The Great War in American and British Cinema, 1918–1938

Art Amidst the Ashes

Ryan Copping

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9783030606701
• eBook ISBN:
  9783030606718
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Historia británica

This book recounts the reception of selected films about the Great War released between 1918 and 1938 in the USA and Great Britain. It discusses the role that popular cinema played in forming and reflecting public opinion about the War and its political and cultural aftermath in both countries. Although the centenary has produced a wide number of studies on the memorialisation of the Great War in Britain and to a lesser degree the USA, none of them focused on audience reception in relation to the Anglo-American 'circulatory system' of Trans-Atlantic culture.

© The Author(s) 2020

R. CoppingThe Great War in American and British Cinema, 1918–1938Palgrave Studies in the History of the Mediahttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60671-8_1

Begin Abstract

1. Bandaged Wounds

Ryan Copping¹

(1)

Department of Visual and Media Arts, Grand Valley State University, Grand Rapids, MI, USA

End Abstract

The Paradox of War Fatigue—“NOT in Any Sense a War Film”

On September 29th, 1919, the Park Hall Cinema in Cardiff, Wales, ran a brief advertisement in the Western Mail for Inside the Lines, an American import. The ad, only a few sentences long, read in its entirety, with the original capitalization: “Stupendous Attraction! ‘Inside the Lines’ is a film version of the famous Play which ran at the Apollo for more than 12 months. It should be distinctly understood that this is NOT in any sense a War Film, but a great Spy Play which grips with an intensity seldom seen. The Grand Organ will be used Twice Daily in conjunction with Garforth Hobitmer’s Orchestra.”¹ The 1918 version of the film, directed by David Hartford, is not in circulation and possibly lost. However, we know the movie, a filmed version of a popular play by Earl Derr Biggers, involved a German spy plot to destroy the British fleet during the war. Since the entire plot of the film is motivated by war concerns, what are we to make of the claim that it is “NOT in any sense a War Film”?

Even a casual reading of cinema-related documents in both the United States and Britain from the period after the November 1918 Armistice indicates that a perception existed among both commentators (what we would now call “critics,” although their function at the time was slightly different) and producers of films that the public had tired of war movies. Yet there is ample evidence that the war as a cinematic subject was at least sporadically popular during this era. A pattern emerges in the published reception of war films in both countries in the conflicts’ aftermath: war films are not popular, audiences are tired of them, nor are they particularly good, but this specific war movie is exceptional and worth seeing. Given the degree to which cinema-goers at the home front were satiated with war-related news (returning soldiers, developments at Versailles, the transition to a peacetime economy), it would be nearly impossible for individuals in both countries to not be interested in the war on some, or probably multiple, levels.

As Leslie Midkiff Debauche states in her book Reel Patriotism: The Movies and World War One: “…the war was never a taboo subject for film narratives- as it was never taboo for published fiction and nonfiction-nor was it absent from newspaper headlines.”² In a related article, she also reports that many apparent non-war genres, including the Western, had the First World War elements inserted into them during this period.³ At least two songs, “Till We Meet Again” and “How Ya Gonna Keep ‘Em on the Farm?” (both hits in 1919) dealt with leaving or returning soldiers.

The paradox of war movies generally being seen as not popular, while elements of successful films were clearly motivated by and were concerned with the conflict, can be explained in how the term was defined at the time. I want to argue that “war film” had a colloquial meaning to audiences of the time as a specific kind of genre—though not the genre of a “war film” as most filmgoers and scholars tend to think of today. To audiences in the immediate post-war period, a “war film” was not a movie that concerned itself with battle and its associated victories and traumas, nor films in other genres that treated the war as cinematic subject, but as a kind of propaganda film produced, or at least tacitly endorsed, by a government. This kind of “war film” was implausible and lacked both realism and verisimilitude. In many ways, these “war films” for the next twenty years would be what successful Great War movies would be a response to—a sanitized, propagandistic kind of view of the war and the experience of fighting it or even living through it on the home front.

One of the defining traits of the “war film” was its genericness. The “war film” is an amalgamation of all propaganda—didactic, hackneyed, and untruthful, even if one supported the side the movie endorsed. In much of the reception of post-war cinema, films that are praised are not compared to a specific movie but an entire type. Perhaps the most notable aspect of the “war film” was its forgettableness—it blended together with all the others, creating a kind of conglomerate media image of the war in the minds and hearts of viewers, one that was simplistic and empty of relevance. This kind of ur-“war film” was not made by any one person, or even organization. It was perceived as what the elites who were responsible for the war wanted those regular people who fought and were otherwise affected by it wanted people to think, with whoever those elites were itself a nebulous and unclear construct.

