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The Godless Girl (1929); DeMille's final silent
Topic Started: Dec 16 2008, 08:20 PM (608 Views)
igsjr
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Nostalgia blogger
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With the exception of The Sign of the Cross (1932), I’m not normally a fan of Cecil DeMille’s sound output but his silent films are another subject altogether. (I actually ponied up the hefty scratch to buy the deluxe version of The Ten Commandments [1956] just so I could own a copy of the 1923 original.) The Godless Girl was DeMille’s last silent, and it’s your typical sin-and-salvation melodrama: Lina Basquette and future B-western fixture Tom Keene are a pair of students constantly engaged in a furious debate between Atheism (Lina) and Christianity (Tom). When a young girl (Mary Jane Irving) falls off a staircase and dies during a melee between Atheist and Christian students, Basquette and Keene (along with a young Eddie Quillan—billed as “The Goat”) are convicted of manslaughter and thrown into a literal Hell of he-and-she reformatory schools. Basquette befriends Marie Provost during her stretch in stir; Keene and Quillan find themselves up against sadistic guard Noah Beery (“The Brute”). No one is ever going to accuse DeMille of subtlety in his work but I thought Girl was great fun—with some lovely, tender moments (I love how the death of "The Victim" was shot as if she were floating to her doom) and an incredible fiery climax at the film’s end. I particularly got a huge chuckle out of seeing serial lackey Richard Alexander play one of Beery’s minions in this movie, knowing that he would later repeat the experience when he played “El Lobo” to Beery’s J.A. Marsden in the 1937 Republic serial Zorro Rides Again.
"Life is in color--but black-and-white is more realistic..." -- Samuel Fuller, director

So many DVDs...so little time...
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Frank Hale
Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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I spent the last year and a half watching all the DeMille silents on DVD that I could lay my hands on.

I would rate The Godless Girl somewhere near the top from a craftmanship standpoint. As usual, the plot was over the top.

By way of summarizing my viewing marathon, here are a couple of interesting, on-the-money quotes from the Criterion King of Kings liner notes:

“DeMille recognized and revered a profound quality in the American soul – its ability to leap over every contradiction through an invincible sense of its own righteousness.”

“If DeMille’s peculiar blend of decadence, sermonizing, and impresarial cunning evokes the work of any art-house master, it’s that of Frederico Fellini.”

Incidentally, Richard Alexander also played the would-be seducer in City Girl (1930), about which film I just posted last night. I had had no idea his film career went back to the silents.
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panzer the great & terrible
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Mouth Breather
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Which silent would you put at the bottom, Frank? My choice is THE AFFAIRS OF ANATOL. Even though it survives in a gorgeous print with the original tinting, it's dull, dull, dull...we're talking SAMSON AND DELILAH dull.
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
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Frank Hale
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Maybe The Little American because it seemed so much more like a Griffith film.

Probably the most watchable overall was The Volga Boatman, which you recommended. Other pleasant surprises were Cleo Ridgely in The Golden Chance and the humor in Don’t Change Your Husband.

On the whole I was disappointed in DeMille’s silent work. His stories are ridiculous and I much prefer the fluid camera work and shadowy lighting in the Murnau, Pabst, and Leni films I’ve been seeing recently.
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panzer the great & terrible
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Mouth Breather
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Well yeah, but that's like comparing apples to doorknobs. DeMille interests me because he bares our national weirdness, not because he's any great shakes as a technician. Sure, he could tell a story, but what stories did he choose to tell? To me THIS DAY AND AGE is the essence of DeMille -- right wing goofiness run amuck.
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
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Frank Hale
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I saw 20 of the damned things, so I probably just overdosed.

Nevertheless, these Murnau, Borzage films sure seem like a breath of fresh air.
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panzer the great & terrible
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Mouth Breather
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Bozage and I share the same birthday, and his movies fit me like an old shoe. Murnau is one of the greats, and it'll be fine to have even an incomplete print of City Girl.
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
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The Batman
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Sorry, didn't actually read any of your posts above, so not sure if you guys like THE GODLESS GIRL or find it boring.

Me, loved it. A great, great film, IMHO.

Always be yourself! Unless you can be Batman...then always be Batman!
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Frank Hale
Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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We've talked about "This Day and Age" here and in a number of other threads over the years.

If any of you DeMille fans missed the announcement, it became available through the Universal MOD line at Amazon a few weeks ago.

I haven't watched it yet, but I'm expecting it to bring out my inner fascist.
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panzer the great & terrible
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Mouth Breather
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It's a heap of fun in its nasty little way, and certainly not typical DeMille, at least in production values.
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
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