Cinema and the Great War (Cinema and Society)

Cinema and the Great War

No war was as violent, pointless and miserable as the First World War. With over eight million dead and twenty million injured, it was a disaster unparalleled in human history. What remains is the art of the war: the poetry and prose, the paintings, photographs and films. It is this art which has continued to mould the conscience and the imagination since the end of the Great War. Cinema and the Great War concentrates on one part of the art of the war: the cinema. Used as a tool for propaganda during the war itself, by the mid-1920s it had begun to reflect the rejection of conflict prevalent in all the arts. Andrew Kelly explores the development of anti-war cinema, from the ground-breaking Lay Down Your Arms, based on Bertha von Suttner’s best-selling novel in 1914, and Lewis Milestone’s bitter All Quiet on the Western Front through to Stanley Kubrick’s magnificent Paths of Glory. Illustrated with over twenty stills from classic films such as The Big Parade, La Grande Illusion, Gold Diggers of 1933, The Roaring Twenties and King and Country, Cinema and the Great War examines the way in which British, American, German and French cinema has helped to transform the popular view of war. Making extensive use of material from the Hays Office and censorship records from archives around the world, Andrew Kelly explores those films which have been considered as anti-war. He analyses the key themes of these films such as the forgotten generation, the brutality of military incompetence and the waste, horror and bitterness of conflict. Andrew Kelly is a cultural planner and film historian. He is the author of Filming T.E.Lawrence: Korda’s lost epics.

CINEMA AND SOCIETY General Editor: Jeffrey Richards Department of History, University of Lancaster Also available in this series: THE HIDDEN CINEMABritish Film Censorship in Action, 1913–1972James C.Robertson FILM AND THE WORKING CLASSThe Feature Film in British and American SocietyPeter Stead FILM AND REFORMJohn Grierson and the Documentary Film MovementIan Aitken J.ARTHUR RANK AND THE BRITISH FILM INDUSTRY Geoffrey Macnab HOLLYWOOD IN CRISISCinema and American Society 1929–1939Colin Shindler

Cinema and the Great War Andrew Kelly

London and New York

First published 1997 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 © 1997 Andrew Kelly All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book has been requested ISBN 0-203-99216-4 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-415-05203-3 (Print Edition)

For Mel

Contents

List of illustrations

vii

General editor’s preface

viii

Acknowledgements

ix

Introduction

1

1

The first pacifist film of the war: Ned med Vaabnene/Lay Down Your Arms

4

2

The United States and anti-war cinema, 1914–16: Civilization and Intolerance

13

3

The Great War seven years on: The Big Parade

24

4

The measure for all anti-war cinema: All Quiet on the Western Front

35

5

Bloody slaughter, honourable death and utopian vision—the British cinema and the war: Journey’s End, Tell England and Things to Come

47

6

From the defeated: Westfront 1918, Kameradschaft and Niemandsland—the German cinema and the war

65

7

The French cinema and the war: J’accuse, Verdun, visions d’ histoire, Les Croix de bois and La Grande Illusion

80

8

Hollywood and post-war Germany: The Man I Killed, The Road Back and Three Comrades

100

9

The forgotten man and the lost generation in 1930s Hollywood

116

The brutality of military incompetence: Paths of Glory and King and Country

127

Conclusion

142

Notes

143

Select bibliography

159

General index

168

Index of films

175

10

List of illustrations

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

Bertha von Suttner, author of Lay Down Your Arms Civilization poster Civilization The Big Parade Carl Laemmle Snr and Erich Maria Remarque Lewis Milestone All Quiet on the Western Front Journey’s End Tell England Westfront 1918 Westfront 1918 Kameradschaft J’accuse La Grande Illusion La Grande Illusion The Man I Killed The Road Back Gold Diggers of 1933 The Roaring Twenties Paths of Glory Paths of Glory King and Country

5 17 19 31 37 37 40 58 61 72 76 78 82 95 96 106 111 122 124 128 137 140

General editor’s preface

The pre-eminent popular art form of the first half of the twentieth century has been the cinema. Both in Europe and America from the turn of the century to the 1950s cinema-going has been a regular habit and film-making a major industry. The cinema combined all the other art forms—painting, sculpture, music, the word, the dance—and added a new dimension—an illusion of life. Living, breathing people enacted dramas before the gaze of the audience and not, as in the theatre, bounded by the stage, but with the world as their backdrop. Success at the box office was to be obtained by giving the people something to which they could relate and which therefore reflected themselves. Like other popular art forms, the cinema has much to tell us about people and their beliefs, their assumptions and their attitudes, their hopes and their fears and dreams. This series of books will examine the connection between films and the societies which produced them. Film as straight historical evidence; film as an unconscious reflection of national preoccupations; film as escapist entertainment; film as a weapon of propaganda—these are aspects of the question that will concern us. We shall seek to examine and delineate individual film genres, the cinematic images of particular nations and the work of key directors who have mirrored national concerns and ideals. For we believe that the rich and multifarious products of the cinema constitute a still largely untapped source of knowledge about the ways in which our world and the people in it have changed since the first flickering images were projected on to the silver screen. Jeffrey Richards

