La fille sans dieu

B DeMille can still find enough sensational material in modern day America as an excuse to bring on chaos and destruction in The Godless Girl. It's atheists versus Christians in a struggle for the soul of roaring twenties youth not debated through civil discourse but violence and calamity with CB measuring it out in clockwork segments.

High schooler Judy Craig is out "to kill the bible" by organizing and giving lectures on atheism. When the principal gets wind of a meeting he completely abandons his responsibility and allows the student body president and his righteous classmates to deal with the problem. Displaying high school spirit like jack booted Fascists they bust up the meeting which results in a death and packs both instigators off to prison for manslaughter. Conveiently both the men's and women's reformatories are neighbors and the two end up bonding against a sadistic warden.

Basically a silent The Godless Girl offers an audacious and defiant female well ahead of her time in Judy Craig with Lena Basquette conveying a confident and independent exterior most of the film. Bob Keene has the look of an Arrow man but is dull in comparison to Lena's Judy. Marie Prevost and Eddie Quillan provide some comic bits while Noah Beery is his usual sadistic self as the corrections officer.

For his part DeMille provides an abundance of hair raising scenes including an hallucinogenic fall over a banister with the crowd looking on. C.B. is clearly on the Creator's side but he does give us a feisty heroine in the non-believer Judy while unintentionally exposing the rabid intolerance of the God squad. DeMille also seems to be at a loss on what to do between the torrid scenes but by then the provocative poster or coming attraction has already secured your money.

During the awkward transitional stage from silents to talkies, Cecil B. DeMille made this 1929 story about THE GODLESS GIRL. It's given a very heavy-handed treatment and the Christian values vs. Atheism may seem a bit jarring to modern audiences.

LINA BASQUETTE has the title role, a movie originally shot as a silent film but with some sound added before the film was released. It's an intimate drama, a crime story involving high school students, not the usual epic kind of film DeMille is famous for except for a climactic fire sequence.

A riot breaks out at high school when someone circulates pamphlets on Atheism and meets a lot of resistance from a religious group. Three of the students end up in a reformatory when one of the girls among the students dies when a stair railing collapses.

Treatment there seems to be worse than the average prison. Things go from bad to worse when brutal guard NOAH BEERY gets his hands on two of the male students disobeying rules. DeMille seems to relish showing the brutal treatment. The hero of the tale, TOM KEENE, devises an escape plan so he and Lina can escape the torments of the so-called reform school.

Suspense builds for the escape plan and there's a quieter interlude where the boy and girl with different beliefs fall in love. But then the action picks up again after the two are found by the authorities and returned to their prison. While she's in solitary, an accidental fire sets the stage for the very suspenseful conclusion wherein the hero has to come to her rescue.

Summing up: One of the better silent films, it holds the interest throughout and builds to a realistic fire sequence that director DeMille milks for all it's worth.

I very much enjoyed this film. Noah Beery was appropriately villainous and the stars were attractive and appealing.

However, as a life-long atheist, I was offended by De Mille's take on the question of atheism vs. belief. It is clear that he considers atheism to be a very evil thing and something that should be shunned, if not forcibly eliminated.

To my eyes, the religious kids in the school were the truly intolerant ones, who came to the atheist meeting with the intention of breaking it up, using force if needed. Force was indeed used, and the ensuing Merle resulted in the unnecessary death of a student.

The reformatory was a hellish place, though it was interesting that De Mille put in a disclaimer to the effect that although the events depicted actually do take place in some reformatories, there are many that actually try to rehabilitate, so we shouldn't judge such places too harshly.

The first is exciting and it seems that the set was actually burned down, with injuries inflicted on the star.

As an atheist, I wasn't too fond of the heroine's conversion.

I don't usually like silent movies, finding them boring. But this one is actually very good and even quite dramatic. I wanted to comment on something said by another viewer about the score by Carl Davis. They said that the composer had stolen Paul Simon's "An American Tune". Actually, Paul Simon borrowed the theme from Bach's Chorale "Erkenne mich, mein Hueter" from the St. Matthew Passion. This is the actual theme that Mr. Davis used in his score, and he did give credit, listing this and other sources of his themes in the credits at the end of the film.

Also, while my wife and I watched the movie on TCM, we did not see any scenes with spoken dialog as another reviewer mentioned, even though TCM showed a version based on Cecil De Mille's personal nitrate print from George Eastman House. Maybe this version tried to recreate the film as originally envisioned as a full silent film with music.

"The Godless Girl" was director Cecil B. DeMille's last silent film. At the time, he was Hollywood's most successful director, but his last film--"The King of Kings"-- had angered some Christian viewers and he wanted a film to placate them. His idea for "The Godless Girl" came from a real news story about Hollywood High School, which was greatly embellished.

The film starts with a boy and girl who are attracted to each other. But the girl, Judy (Lina Basquette), is the head of "The Godless Society" (GS), an organization of students who wish to "kill the Bible". And the boy, Bob (Tom Keene), is student body president, devout Christian, and a model citizen. When the school's principal discovers that the nefarious GS is working to undermine society's laws, he sets out to destroy it. But Bob intervenes and says he will take care of it.

Events get out of hand and three students--Judy, Bob and class clown Samuel "Bozo" Johnson (Eddie Quillen)--are deemed responsible for a death and sent to a reformatory. This institution is like the worst adult prison. The especially sadistic head guard even twists his mustache like all respectable villains. Though there is a final act, the bulk of the film is dedicated to showing what a horrible place such institutions can be.

The film is not heavy-handed in promoting its Christian message, but it has its moments when Judy's atheistic philosophy is tested. Two such moments involve the "no atheists in foxholes" canard. The other is a simple appeal to the intelligent design view of the universe.

Regardless of DeMille's philosophical intentions, his skills as a director are remarkable. Inventive camera movements, wonderful nighttime scenes, convincing uses of fire as a dangerous element, and crowd choreography all demonstrate his talents.

The acting is true to the tradition of overacting in silent films, especially in the case of Miss Basquette. Tom Keene plays the comic part of Bob with a facility that still seems appropriate to a serious drama with deeper underpinnings.

Although the film hits the viewer over the head with its depiction of an atheistic character, to the point of putting a monkey in the scene of the GS meeting, the story still demonstrates some subtlety--sometimes feeling off track--and even some objectivity in portraying the two sides of the theistic question. Still, DeMille has stacked the deck enough to make audiences of 1929 feel that theism is the easy victor in the "war" for their souls. Religious imagery and emotional appeals to faith abound.

The restored copy (without sound) is well worth seeing.