other WW I movies of that era. A June 8, 1929 review of the original print of the movie in the Detroit Free Press focused on these war scenes, so it seems like one of the best parts of the movie survived.
• Eleanor Boardman's beauty and acting.

It's a strange mixture of late silent and early sound filmmaking, but if you watch the movie with the background knowledge of these reviews, you'll be rewarded.