Acknowledgements

This book has taken a long time to complete. Indeed, it has been so many years since I started that many of those listed below will have forgotten my original inquiries. Nevertheless, they deserve my thanks. Over this long period great help has been provided by James Pepper, Luke McKernan, James Curtis, James Robertson, Nicholas Reeves, Kevin Brownlow, Jim Sheehan, Philip Taylor and Peter Van Den Dungen. Ib Monty of the Danish Film Museum provided considerable assistance with research for the chapter on Lay Down Your Arms. Many libraries, in different places and at various times, have located material for me. I am grateful to librarians in Bradford Central Library, the British Film Institute and the University of Bradford. A great debt is owed to staff—in particular Linda Harris Mehr and Howard Prouty—in the Margaret Herrick Library in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for assistance with use of the files of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA). I am also very grateful to Ned Comstock in the University of Southern California Library. Considerable help was provided by staff in many archives holding material from government censor offices. I am grateful to archivists in New Zealand, Australia and France (especially Nicole Schmitt). For help with seeing the many films under discussion in this book I thank Robert Gitt of the University of California at Los Angeles, Jürgen Labenski of ZDF Television, staff at the National Film Archive and Patrick Sheehan of the Library of Congress. Financial support for elements of the research was provided by the Barrow and Geraldine Cadbury Trust, the British Academy and the Twenty-Seven Foundation. This was invaluable in allowing travel to view archive material and to see films. My thanks to the trustees and officers of all three organisations. For invaluable comments on various drafts of this book I would like to thank Jeffrey Richards, Rebecca Barden, Christopher Cudmore, Helena Reckitt and, especially, Melanie Kelly. For translation of material from French and Danish sources I am grateful to David Fox and Patrick Litherland. For assistance with the preparation of this book Rachel Phillips’ work was of great help. The pursuit of truth in the history of cinema is a forlorn mission. Historians cannot even agree on the date when cinema started, and the precise history of each individual film is impossible to determine. The loss of so many films from the first thirty years of the cinema—and the difficulties of seeing some of those still in existence—compounds the difficulties. Thanks to all those listed above, this task has been made somewhat easier. Needless to say, any errors that remain are my responsibility. I am grateful to those holders of copyright material who have given permission for material to be included in this book. Kevin Brownlow has allowed me to quote extensively from his many books. Use of script material and a still from Gold Diggers of 1933 is © 1933 Turner Entertainment Co (all rights reserved). Similarly, extracts and the use of a still from The Roaring Twenties is © 1939 Turner Entertainment (all rights reserved). I would like to thank Patricia Coddington and Kathy Lendech for

x

assistance with this. Quotations and stills from All Quiet on the Western Front and The Man I Killed are © 1930 and 1932 respectively Universal City Studios, Inc. and are reproduced courtesy of MCA Publishing Rights, a Division of MCA Inc. (all rights reserved). I am grateful to Jason Byers of MCA for his assistance in securing these permissions. The quotations from Journey’s End and No Leading Lady are copyright R.C.Sherriff and are reproduced by permission of the Curtis Brown Group Ltd, London. I am grateful to Faber & Faber, London, for permission to quote from the poem by Philip Larkin, ‘Naturally the Foundation will Bear Your Expenses’, in his Collected Poems, 1988. The poem ‘Half-Hours at Helles’ by A.P.Herbert is quoted by permission of A. P.Watt on behalf of Crystal Hale and Jocelyn Herbert. Poetry and prose of Siegfried Sassoon have been used by permission of George Sassoon. For extracts from La Grande Illusion I am grateful to Faber & Faber who have published the full screenplay in their book Masterworks of the French Cinema. The short extract from W.B.Yeats’s poem, ‘An Irish Airman foresees his Death’, from The Collected Poems of W.B.Yeats, is quoted by permission of A.P.Watt on behalf of Anne and Michael Yeats. I am grateful to Kirk Douglas and The Bryna Company for permission to use the extracts from Paths of Glory. Illustrations, except for numbers 6, 16 and 17 (which are from the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theatre Research) and 1 and 5 are reproduced courtesy of the Stills, Posters and Designs Division of the British Film Institute. All attempts have been made to locate copyright holders of material used in this book. If any attribution or acknowledgement is missing it would be appreciated if contact could be made care of the publishers so that this can be rectified in any future edition.

