Joan the Woman

This is a curio - the story of Joan of Arc leading on from a view of the English trenches in World War One (which was still of course, a reality when this film was made). Geraldine Farrar might not look the part of Joan but she manages to convey all the power, spirituality and vulnerability the part demands. her acting is a little theatrical as you would expect from an opera diva but she is excellent nontheless. Wallace Reid (a tragic casualty of Hollywood not that long after this) is pretty good as well, although I thought the love story angle stretched credibility a bit in places. The film itself meanders a bit but when you consider it is over eighty years old it still retains a remarkable amount of effect. Not as good as the 1928 Dreyer film but one to seek out.

Joan The Woman was Cecil B DeMille's first epic, the genre that today he is best remembered for, although at this point it was more the case that was hopping on a band wagon. After the massive success of Italian "super production" Cabiria, DW Griffith had made Intolerance and Thomas Ince (forgotten today but a big name at the time) did a World War epic called Civilization. In 1916, all the big names were doing epics, and DeMille, now established as Paramount's star filmmaker, wasn't going to be the one to miss out.

Joan The Woman was something like De Mille's fourth or fifth collaboration with Jeanie Macpherson. Typically of Macpherson it has a tight storyline somewhat marred by some rather odd ideas. The framing story, set in war-torn Europe, is apparently there to give the tale some contemporary relevance, and it may be in part an Intolerance-inspired blending of narratives in different historic periods. However on MacPherson's part it seems to be a chance to explore her interest in reincarnation. So we get this daft little story about a British soldier who was in a past life the man who betrayed Joan, and now has to go and sacrifice himself in battle to repay the debt. An officer holds up a bomb as if it were the catch of the day – "I need one of you chaps to go and drop this in the German trench. Oh and by the way it's a suicide mission, so think carefully before you volunteer" The whole thing looks like something out of Blackadder Goes Forth.

This is DeMille though, and it's not about the daft plot – it's about the big picture. De Mille's deftness at handling crowd scenes had been apparent since his earliest films, but here he really gets to use that skill to its full potential. The main battle sequence is as spectacular as those in Intolerance, but it is also convincing. DeMille apparently set the two opposing armies of extras genuine objectives – hence we get a very real sense of desperation and determination. He makes good use of high angles looking down on the action – God's-eye-views, perhaps. DeMille also builds up tension to the clash of armies with a mighty cavalry charge across the screen, and in this we see the seeds of the equivalent sequences in DeMille's The Crusades (1935) Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky and Olivier's Henry V, all of which used and developed the opening cavalry charge to add excitement to battle scenes.

DeMille continues to progress well with his mastery of visual grammar. As per usual in his silent pictures, he makes some use of "Rembrandt lighting" – well lit actors against dark backgrounds. Here however he achieves a similar effect, albeit it with light and dark reversed, with clouds of dust or smoke framing the characters as silhouettes. Also much in evidence here is DeMille's use of images to imply sound – for example a shot of church bells ringing, followed by a shot of Joan reacting to the sound conveys narrative (and in this case character information) without resorting to intertitles. DeMille knows that he doesn't necessarily have to throw in a title every time a character opens their mouth, and as often as possible keeps a smooth flow of meaningful images. The romantic scenes between Geraldine Farrar and Wallace Reid are particularly effective as a result. Having said that, there is perhaps a bit too much pompous theatrical gesturing from the actors, which I suppose goes hand-in-hand with the rather unnecessary use of "thees" and "thous" in the titles.

It's perhaps rather appropriate that, as well as being the first time DeMille brought epic spectacle to the fore, this is also his first story to contain a heavy dose of religious piety. For DeMille, as we can see here, God is a showman, a god of miracles, visions and righteous destruction. The incredibly egomaniacal DeMille probably saw himself as a similar figure, dazzling the populace and hammering home his messages with spectacle and special effects. So, with Joan The Woman, we see the beginnings of the DeMille who would one day part the red sea and resurrect Jesus on the silver screen.

All the Demille trademarks are here - huge crowd scenes, wild orgies, torture - but there is also a beauty and imagination here that is lacking in some of his later work. The use of double exposures for Joan's visions, the magnificent use of lighting and colour tinting, reveal a film-maker of greater depth than we might expect.

Opera diva Geraldine Farrar seems a little old and hefty for Joan of Arc, but once you get past that she truly gives an excellent performance. And Wallace Reid as her English lover lends strong support.

The camera is a little static and the "spectacular" battle scene is really just hundreds of people running around waving sticks in the air and falling backwards off walls (and I think very little attention was paid to the safety of the extras and the horses), but this is still a very rewarding and innovative film. And we get the original 1916 score performed on a Wurlitzer.

The historical story is framed by a World War 1 (then currently raging in Europe) scene, which adds poignancy to the piece, but does make the central thesis of the story (that God takes sides in wars) a little harder to take. Ramon Novarro's in this somewhere - can you find him?

I'm convinced that one of the reasons that Joan The Woman was filmed by Cecil B. DeMille was to bolster the Allied cause and the cause of France in World War I. We were not yet in the war but that very issue was the main issue in the campaign for president in 1916.

It's hard to imagine an opera star being an entertainment idol in this day and age. But Geraldine Farrar was just that. With that in mind DeMille got Famous Players-Lasky to sign Farrar who was an opera soprano known for her acting ability as well as singing. Silent films afforded her a great opportunity to use the same kind of histrionics used on an opera stage that for the silent screen was essential.

Why DeMille didn't opt for just a retelling of Joan Of Arc's story is beyond me. The whole ploy with Wallace Reid playing a contemporary British soldier in the trenches and his ancestor fighting in France against the French in the Hundred Years War was both ludicrous and doesn't wear well with age. I suppose possibly the message was that France and England enemies before were now allies in a great cause as great as the one Joan gave her life for.

Reid finds a sword that belonged to the Maid of Orleans and he uses it as a talisman of sorts to communicate with the long dead maid. Then we go back in time to the struggle for France to liberate and unite as a people against the English conquerors. Where Reid meets the Maid on two occasions and his life is saved. Unfortunately he can't reciprocate when her time comes.

Farrar is a find Joan Of Arc. DeMille knew what he was doing in bringing her to Hollywood, her operatic training was what was needed for the silent screen believe it or not. She did the same in another DeMille production of one of her leading roles, Carmen.

Raymond Hatton is fine as the feckless King Charles VII who also let Joan down in the crunch. Theodore Roberts another DeMille favorite was chillingly evil as the Bishop Of Cauchon the one who tried her and judged her a witch and a heretic.

It's hardly historically accurate, but other than Reid's grafted in role it's not a bad film. Joan The Woman has the kind of spectacle and special effects that made the reputation of Cecil B. DeMille.

Geraldine Farrar's performance as Joan of Arc, along with some memorable visual sequences, are the main reasons why "Joan the Woman" is still worth seeing today, despite the availability of many other movies about the celebrated French heroine. Although Farrar is not as remarkable as Maria Falconetti was 11 years later (which is by no means a criticism of Farrar - no one else has come close to Falconetti in the role of Joan, and most probably no one will for many years to come), she is very good, especially given the limitations of the time.

Except for clearly being older than the historical Joan was, Farrar conveys pretty well the most important characteristics of the heroine. She and DeMille did well to avoid making her too feminine, instead making her a strong and interesting leader with a limited but heartfelt set of priorities. The story does include some rather fanciful DeMille touches, but as cinema they work well enough, even if on a handful of occasions they may seem out of place in Joan's story. The screenplay also gives Farrar a chance to show many different sides of her character.

Some of the large-scale sequences are also nicely done for an era in which film-makers usually had to work out by themselves how to film such scenes, with only a handful of previous examples to go by. While some of the seams might show now, they did a very good job with what was available, and they must have looked rather impressive in their day.

Raymond Hatton performs well enough in the rather thankless role of the weak king Charles, and Theodore Roberts has some good villainous moments as Cauchon. Some of the other characters, while satisfactory, are a bit too non-descript to be a fully effective complement to Joan.

The one real weakness of the movie is the now-extraneous sequence set in the World War that was in progress when the film was made. It's not bad in itself, and contemporary audiences might have found it worthwhile, but the story of Joan of Arc is really powerful enough that it should be allowed to stand on its own.

Overall, "Joan the Woman" is a good to very good movie in just about every respect, and it is still among the better Joan of Arc films. Perhaps the only one that is clearly superior is the amazing 1928 Dreyer/Falconetti masterpiece "The Passion of Joan of Arc". Since there are a number of sound movies about Joan available, this one unfortunately may not get much attention anymore, but for those who still enjoy the silents, it's worth seeing.