The Little American

When the US entered World War I, the government forced Hollywood to churn out propaganda films. THE LITTLE American is probably the best of the lot because it stars Mary Pickford.

Pickford plays a young woman torn between two men: Jack Holt (German) and Raymond Hatton (French), but her decision is delayed because of the war as both men enlist.

When the ship Pickford is sailing on is sunk by the Germans (think Lusitania) because it is carrying munitions, Pickford has a great scene as she stands on the lifeboat and yells at the German commander. Later on, of course, she runs into both Holt and Hatton when she is being held as a war prisoner at a château.

Director Cecil B. DeMille provides one truly great scene in this film as Pickford and Holt are wandering through a bombed-out village. They pass a destroyed church of which only one wall remains standing. Against the wall is a very large crucifix. As they stand and watch, the wall collapses but the Jesus figure remains, suspended in mid air. It's a very surreal moment in a film that is otherwise very straightforward and un-artsy.

Pickford is, as always, a pleasure to watch. She was always a very natural actress who avoided the arm-waving histrionics many other actors of the day used. She's also very very pretty. Holt is very good here in a leading-man role. Hatton is OK. Among the list of name actors in "extra" parts are Wallace Beery, Ramon Novarro, Colleen Moore, Ben Alexander, Hobart Bosworth, Norman Kerry, Walter Long, James Neill, and Edythe Chapman.

Not a great film, but interesting to see US propaganda at work.

This film is blatantly an anti-German propaganda film to which audiences flocked because America declared war on Germany a few months before its release. It's very effective even today, as I found myself despising the Germans for their actions, which included killing civilians and raping some women. Mary Pickford plays the title character, uncharacteristically a grown woman instead of a child she played in most of her films during the silent era. She is wooed by German-American Jack Holt and French-American Raymond Hatton when war breaks out in 1914. The Germans are depicted as being overly brutal.

There was one scene that made me laugh, when the Germans break the door down to enter her aunt's home. Mary tells them in deadly ernest while waving a small American flag, "Gentlemen - you are breaking into the home of an American citizen - I must ask you to leave." The Germans, led by Walter Long, roared with laughter too. I couldn't decide if it was comic relief or if you were suppose to sympathize with Mary.

I rather enjoyed the film for what it was. It was paced well by DeMille and the acting was fine but typical of early silents. Walter Long made a good heavy - he can sneer with the best of them.

You may notice in the cast list some famous names (Wallace Beery, Ramon Novarro, etc.) without character names. You never actually see these actors, but they are known to have been in the film from various writings, including DeMille's autobiography.

Little American, The (1917)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Cecil B. DeMille would eventually become known for his over the top films but I guess you can follow this type of film-making back to 1917 and this picture. The film starts off in America where Angela Moore (Mary Pickford) is being courted by both a German (Jack Holt) and a Frenchman (Raymond Hatton). When WW1 breaks out both men head off to fight for their different countries and soon Mary, now in France, comes under attack by German troops and Holt will have to decide to save her or stand up for his evil country. This film is so over the top in its patriotism that at times it becomes quite laughable. At the start of the film, when Pickford's character is introduced, we learn that she was born on the Fourth of July. When we first see her there's a big American flag waving behind her as she gives that lovely smile towards the camera. Overall this film is a mixed bag full of some great stuff but also containing a lot of weak stuff. The good stuff includes a strong performance by both Pickford and Holt who settle into their roles quite well. Apparently Pickford hated working for DeMille but that doesn't really show as she delivers her strong performance. The battle scenes, for the most part, are pretty good as well. The most interesting aspect of the film is how they show the evils being done by the German's at the time and this includes showing them raping some women as well as killing elderly men. The weak stuff is all the propaganda running throughout the film. I know this was common for the day but this film takes it to a whole new level. Another silly sequence is when Pickford's U-Boat is hit by a German torpedo. The special effects here are so bad that you can tell the boat seems to be a plastic one floating in a tub. The scenes towards the end where Pickford runs into Jesus on the cross doesn't contain the magic that DeMille was going for either. In the end, this is a mixed bag but fans of DeMille and Pickford would probably want to check it out but D.W. Griffith's Hearts of the World is much better.

America entered World War One in April 1917 after almost three years of brutal fighting between England, France and their allies and Germany and its alliance. The first Hollywood so-called propaganda film released soon after Congress declared war on Germany and the Central Powers was Cecil B. DeMille's July 1917 "The Little American," starring Mary Pickford.

