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Idyllic France shattered by "war's old song of hate," The Birth of a Nation streamlined into a recruitment poster. American neighbors abroad, the lass (Lillian Gish) cradles ducklings while the lad (Robert Harron) writes poems. (A joke early on has the two yearning on opposite sides of a wall like Héloise and Abelard, until he notices a door and simply goes to her.) Love blooms despite temptation from "The Little Disturber" (Dorothy Gish), who vainly tries winking and perfume and tambourine-rattling before settling for "Monsieur Cuckoo" (Robert Anderson). The wedding is delayed, war is declared, off to the Front for men promising to bring back the Kaiser's mustache. "The land that is good enough to live in is good enough to fight for." D.W. Griffith in the trenches, his pastoral landscapes cratered by shells and scorched by flamethrowers. The Hun is embodied by the visitor turned kommandant (George Siegmann), once interested in "architecture and foundations," now slobbering at the thought of violating the heroine. (Geometric chambers and orgy dungeons comprise the Teutonic spaces, with Erich von Stroheim heel-clicking in the background.) The tender mind unmoored by terrors, "sweet bells jangled, out of tune," traipsing through the rubble with bridal gown in hand. Maiden and imp together in resistance, the latter wields Chekhov's grenade in due time. The old generation expires in the cellar, a makeshift burial, "no requiem—save for the ever-sounding guns." Amid explosions is a glimpse of a mother breast-feeding a baby, a nod to the land of impressionists. The couple fight the villain (the girl reaches for a knife during the scuffle in a distant precursor of Torn Curtain), are blessed by the sight of marching doughboys. "An old-fashioned play with a new-fashioned theme." Studies by Vidor (The Big Parade) and Borzage (7th Heaven) follow. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |