Hearts of the World

Hearts of the World (1917)

*** (out of 4)

D.W. Griffith's WW1 epic has two Americans (Robert Harron, Lillian Gish) living in France and falling in love. When the German's attack the man goes off to fight, which ends with devastating results. The actual making of this film is somewhat more interesting than the final product, although the movie is still good but several notches below The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance. After that epic 1916 film Griffith wanted to try something bigger and found that the British government was willing to give him full access to anything he wanted. Griffith wanted to shoot real battle scenes and that's what he did for the film and he nearly once again was killed doing so. The British paid for the film to be made in hopes that it would inspire America to join the war effert. As for the film, it has some brilliant moments but sadly the love story really brings things down, which was somewhat surprising since Griffith is usually good with the melodrama. Harron is decent in his role but not strong enough to carry the film. Gish on the other hands is terrific as usual as is her sister Dorothy. Erich von Stroheim plays one of the German's in charge. The battle scenes, a lot of them real WW1 footage, is the highlight of the film and like Griffith's previous two films, it's rather amazing to see everything play out. This is certainly some of the greatest battlefield scenes I've ever watched. There's also another terrific scene where Gish, fearing her love is dead, tries to find him in the trenches. Gish's walk mixed with the beautiful cinematography makes this an unforgettable scene. In the end the film is certainly flawed but the battle scenes make it worth at least one viewing.

What we have here is one of the first generation of propaganda pictures. A few of these appeared in the final years of the First World War, after the US had joined the conflict and just as young Hollywood was beginning to realise the influential power of its medium. This was a war in which nineteenth century pomp and nationalism combined with twentieth century military technology, and as such it was sold with an aggressive and hypocritical zeal.

Hearts of the World happens to be directed by DW Griffith, who had probably done more than anyone else to make the industry what it now was. It appears however that the soft-hearted humanitarian didn't quite have it in him to be a gung-ho warmonger. On the one hand he does make the Germans out to be a bunch of barbaric would-be rapists, but this is actually a fairly restrained portrayal compared to your average recruitment poster of the time, as well as many other movies on other subjects – check out for example the super-ugly anarchist in 1928 white Russian film Tempest. Griffith even seems to be working in a message of sympathy, throwing us some near identical close-ups of a German soldier and Bobby Haron in the first battle scene. And rather than getting us all excited about the business of killing people, Griffith focuses much more on the possibilities of peace and safe homecoming. This is in fact laid on a little too heavily in the early intertitles, the street on which the characters live being called Rue de la Paix (Road of Peace), and a title pointing out that the goslings Lillian Gish fondles are "harmless". Griffith would have been better off relying upon the strength of his images.

And the images here are strong as always. Griffith's scenes of rural idyll are a far more succinct evocation of peace and happiness than his words. A particularly beautiful moment typical of the director is when Gish and Haron meet by the wall of his house, with the actress neatly framed amid ivy creepers like a little portrait. Griffith employs some of his oldest cinematic tricks, for example having villainous George Siegmann walking towards us, showing his actions and mannerisms as he approaches, and finally giving us a menacing close-up as he brushes past the camera, all within one shot. As always one of the director's greatest strengths is the way in which he orchestrates a sequence. Take for example the point at which war is declared and the men go off to fight. We get some busy and intense shots of soldiers marching off and tearful goodbyes, cutting dynamically from one vignette to another. The whole thing ends however with a slow and simple shot of Gish putting away her wedding dress, a poignant ritardando to the frenzy that went before it.

This is one of a handful of features in which both the Gish sisters Lillian and Dorothy appeared. As was usually the case, younger sister Dorothy plays a comical secondary character, alongside a comical secondary actor (Robert Anderson) to form a comical secondary romantic story. She spends most of this picture huffing indignantly and waddling around. It's not a very funny act. Even Lillian is not especially good in this one, her performance being largely wide-eyed innocence or wild hysterics. This was a problem in Broken Blossoms (1919) too, and I think it has a lot to do with her being put into girlish roles that were beneath her. In the early 1910s Griffith seemed to be wanting the actress to grow up quick, putting her in very mature roles in Musketeers of Pig Alley and The Mothering Heart. Perhaps influenced by the more popular Mary Pickford, who had around this time rather disturbingly reverted to child roles, Gish went through a phase of playing it young and cutesy. It didn't suit her, and the poor characterisation really harms this picture.

Hearts of the World is, in an odd kind of way, everything that the typical wartime propaganda picture is – naïve, formulaic and painfully idealistic. But it has also has the propaganda movie's capacity for well-made action sequences, and these are among the pictures few saving graces. Griffith has not lost his touch at putting together a rousing finale, mixing the big canvas (explosions, hordes of soldiers) with the small (Haron's little brothers sheltering together from the melee) in a cross-cutting extravaganza. The story may be a little weaker this time round, as Griffith's stories increasingly would be, but the pioneering director has lost none of his ability to move and excite with the power of his images.

A scene in the Anne book, Rilla of Ingleside, had a mention of the principal characters going to see this movie in 1918, in a theater in Prince Edward Island, Canada.

HEARTS OF THE WORLD (Paramount/Artcraft, 1918), under personal direction by D.W. Griffith, which lives up to it's subtitle, "an old-fashioned play with a new fashioned theme," is an important contribution to the American silent screen. Known as a propaganda effort, Griffith brings forth his feelings towards war with opening inter-title: "God help the nation that begins another war of conquest of meddling. Brass bands and clanging sabers make fine music, but let us remember that there is another side of war. After all, does war settle any question? The south was divided - thousands of lives were sacrificed by the Civil War, yet did it really settle the black and white problem in this country?" Following the pattern of Griffith's controversial melodrama, THE BIRTH OF A NATION (1915), HEARTS OF THE WORLD, at two hours, is very much a recycling of that epic, moving its time frame from the Civil War South (1861-1865) to its more recent battleground of the World War (1914-1918), making this particular one something from the time capsule.