Its director DeMille had lost a good friend in the sinking of the Lusitania by a German submarine two years earlier, while Canadian Pickford had seen her native country involved in the war since 1914. Both were ardent supporters of the United States' war effort, and both eagerly participated in a movie that painted the Germans simply as barbarians. The Chicago Board of Censors, in fact, was so concerned about the city's large German-American population that it banned the movie from being shown. Two court rulings eventually overturned the censor board's prohibition from exhibiting "The Little American."

The Jeanne McPherson script does soften the anti-German edges somewhat by creating a young German residing in America as a paramour to Pickford. Karl Von Austreim, played by Jack Holt, is summoned by Germany in the fall of 1914 to join his regiment in Europe. The two lovers depart, only to once again meet on the battlefields of the Western Front. She's seen nursing several injured French soldiers after visiting her aunt in France, who had just died of natural causes near the fighting. Pickford ends up becoming a spy for the French, pinpointing important German artillery on her aunt's property. It is there she meets her old boyfriend, and he ends up becoming a protector for her.

While the film is praised for its recreation of a British liner's sinking by German hands, of which Pickford's character was a passenger, the movie failed to garner the enormous profits for the Mary Pickford Company, through its distribution branch Aircraft Pictures. This is the second and final picture DeMille directed with the popular actress. The first, released a couple months before in "A Romance of the Redwoods," was studio head Adolph Zukor's solution for a career correction for Pickford after viewing the preview of her last film, "The Poor Little Rich Girl." He saw the movie as being a total dud. Despite the actress having a clause in her contract giving her total control over her productions, Zukor felt DeMille's steady, serious hand would straighten her out. Of course "The Poor Little Rich Girl" ended up an enormous hit, and she would revert back to playing a kid again in her next two movies after "The Little American." To be fair, "Redwoods," on the basis of Pickford's star power, became the fourth highest grossing movie of the year.

Meanwhile, the two movies with DeMille spelled doom for her ongoing, unhappy marriage to actor Owen Moore, as well as making it easier in her clandestine romance with Douglas Fairbanks, whom she had met two years earlier at a Tarrytown, N. Y. party. The filming locations of "Redwoods" and "American" took place in southern California, where the married Fairbanks resided. Pickford had been living near her studio in Ft. Lee, N. J. before relocating out West. She would never live in the East ever again.

Returning to "A Little American:" Even a MacPherson script, co-written by DeMille, couldn't quite rescue "A Little American." MacPherson and the director formed one of the more successful and influential working partnerships in Hollywood. As an actress as well as a minor director and scriptwriter, she approached DeMille for an acting job in 1914. Instead, the director, realizing her scenario talents, hired her as a screenwriter. She went on to write 30 of DeMille's first 34 movie scripts, with her last screenplay for the director in 1930's "Madam Satan."

With the US having recently entered the First World War, the country's best known and most popular director teamed with its most beloved actress to fire a cinematic salvo in this flag-waving adventure.

In style this is something of a departure for DeMille. He more or less abandons his use of long takes, painterly shot compositions and predominantly visual narrative, in favour of rapid editing and lots of expository intertitles. Of course this is purely pragmatic – it keeps the story moving along quickly and injects some excitement and tension into what is after all a propaganda piece. The heavier than usual use of intertitles also leaves no ambiguity about plot or character intention. Some of these editing patterns are quite effective – for example, the crosscutting used when the ocean liner is torpedoed. However fans of DeMille's early silents will probably find themselves missing the more considered approach they will be familiar with. This is certainly one of his least graceful films.

The fact that The Little American is more action-centred means it is less acting centred – there is not the same concentration on performance that you normally get with DeMille. For this reason this is not a particularly memorable role for Mary Pickford, and to be fair almost any actress could have played the part equally well. However the casting of Pickford would have been symbolic and psychologically effective at the time. Although the press had not yet labelled her America's sweetheart, she certainly occupied that position. Therefore DeMille did not have to go out of his way to endear the audience to the character of Angela Moore, because they had already formed an emotional attachment to Mary Pickford.

Regardless of how effective this picture was in its day it is really quite a mediocre effort when taken out of context. One interesting point though – the one scene in The Little American that really looks like the typical DeMille is the one in which Pickford and Holt take refuge in a ruined church below the effigy of Christ on the cross. Throughout the picture the stars and stripes is treated with the same reverence and significance DeMille might give to a crucifix. This picture is another small step towards the iconic imagery and preachiness that would characterise his work from the twenties onwards.