As Richard Koszarski states in his An Evening’s Entertainment: The Age of the Silent Feature Picture, 1915–1928: “Even in the crudest terms, estimates of the number of paid admissions [to American movie theatres] are not reliable before 1922.” He goes on to argue that the state of film distribution in the era compounds the problem. For many years, no distribution records were kept, and when they were, they do not take into account several important factors, such regional disparities or commissions paid for selling films in theatres not owned by the studio.⁴ Therefore, while it is obvious that such films as D.W. Griffith’s Way Down East (1920) were very popular, it is difficult to quantify how popular they were or with what demographic groups.

The perceived lack of major First World War box-office hits in the two years immediately after the war may also be explained by other reasons. For America, technically, the war was not over. Although it is traditionally remembered that the war ended on November 11th, 1918, this is actually the date of the Armistice or cessation of fighting. The formal end of the conflict was brought by the Treaty of Versailles, signed by most of the combatants, including the UK, on June 28th, 1919. The United States, a signatory that eventually did not ratify the treaty, officially ended hostilities with separate accords with Germany, Austria and Hungary in 1921. The negotiation period coincided with worldwide political instability (such as the rise of fascism in Italy) that might have caused film producers to avoid criticism of foreign governments and thus, foreign audiences. The influenza pandemic of 1918 occurred just as the war was ending. The most devastating disease outbreak in human history, it caused many public buildings and thus, movie theatres and cinemas, to be closed. This meant that films, which at the time did not “open-wide” but slowly trickled out to the public throughout the country, were delayed even more. Thus, a propaganda film which may have been perceived to fit audience demand in August of 1918 might seem to be very behind the times in February 1919, even if there was still a market for films that dealt in some way with the war. The news itself was moving so fast, and the concepts dealt with so political and abstract, that film-makers and studios may have found it difficult to keep up. However, even given these factors, it is definitely not true to say that either British or American film industries ignored the conflict. Many war-related features were in production during this period, by such respected directors as D.W. Griffith (The Girl Who Stayed at Home, 1919). It cannot be said that Hollywood had a boycott on films of the First World War. Midkiff-Debauche cites 54 films about the First World War released in 1919 alone, though many were in production at the end of the conflict.⁵

The Heart of Humanity

The Heart of Humanity, a now rarely screened Universal film from director and co-writer Allen Holubar, is a clear example of a war film that was popular in this period. Produced during the war, the movie’s release is often inaccurately given as 1919, but a New York Times review indicates the film premiered on December 22nd of the previous year.⁶ The movie was one of Universal’s “Jewels,” more prestigious films that provided a small respite from the studio’s usual programmer fare. The picture certainly has an epic scope.

Opening in rural French Canada, it follows the exploits of American Nanette (Dorothy Phillips), a compassionate woman who becomes a nurse in France. In the same Canadian village reside the five sons of the Widow Patricia (Margret Mann), the oldest of which, John (William Stowell), is Nanette’s husband. All five sons enlist. Before the war breaks out, she is menaced by visiting German Eric von Eberhard (Erich von Stroheim). A typical indication of the picture’s attitude towards Germans occurs when von Eberhard meets Nanette while she prays in a forest grotto. The German states: “What a beautiful picture you make-you almost convert me to your weakness.” The innocent replies: “Weakness? My religion is my strength.” The German argues: “Strength needs no religion- it is a religion unto itself. Might is right. There is no place for weakness in the world.” To visually emphasize the point, Holubar cuts to a visual metaphor of a large spider crawling towards a statue of the Virgin Mary.

Later, action then moves to France, where Nanette is running a war orphanage and the brothers, serving in various branches of the military, are killed one by one, save for John. Every time a son of the Widow is killed, Holubar cuts to the Widow reacting, implying a telepathic or spiritual link between mother and children. The theme of motherhood continues throughout the portrayal of Nanette as a nurse. During a battle, von Eberhard breaks in and attempts to rape Nanette, who resists. He becomes so angry that he throws a child out of the window, killing the baby. Nanette briefly becomes psychotic and cuddles a doll as if it is the real child. Saved by John, Nanette is given an award and shipped back to Canada, where she is eventually reunited with John at the end of the war. She encourages every mother in the village who lost a son to adopt one of the war orphans, which they do. The movie closes with a message of hope for the League of Nations and a patrio...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Bandaged Wounds
• 2. The War as It Was
• 3. The Dark Adventure of the Air War
• 4. James Whale: “A Britisher Who Thinks, Cinematically, Like an American”
• 5. The Black Void
• 6. Apocalyptic Futurism
• 7. The Universal Fraternity
• Back Matter