Behind the Front is inspired by a Saturday Evening Post story called "The Spoils of War" by Hugh Wiley.
A dull policeman (Wallace Beery) gets his watch swiped by a pickpocket (Raymond Hatton) who takes refuge in the mansion of wealthy Betty Bartlett-Cooper (Mary Brian). She wants to join the war effort, but her father won't let her unless she can recruit twenty-five men in one day. She needs two more, so when the crook arrives, she hides him while she convinces his pursuer to join up, and then while he's signing paperwork she seduces the thief to do the same. Fast forward to shove-off, and the crook and policeman become fast friends unbeknownst to the other they've already met.
The film focuses much more on the gags than the story or military authenticity. Laurel and Hardy used some of the jokes in Pack Up Your Troubles. The comedy is broad, sometimes old hat, and often ridiculous.
Stories about what an awful person Beery was are legendary. Gloria Swanson wrote that he forced himself on her on their wedding night and then tricked her into having an abortion she didn't want. Child actor Jackie Cooper reported being bullied on their (how many) films together. Rumors abounded after Ted Healy died following a fight with Beery in the Trocadero when he was out celebrating the birth of his son. Still, it is impossible to deny his magnetism on screen, no small feat for a bulldog of a man, squat and mean and dumb-looking.
Photoplay's reviewer said, "Wallace Beery and Raymond Hatton are, without doubt, the funniest team that has ever depicted life in the trenches. Their humor is inimitable, and if we don't see more of this splendid team, then all is lost." Luckily for him, there were three more pairings in We're in the Navy Now, Fireman, Save My Child and Now We're in the Air. Sutherland directed all but the last one.
Ralph Spence was a wizard at title writing, and could re-arrange a bad film and write clever titles to completely alter the story. By the mid-1920s, audiences had become experts at lip-reading, and wouldn't easily accept titles that didn't match the actor's lips. Beery was notorious for using a menagerie of four-letter words. Director Eddie Sutherland was "very anxious to use Spence on his first big success, Behind the Front," according to Kevin Brownlow's The Parade's Gone By. Sutherland sat with Spence while he ran the film on a Moviola and Spence asked him what he was trying to convey in a scene. "Something to show the danger that they're going into, and that they don't like it much, I guess," he said. Spence wrote the title, "Listening post-where men are men, but wish they weren't." His talents are on full display here; the titles provide a great deal of comedy in addition to the slapstick-type humor on screen. For example, when the troops arrive in France we read ... and then are greeted with images of the newly enlisted men slogging through the mud and unloading the ... (bus, train?)
Mary Brian was named one of thirteen Wampas Baby Stars that year, an advertising contest that identified budding starlets, whose roster also included Mary Astor, Joan Crawford, Janet Gaynor and Fay Wray in 1926.
Richard Arlen was a real WWI army air force veteran, having lied about his age and enlisting in The Great War at age 17. "My time in service was one of the most satisfying experiences of my youth," he said in his memoirs. "I learned so much and appreciated the patience of the corps." He was not happy about being cast in this film, but during a break one day at the studio a couple of old friends in the prop and electrical departments approached him about doing a test for Wings, which cemented his place in film history.
Chester Conklin and Tom Kennedy appear, old friends from Sutherland's days as a Keystone Kop.
According to Motion Picture News, the Sterling Theatre in Greeley, Colorado put on a big show to promote the film. A week prior to the screening, two actors in ill-fitting military garb paraded across the stage with a banner announcing the title as a live-action trailer. Then, each night of a screening, the actors marched with Bugle and Drum Corps of the National Guard along the street of the theater.
H.C. Porter of the Dreamland Theater in New Albany, Mississippi said, "It is absolutely the best comedy I ever saw."
R. J. Relf of the Star Theatre in Decorah, Iowa called it, "a good little program comedy but not worth a raise in admission. The ex-service boys will like it better than average public."
This film was screened at Cinevent in 2019.