The narrative begins during the peaceful days of 1912 in an unnamed French village where two American families, the Hamiltons (Jack Cosgrove and Kate Bruce) and the Stephensons (Adolphe Lestina and Josephine Crowell) live in a double house on the Rue De La Paix (Street of Peace). Marie Stephenson (Lillian Gish), having just returned from her visit with her aunt in Rheims, and Douglas Gordon Hamilton (Robert Harron), an artist and poet just back from Paris, with three younger brothers (Marion Simmons, Francis Marion) and the littlest one (Ben Alexander) who worships him, the neighboring boy and girl eventually meet, start a courtship that turns to eternal love. On the day of their wedding, war is declared. Douglas enlists along with his friends, Cuckoo (Robert Anderson), and the village carpenter (George  Fawcett), calling themselves "The Three Musketeers." As Douglas leaves Marie to fight for France, so does Cuckoo, who has fallen in love with a street singer known as "The Little Disturber" (Dorothy Gish). As the men face uncertainties fighting in the trenches, the once peaceful village is taken over by Von Strohm (George Siegmann), leader of the enemy Germans who once lived in that village, not only has his regiment burn portions of it, but places the women to extreme measures working labor jobs, to be brutally whipped (namely Marie) when unable to fulfill their tasks. Part II, "Struggle of Civilization" soon follows.

In spite of its age, HEARTS OF THE WORLD is fine storytelling with many elements now associated by Griffith, from the development of his central characters (the Griffith trademark where families affectionately kiss on the mouth); to his attention to detail with the camera recording fine visuals of actual location footage around France, and inter-cutting between war on the front and survival in the village. The scene where the younger Hamilton boys taking it upon themselves to bury their dead mother ("No prayers, save childish tears") is highly effective and quite moving.  

With the large cast headed by Griffith's most frequent co-stars, Lillian Gish and Robert Harron, the center of attention is nearly drawn towards Lillian's sister, Dorothy. The Gish sisters, who share little screen time together, work remarkably well in their assigned roles. Lillian, an outstanding actress here in the manner of Mary Pickford sporting curly hair, starts off her girlish charms as the aggressor attracting the boy next door, maturing as the story progresses. Her most dramatic moment occurs following the death of her mother. Her facial change of emotions from disbelief to shock is realistically done. Under incapable hands, this scene would have been laughable. Another scene worth noting occurs later as Gish's character walks aimlessly through the battlefield only to find her wounded beloved (Harron), whom she mistakes as dead. As for Dorothy, she provides the lighter side to the story with her comedic flair as the flirtatious young girl who attracts men with a blink of an eye. At one point she forces herself upon the boy (Harron) the very moment to be spotted by the girl (Lillian) who loves him. Wearing a large beret over her very dark hair and sporting ordinary clothes, her role could very well be the predecessor to Renee Adoree's performance in King Vidor's epic war drama, THE BIG PARADE (MGM, 1925) or categorized as a predate of the high-spirited Clara Bow of the 1920s. Regardless, Dorothy Gish, an underrated actress whose many movies lack availability today, deserves praise for her work as "The Little Disturber."

Other members in support are include L. Lowery (The Deaf and Blind Musician); George Nichols (The German Sergeant); Erich Von Stroheim (The German Soldier); and Fay Holderness (The Innkeeper). Appearing briefly are Mary Gish (Lillian & Dorothy's mother); and future playwright/actor Noel Coward as a man with wheelbarrow.

With occasional revivals at New York City's Museum of Modern Art's film department, HEARTS OF THE WORLD was introduced to New York's own public television WNET, Channel 13, in September 1977, as part of its weekly series, "Films of Persuasion," the second movie following the premiere presentation of Griffith's BIRTH OF A NATION. Distributed to home video in 1991, with excellent piano score by William Perry from the Killiam Collection, HEARTS OF THE WORLD did have limited cable TV presentation on Turner Classic Movies "Silent Sunday Nights" where it premiered in January 2, 2000. Though presented on VHS, the two minute prologue prior to the movie showing D.W. Griffith filming in the British line of Cambrin, 50 yards from enemy lines, concluding with he shaking the land of prime minister David Lloyd George on 10 Downing Street, is not included in the TCM print.

Nearly forgotten, HEARTS OF THE WORLD deserves its place in cinema history, and certainly one to consider for film scholars and historians to view and study as one of the few movies from that era not to be lost to the world. (***)

This is a superb telling of war and how it affects the "common people." It begins with life in a small French village and how people go about their daily lives. This is the story of two Americans (Lillian Gish and Robert Harron) who meet and fall in love. But during their courtship Lillian's sister (Dorothy) takes a liking to Robert (called The Boy on the movie title cards) and tries to take him which leads to some interesting scenes. She finally realizes she can't have him and decides to take what she can have.

There are good action battle scenes that very well show the chaos that is a battle. Chaos reigns supreme again when the town is bombed and the citizens have to flee. They have to try and pack then get out and still survive the bombing. Then there are those that don't want to leave. The movie does a good job of showing the horrors of death and the impact that has on people.

War is about people. We tend to forget that (today's news refers to the impact on non-soldiers as 'collateral damage'). D.W. Griffith shows that impact. And yet, when it is over, how quickly we again look for the bright side of life and that is how it should be.

One of the great features of this film is the limited use of title cards. They are used mostly as background filler and very little for conversations (much like Sunrise). Yet you know what is going on and the emotions of the moment. There is nothing mechanical about the acting. 8/10