Introduction

No war was as violent, pointless and as miserable as the First World War. With eight-and-a-half million dead, and twenty million injured, it was a disaster unparalleled in human history. There was nothing great about the Great War except the scale of despair and destruction. Nor was there victory. Those who celebrated the defeat of Germany soon learned that they, too, had suffered—bitter memories, dead and injured relatives and friends, promises betrayed. At the end of The Guns of August, Barbara Tuchman said that ‘the war had many diverse results and one dominant one transcending all others: disillusion’.1 Eighty years on this remains the case. Whilst debates might rage over whether the Somme campaign was a success, and claims be made that generals behind the lines were heroes, and not donkeys, the prevailing view is the truth—war as disaster. That this is so is partly the responsibility of popular culture. Few alive today lived through the war. Soon, possibly within five years, there will be no veterans left. The personal witness has almost disappeared. What will remain is the art of the war—the poetry and prose, the paintings, photographs and the films. And it is this art which has dominated perceptions of the war since 1918 and which continues to mould the conscience and the imagination. Cinema and the Great War concentrates on one part of the art of the war— the cinema, and particularly the fictional film. Even though they were in their adolescence in 1914, moving pictures quickly became an essential component of war propaganda. Since 1918, cinema has played a different rôle in reflecting and endorsing disillusion. Not all these films have been opposed to conflict; indeed, few of the thousands made can be described as anti-war. Yet it is these which have attained the status of the classic. And it is these which are remembered. Defining a film as anti-war inevitably involves subjective judgement. Just as one person’s good film is another’s failure, so a film that opposes conflict to one viewer can be judged differently by another. This book looks at those films which, generally, were recognised at the time of their release as anti-war by critics, commentators and—since then—by most historians. This may have been because of the brutality of the conflict portrayed (it was only in the late 1920s and the early 1930s that the truth of trench warfare had begun to appear in cinema) or, less directly, the depiction of the impact of the war on those at home and the difficulties the veteran had in returning to society. Above all, these films saw the enemy as people—to befriend, not to kill. In his poem ‘An Irish Airman foresees his Death’ W.B.Yeats declared: ‘Those that I fight I do not hate/Those that I guard I do not love’, a point made in many an anti-war film. Not all wars have provoked the arts to rise in opposition. The poetry and cinema of the Spanish Civil War, and the Second World War in particular, are very different. This is not to say that there have been no films about the Second World War which have been critical of the conflict: Lewis Milestone’s A Walk in the Sun (1946) showed some of the boredom, rather than the excitement, of combat; The Guns of Navarone (1961) had—remarkably, for an action picture—some philosophising about war. But these are exceptions;

2

INTRODUCTION

and both supported the war. In the Second World War there was an identifiable enemy, a cause, a need to win. It was a democratic struggle, a people’s war (a point often reflected in the cinema of the time). The First World War had none of these causes, and its democracy was limited. Chapter 1 examines the first pacifist film to be released in the United States following the outbreak of war. Though Lay Down Your Arms was Danish, and was not about the war itself, its pacifism aroused considerable support in a country where many of its citizens, and its President, were opposed to intervention. American neutrality was short-lived, however. Chapter 2 examines the rôle Hollywood played during this time in making films first against the war, then in favour of intervention, then propaganda. It focuses on two films which at the time were regarded as promoting neutrality—Thomas Ince’s Civilization and D.W.Griffith’s Intolerance—though they are seen differently now. These were the last of the ‘peace’ films. There followed, in Europe and America, hundreds of films, all devoted to serving the war. Inevitably, cinemagoers were exhausted by the time the Armistice was declared and it was to be many years before war films returned in any numbers. One of the first was The Big Parade in 1925, King Vidor’s film of the doughboy which not only proved that Hollywood war films could gain an audience, but that a critical view—however limited it may seem in retrospect—was possible. Chapter 3 covers the post-war years and this film in particular. Vidor’s film was a breakthrough. Without The Big Parade, it is unlikely that All Quiet on the Western Front, Lewis Milestone’s bitter study, would have been made. Chapter 4 examines this remarkable film, still the greatest of all war films. Its release in 1930 was linked with two other key films, Journey’s End, a British-American co-production (chapter 5) and Westfront 1918, the German companion to All Quiet on the Western Front, covered in chapter 6. One of the first anti-war films to appear after the Armistice was Abel Gance’s J’accuse. Chapter 7 covers this production, but concentrates on France’s main contribution to anti-war cinema, Jean Renoir’s classic commentary on the causes of conflict, La Grande Illusion. Chapter 8 examines Hollywood’s coverage of postwar Germany, first through Ernst Lubitsch’s compassionate study of a soldier’s search for forgiveness in The Man I Killed and then The Road Back, the controversial sequel to All Quiet on the Western Front. One of the themes of Hollywood’s pro-German films was that the veteran had been forgotten, the subject of chapter 9. This was a point made in some American films of the 1930s, particularly in the gangster movie, with I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang and The Roaring Twenties, amongst others. It was also included in Gold Diggers of 1933 with the ‘Forgotten Man’ sequence. Though short, and only part of a glossy, upbeat musical, this song said more than any other film about the social impact of war. The final chapter examines the two most important recent anti-war films—both of which have been concerned with military incompetence—Stanley Kubrick’s magnificent Paths of Glory and Joseph Losey’s King and Country. Though not as prominent as in the inter-war years, the First World War still inspires emotion and passion. Recent campaigns for the reintroduction of a minute’s silence on Armistice Day, whenever that fell (and not just on the nearest Sunday), and controversy over official representation at the commemoration ceremony for the eightieth anniversary of the Battle of the Somme, highlight this power. And whilst few films have been made in recent years, the literature of the war has returned in style and quality with Pat Barker’s award-winning Regeneration trilogy and Sebastian Faulks’s best-seller, Birdsong. Both deserve to be filmed. Ultimately, as Jean Renoir states, the anti-war films failed as a Second World War followed. But they remain important. At a time when warfare and genocide have re-emerged, at the end of this most violent of centuries, there is a continuing need to remember and to warn. In the absence of the personal witness, the arts provide this service. And as the most popular of the arts, the cinema reaches the widest audience. These

INTRODUCTION

3

classic films come down through the decades with an ever-timely message: where and whenever cinema exists, this most disastrous of wars, this appalling waste of a nation’s youth, will never be forgotten. Andrew Kelly Bath, July 1996

Chapter 1 The first pacifist film of the war Ned med Vaabnene/Lay Down Your Arms

The twenty-first International Peace Congress was one of the last attempts by the organised peace movement to prevent war in Europe. Scheduled to start on 15 September 1914, the outbreak of war led to its indefinite cancellation. The Congress is important for its attempts to maintain peace before 1914 but it is also of interest to film history. As the Congress was being held in Vienna in honour of Bertha von Suttner—for many years one of the leaders of the international peace movement—parts of the celebrations were to include the world première of the Danish film Ned med Vaabnene (Lay Down Your Arms1) adapted from her best-selling pacifist novel. Lay Down Your Arms is an anti-war film made before the carnage of 1914. It was finished too late to have an impact on the outbreak of war, although its release in the United States in September that year was used to endorse President Wilson’s neutrality proclamation issued at the start of hostilities. It is one of the few anti-war films to have a woman at its centre. Forgotten today in all but limited circles, Suttner had considerable influence in Europe and North America in the twenty-five years before 1914. As well as being a famous novelist and activist, she was a feminist, a journalist, an unofficial diplomat and is generally credited as the key influence behind Alfred Nobel’s introduction of his annual peace prize. Her principled, often courageous, stance on such controversial issues was the cause of ridicule and opposition, the vehemency of which was exacerbated by the fact that she was a woman. Suttner was iconoclastic from an early age. Born in 1843 to an aristocratic family she was forced to make her own way in the world following the loss of the family fortune through her mother’s gambling. In 1876 she travelled to Paris to become housekeeper and secretary to Alfred Nobel but only stayed eight days. Their meeting, however, was to have lasting significance. She returned home to marry the Baron von Suttner, very much against his parents’ wishes, and the couple fled to Russia where they became journalists and novelists. The break with convention was strengthened in this period: by their return to Austria in 1885 they were ‘free-thinkers and social idealists, committed to use their literary talents in combatting prejudice and injustice and making the world a better place’, according to Irwin Abrams.2 Suttner’s novels reflected her concern with contemporary issues: High Life (1886) called for democracy; Daniela Dormes (1886) attacked anti-Semitism; and, in Vor dem Gewitter (Before the Storm), published in 1893, she wrote about socialism and universal suffrage. But it was the issues of war and peace which were to dominate her future work. During visits to Paris in the mid- to late 1880s two events had a profound influence which meant that the rest of her life would be devoted to working for peace and against war. She met Nobel for a second time and encountered the work of the British-based International Arbitration and Peace Association. Suttner had already decided that ‘war was an institution handed down…by…barbarians… [which had to be] removed by civilisation’.3 Part of her own contribution to this was a semiautobiographical novel about a woman who loses almost everything to war.

THE FIRST PACIFIST FILM OF THE WAR

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1 Bertha von Suttner, the great author and pacifist leader, whose best-selling book was turned into the first anti-war film of the war, Ned med Vaabnene/Lay Down Your Arms (1914).

Although no great work of literature, Die Waffen nieder (Lay Down Your Arms) established itself rapidly as a cause célèbre. First published in 1889, it had appeared in sixteen languages and forty editions by 1914. Read today —particularly in the poor, literal translation from the German—the novel appears over-didactic and, in some of the lengthy historical and theoretical sections, rather tedious. Overall, however, it retains its ability to move and many at the time were shocked by some of the descriptions of the effects of war. At one point, Frederick (the husband of the main character), writes about his recent experience of conflict: Smoking ruins of villages, ravaged cornfields, weapons and knapsacks lying about, spots where the land was ploughed up by the shells, blood stains, bodies of horses, trenches filled with the slain—such are… the scenes through which we have been moving…. The butchery lasted more than two hours…. The routed enemy fled. We did not pursue…. The burial of the dead is to be done to-morrow morning. Some of the living will, of course, be shovelled in with them…. Many who…[remain],

6

NED MED VAABNENE/LAY DOWN YOUR ARMS

whether dead or wounded, or even unwounded, we…abandon entirely, especially those who are lying under the ruins of the fallen houses. There they may, if dead, moulder slowly where they are; if wounded, bleed slowly to death; if unwounded, die slowly of famine. And we, hurrah! may go on with our jolly, joyous war!4 Such detail impressed Leo Tolstoy who told Suttner that the ‘abolition of slavery was preceded by a famous novel written by a woman, H[arriet] Beecher-Stowe. May God grant that the abolition of war will follow on your novel.’5 And her old employer, Alfred Nobel, said: ‘It is not really right of you to declare: “Lay down your arms”, because you make use of weapons yourself, and your weapons—the charm of your style and the nobility of your ideas—have a far greater range than the hellish weapons of war.’6 Suttner was now actively involved in the burgeoning European peace movement. In 1891 she became President of the Austrian Peace Society, representing the organisation at peace congresses throughout Europe. She also continued with her journalism (founding and editing a periodical, Die Waffen nieder!), public speaking and campaigning, and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1905 (she was bitter, though, that she had not been awarded the first one four years before). She remained in constant demand as a public speaker and carried out a successful tour of the United States in 1912. She died seven days before the assassination at Sarajevo. Apparently— and appropriately—her last words were ‘Lay down your arms! Tell that to many—many people!’7 The film has received little attention in the extensive biographical material available on Suttner. Beatrix Kempf devotes a short (and inaccurate) section: As late as 1913 a film company was still expressing interest in turning the novel into a film, and Bertha Suttner was approached with a view to her writing a scenario. The film was produced, and photographs of the authoress were to have been made as introductory material.8 The only biographer to have seen the film is Brigitte Hamman. She writes that Suttner supported the production of the film but feared that Austrian censors would not allow it to be exhibited as ‘Whatever stimulates peace is regarded as national treason.’9 Lay Down Your Arms was produced by the Nordisk Films Kompagni, one of the world’s leading film production companies, in 1914.10 Nordisk was led by the idealistic Ole Olsen who was horrified at the outbreak of war and felt that cinema could make a contribution to bringing the fighting to an end. According to one author, Olsen wanted to make ‘big prestige films with pacifist themes…in the naïve hope that he could influence the fighting powers’.11 Also prominent in Nordisk, and influential in the production of Lay Down Your Arms, were Carl Dreyer and Holger-Madsen. Dreyer had only recently been hired by Nordisk as a project consultant and screenplay writer. He went on to become one of the great film makers with La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc in 1928 and Day of Wrath (1943). He believed that cinema needed to base itself upon literature if it was to become a great art.12 Inspired by this belief, he bought the film rights to Lay Down Your Arms almost as soon as he was appointed. The film was directed by the prolific Holger-Madsen who had made over twenty films for Nordisk. Like Olsen, Holger-Madsen held high ideals and he was encouraged by the success of the film to direct two other pacifist films before 1918. Pax Aeterna, or Peace on Earth (1917), had a nurse impressing and charming a king so that he establishes a United States of Europe making peace eternal on Earth. Holger-Madsen followed this a year later with Himmelskibet (A Trip to Mars, or Heaven Ship), which explored Olsen’s belief that there was a better life on other planets. In one of the first science-fiction films, Avanti

THE FIRST PACIFIST FILM OF THE WAR

7

Planetareos travels to Mars where he encounters a peace-loving vegetarian civilisation. Planetareos falls in love with the daughter of the High Priest of the planet and returns with her to earth where their pacifist message is greeted with great jubilation.13 The most important of the three was Lay Down Your Arms.14 Martha von Dotsky (Augusta Blad) and her husband Arno (Alf Blütecher) have arranged a birthday party for their son Rudolf, who, resplendent in a soldier’s uniform, is banging a drum and waving a sword. Martha also waves a sword. His grandfather, the Count von Althaus (Philip Beck), an old general proud of his military past, ‘makes’ his grandson a general. Eight days later war breaks out and Arno departs for battle, to Martha’s distress. A month later Martha visits a friend where she hears of Arno’s death. Four years later Martha takes part in a court fête where she is introduced to Captain Frederick von Tilling (Olaf Fønss) who tells of her husband’s last moments on the battlefield. Though a soldier, Frederick hates war. Some months later Martha and Frederick are married. A new war breaks out and, to Martha’s horror, Tilling is called up to fight, though he returns soon after. However, peace negotiations fail and he returns to the front. Having heard nothing Martha travels to the front line. After fruitless searches amongst the many wounded and dead Martha returns home, where she finds him injured but safe. In the meantime the area has been infected by cholera and Martha’s sister, Rosa (J.Fritz-Petersen), and her maid, die. After burying Rosa the old count has a heart attack and dies cursing war. The film does not cover all of the book. Much of the early part is missing, and the later sections, in which Martha and Frederick go to Paris (where he dies), were not filmed. There is also a crucial difference: the novel refers to actual countries involved in the wars, whilst in the film no countries are named. According to Marguerite Engberg this was done to avoid alienating potential purchasers, and was a common Nordisk practice at this time, though the result ‘was to render the issues raised in the film unreal and trivial’.15 However, it could be argued that by refusing to identify combatant nations the film’s universal anti-war theme is endorsed. The cancellation of the première meant that the film was not seen in Europe for at least seven months. On 4 April 1915 a censored version was shown in Sweden (what was cut has not been recorded). It was finally exhibited in full in Denmark, almost a year to the day after the planned world première, on 18 September 1915 at the Paladsteatret in Copenhagen. Although the film was restricted to those aged over sixteen it found a large and appreciative audience. Reviewers were moved by the film and praised its powerful message. Socialdemokraten said the battle scenes resembled actual war footage. The story of the aristocratic family (mistakenly identified as German), struck by all the scourges of war…futile death on the battlefield, death from the plague that follows… until the remaining members let out in unison the cry of terror ‘Lay down your arms’, is full of deeply dramatic scenes that are still powerfully effective even without the warm-hearted …author’s glowing prose.16 Folkets avis called it a masterpiece giving ‘such an insight into the horrors of war that the impression is frequently overwhelming’. Just as important were the ‘realistic pictures of the many dead and wounded along the church wall, at the church gate and in the majestic church nave itself, where everything seems rigid with death’.17 Politiken said the film was Nordisk’s best but it was unfortunate that it should be banned to those under sixteen. Nevertheless, it was confident that older children able to see the film would learn from it to be anti-war.18 The only real criticism came from Nationaltidende which complained that the scenes receiving applause were those showing battles.19

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NED MED VAABNENE/LAY DOWN YOUR ARMS

Nordisk Film Company registers state that at least sixty-three prints were exported to twenty-two countries including Brazil, Holland, Austria, Germany, the Philippines and North America. All export orders were completed in 1914, except for Poland and Finland, who received their copies after the war. However, there was little exhibition—there are no surviving records in national archives and no contemporary reviews—with the war preventing most European countries showing an avowedly pacifist film. Meanwhile, Lay Down Your Arms had been released in the United States in September 1914 where it had considerable impact, illustrated best by the commemorative booklet issued by the company. The film, it said, presents the most powerful plea for peace ever offered. Those who witness its exhibition and see the terrible carnage on the battlefields and the miseries that war brings into the homes of combatants are sure to become bitter censors of war and enthusiastic advocates of peace…. The picture deals with the greatest problem of all times and is destined to accomplish much toward advancing the cause of universal peace throughout the world.20 This message was repeated by reviewers. The Morning Telegraph said that the film carried with it ‘a great message of universal peace’ and that with war raging through Europe it was all the more powerful and pertinent.21 The Motion Picture News said it had been released with ‘almost prophetic timeliness at the moment when all of Europe is plunged in war’. The reviewer praised Suttner as a ‘noble advocate of peace’ whose novel ‘pictured with horrible realism the disastrous effects of war upon family, city, and nation … [making] it an eloquent plea for the abandonment of this barbarous method of settling disputes between nations’.22 The reality in the book was matched on the screen: War is pictured in these four reels, but with such undeniable reality that there is no danger that any martial feelings will be aroused in audiences that might lead to outbreaks. It is not the pomp and circumstance, the pageantry and the splendor of war, as it appears on dress parade; but the hard, terrible, overwhelming reality of battles and mangled bodies of horses and men, of distress in business, of disease that follows in war’s wake. Variety found the death scenes heavy but saw the film as useful anti-war propaganda: In a neutral country just now the film is particularly timely, and it wouldn’t do any harm to rapidly spread this picture over the U.S.…‘Lay Down Your Arms’ would help to increase the respect this country now has for strict neutrality. It is the first ‘war picture’ soundly based…. It is an educator and a forcible reminder to a country not involved and which doesn’t want to be.23 And the Moving Picture World was unstinting in its praise: This picture keeps in view only the horrors of war…. That it will be counted a wholesome lesson, there is no doubt. We need such a picture. It’ll do us good. It will help to convince the world that motion picture shows are doing their part in raising us to higher things.24 Finally, the film had an audience beyond its commercial release. Lay Down Your Arms was screened at a meeting of the New York Peace Society in November 1914 and also for inmates of Sing Sing Prison four

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9

months later. A contemporary newspaper report said it was greeted by the prisoners with a’wild outburst of enthusiasm and gratitude’.25 Some reviewers said the film illustrated General Sherman’s comment that war is hell. Although it was impossible to predict the carnage that was soon to engulf Europe, it does provide a prescient portrayal of mass conflict. This is seen mostly in the scenes showing the aftermath of war. Inevitably these were to date quickly. Marguerite Engberg said that neither Suttner nor Holger-Madsen had ‘the ability or imagination to grasp the horror and gore of a modern war. Battle scenes that seemed realistic and powerful to a pre-World War One audience looked naive and unconvincing just a few years later.’26 Nevertheless, for a time they had power and a realism which impressed the critics: on the battlefield a dead horse lies on the ground and wounded soldiers, some heavily bandaged, are being moved by stretcher bearers; a Red Cross dressing station full of wounded is destroyed (highlighting the antipathy in war to even the most humanitarian of causes); the train carrying Frederick home is so full of wounded that they are forced to lie on the roof.27 One particularly powerful scene for Engberg was the visit Martha makes to the field hospital, where there are so many wounded that they rest against each other. Holger-Madsen told the cast to keep perfectly still to emphasise the futility of her search for her husband. ‘It is as if she is completely cut off from all the others’, Engberg says.28 The film also charts, though perfunctorily, the change in the Count from being militaristic and pro-war to being pacifistic. Despite the death of his daughter’s first husband in battle he is the first to toast the new war, provoking Martha to storm out in disgust. As the war continues, and Frederick is wounded and then Rosa dies, he rejects his warrior past. On his death bed he proclaims: ‘Martha, I now think like you: down with arms!’ The impact of the war at home is seen also at other points in the film. At first all but Martha (and, presumably, Frederick) welcome the war. At the train station where the soldiers embark for the front, cheering crowds send them on their way. Only Martha, dressed in black, seems sad. However, the war brings economic ruin. In a section of the film seen only in the United States (it is in the original novel and is referred to in reviews and publicity material, but is not in the surviving print) the banks collapse, leading to the loss of Martha’s fortune and preventing Frederick from leaving the army. The major impact of the war on those at home is the cholera epidemic which engulfs the area, killing Rosa and the maid. The scene where the Count buries Rosa is the most remarkable in the film. It is getting dark when the Count arrives at the communal graveyard and six masked, black-cloaked figures dig the ground, with bare trees and a white sky in the background. This dark scene is a precursor to the later work of Dreyer and Ingmar Bergman and was generally praised by reviewers, though Variety found the whole cholera section distasteful and suggested it be cut.29 The main focus in the film is Martha and the suffering war brings to her. She has mourned the death of her first husband for four years, only to find that her second husband is taken away to fight in more wars. She receives little comfort from her militaristic father. The problems in locating her husband at the front and then her short-lived joy in finding him alive but Rosa dead makes it little wonder that in the novel she went on to suffer a nervous breakdown. Few anti-war films had a woman at their centre, although in pro-war films, particularly in the United States, women—as mothers, sweethearts or wives —were prominent. Most anti-war films concentrated on men’s suffering at the front or in the aftermath. Where women did appear it was often as romantic interludes in the plot or when encountered in visits back home. In some, such as The Big Parade, All Quiet on the Western Front and La Grande Illusion, important points were made around the female characters but these tended to be only a small part of the film.

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There were some notable exceptions. In Herbert Brenon’s War Brides (1916) the women of the city refuse to bear any more children for war. A woman also played a crucial rôle in Civilization (see chapter 2). The year 1927 saw one of the first avowedly pacifist films with Rowland Lee’s Barbed Wire, adapted from Sir Hall Caine’s novel The Woman of Knockaloe. The film showed the enormous hatred directed towards a young woman and the German prisoner of war she falls in love with. Although its location was moved from the Isle of Man to France, and a theatrical ending was substituted for the book’s more bitter conclusion (where the two leads commit suicide), the film maintains its pacifism with its portrayal of hatred arising from war. It is, according to Kevin Brownlow, a minor masterpiece, ‘a powerful statement on war by the very men who lived through it’.30 The following year, John Ford’s Four Sons had Margaret Mann as a Bavarian mother losing three of her sons in the war and emigrating to the United States to join her surviving son and his family. Finally, in Fred Niblo’s The Enemy (1928) Lillian Gish played a young Austrian bride who loses her husband and baby to the war. The anti-war woman made a reappearance in the 1930s with two films starring the vociferously pacifist actress Madeleine Carroll. In the British production I Was a Spy (1933) she played the true-life rôle of Martha Cnockaert, a nurse in Belgium who spies for the British even to the extent of accompanying that archetypal Hun, Conrad Veidt, to bed. Though not overall an anti-war film, Martha’s suffering is clear, and the bombing of a church parade—based on information she has supplied—and the impact of a gas attack highlight great brutality and inhumanity. It was one of the best British films about the war. John Ford’s The World Moves On (1934) is more avowedly pacifist. Carroll plays two rôles, the second set in 1919 when she refuses to allow her factory to produce munitions because of all the suffering war has created. The previous year Fox released Ford’s Pilgrimage, the story of a group of American mothers travelling to France to visit the graves of their sons killed in the war. A box-office success, it shared similar sentiments to his earlier Four Sons. In the pro-war film, particularly in the United States after 1916, women often occupied central rôles. In The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939) the manager of the eponymous couple tells Irene (Ginger Rogers) when she is scared at the prospects of losing Vernon (Fred Astaire) for the war effort: ‘War is a man’s business. Women only do what they’re told.’ Such a description may have been relevant at times during the war itself, but in the pro-war film women played a number of rôles, ranging from the grieving mother and the violated girl, through to being active at the front. At first such films had women participating indirectly, using their charms to encourage their man to fight or exposing and converting slackers. Later, and with much dramatic license, films appeared showing women’s direct involvement. Michael Isenberg has identified distinct rôles played by older women (principally mothers) and young girls. For the mother he states: ‘If at times she grieved over her lost soldier boy, her rôle also was interlaced with the idealization of motherhood as a biological sanctification of the national spirit.’31 Thus, J.Stuart Blackton, in his preface to the book of his preparedness film The Battle Cry of Peace (1915), stated: To the Mothers of America…. This story is dedicated with respect, reverence and admiration, and with the earnest prayer that their eyes may be opened to the peril which menaces, and will continue to menace, them, their children, and their loved ones, until the present state of ‘unpreparedness’ has been remedied.32 The film itself had invading soldiers killing an advocate of preparedness. His fiancée and her sister are murdered by their mother—who then commits suicide—to prevent their violation by enemy forces.

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A different type of Mother-of-the-Nation figure appeared in Cecil B. DeMille’s Joan the Woman (1916). This told of an English officer, inspired by a vision of Joan of Arc, going to France on a mission he knows means certain death. The film converted its star, Geraldine Farrar, from being pro-German to pro-ally. The younger woman had a number of rôles which evolved from being supportive and persuasive (by exhorting her man to enlist) through to actual participation as nurse, spy, munitions worker and farm hand. In these films women were dutiful, proud of the flag and hated cowards. The war-nurse film was a genre of its own, and one of the most entertaining of all: it placed women in dangerous conditions on the battlefield and provided myriad opportunities for espionage and romance. The spy film was also important. In Arms and the Girl (1917) the star rescues her lover from execution whilst caught in the invasion of Belgium, and in the same year the lead in War and the Woman exposed her stepfather as an enemy agent. Finally, an example of women’s work for the war effort at home was contained in Little Miss Hoover (1918) which had a society woman enlisting in the Food Administration Program and creating a model farm. There was one further rôle women played in the pro-war film. Inspired by newspaper stories of German brutality, these ‘atrocity’ films generally showed women involved in humanitarian work being captured, imprisoned, brutalised and raped. The archetypal example was Cecil B.DeMille’s hugely popular The Little American, starring America’s sweetheart and pro-war campaigner, Mary Pickford, which was released in July 1917. Mary is involved in war relief work in Belgium but is captured on suspicion of being a spy. A brutal Teutonic soldier threatens her with rape. Such films had a substantial impact on the home audience. Released just after the declaration of war, the attack on Mary crafted by DeMille proved to be ‘a personal affront to every American, an insult that called for Prussian blood and punishment…. [It was] one of the most powerful weapons of World War I’, according to Jack Spears.33 The portrayal of women in American cinema during the war moved from a flirtation with pacifism through to preparedness and participation. Such an evolution reflected the changing attitudes to war in the United States. In addition, the feminist movement was not large and it was split: some of those involved in the campaign for women’s suffrage in the United States and in Britain supported the war as a battle for democracy. A short film was even produced in 1917 by the New York Women’s Suffrage Party, Womans Work in War Time, in which a woman converts to the suffrage movement after being inspired by the calling up of her son and the example set by other women in undertaking work for the war. The outbreak of the war and the collapse of the International Peace Congress did not prevent further nongovernmental initiatives which attempted to bring the war to an end. With most European men either fighting or opposing conscription (and being jailed for their efforts) any campaigning tended to be led by women.34 In 1915 a decision was made to hold a new peace conference in The Hague. Forty-seven American women—condemned by some leading American politicians, including Theodore Roosevelt— sailed to Europe under conditions of great danger as it was not an official visit and was therefore open to attack by German submarines. Some 180 British women applied for passports though only twenty-five were issued and, as the North Sea was closed to commercial travel, only three attended, these already being outside the country. Despite all these difficulties, the conference was a success, with over 1,200 women attending from both belligerent and neutral nations. The delegates’ call for a new peace conference to end the war was sent to the heads of combatant and non-combatant countries and a meeting was held with the Pope. For a time they thought they had persuaded Sweden and then the United States to host the conference. The initiative was curtailed, however, after the sinking of the Lusitania. It was also hampered by misreporting in the US media. In arguing for an end to the war Jane Addams, one of the organisers, said that troops had to fortify themselves with alcohol to enable them to leave the trenches. News coverage said that she had called the soldiers drink-crazed.

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A further attempt to end the war was made when Rosika Schwimmer, another of the organisers of the Hague conference, persuaded Henry Ford to send a ‘Peace Ship’ to Europe. Ford was keen to get the troops home for Christmas. Oscar II set sail on 4 December but Ford’s initiative was mocked and proved to be a terrible failure. American cinema was particularly cynical, with three films made satirising his effort: a cartoon, Keeping Up with the Jones (1915), Perkins Peace Party (1916) and Peace at Any Price (withdrawn before release). Although Ford was embarrassed he continued to oppose preparedness and attacked Blackton’s The Battle Cry of Peace, for which he was sued by Vitagraph, the production company (the action was eventually dropped). The outbreak of war destroyed any possible influence Lay Down Your Arms could have had, although even with a wide European release its impact would almost certainly have been negligible. Certainly the book was read extensively and the potential of motion pictures meant that Suttner’s message would have reached a wide audience, as it did in the United States. However, the rapid collapse of the peace movements at the outbreak of war saw inertia take hold and any commercial exhibition would have been overwhelmed and destroyed in the rush to war. Nevertheless, Lay Down Your Arms is a tribute to its makers and to Suttner for their attempts to create a world where war played no part.

Chapter 2 The United States and anti-war cinema, 1914–16 Civilization and Intolerance

The United States was a reluctant entrant in the First World War with American opinion divided on participation. The cinema played a crucial rôle during the war, first in the debate for and against intervention; later as a propaganda tool. Up until the end of 1916, prominent film makers attempted to persuade Americans to support President Wilson’s non-intervention policy and a number of influential films were released which kept the neutrality flame bright. However, as the war intensified, and as attacks on American civilians increased in number and in violence, the pressure for involvement grew until America declared war on Germany on 6 April 1917. By now film makers had generally abandoned neutrality and had been arguing for preparedness for war; after the declaration many hundreds of films were released, this time aimed—as chapter 1 outlined—at criticising pacifists, encouraging enlistment, exposing spies and attacking slackers. As in Europe, cinema seemed to have been conscripted for the war effort, a position almost made official when the Creel Committee on Public Information was established for propaganda. The dominant political force of the time was President Woodrow Wilson. Wilson knew the costs of conflict when as a child he had seen the results of the civil war. He worked tirelessly for peace during the First World War and after (though America refused to join his great dream of a League of Nations) and he deserves much of the praise for the Armistice. His pursuit of peace was often naïve, but it was an honourable naïveté and one supported, initially at least, by the vast majority of American citizens. Part of this support came from the American peace movement which was strong in 1914. Lewis Jacobs has said that the ‘growth of pacifistic sentiment in the United States…[in the years preceding the war] had been phenomenal in speed and vigor’.1 Pacifism was influential in religious circles and business organisations, the American Peace Society was active and it was less than ten years since Andrew Carnegie had established the New York Peace Society with an endowment of $10 million. The anti-war movement was supported, and often led, by socialists, radicals and feminists and was a key component of the progressive tradition in American politics up to 1916. Wilson was part of this spirit. However, the sinking of the Lusitania, with the deaths of 128 Americans, attacks on merchant ships carrying American civilians, and the execution of Edith Cavell, led to calls for intervention. Influential politicians such as Theodore Roosevelt began to campaign for involvement, arms manufacturers pressed for preparedness and Wilson himself sent notes of protest to Berlin. Because of this he lost his Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan, a believer in neutrality, to the peace movement. It was impossible for America to remain neutral, however. The business the war generated—companies were providing the Allies with explosives, and banks were granting loans almost from the outbreak of hostilities—helped force the economy out of recession. By 1917, over $2 billion worth of goods had been purchased by Allied forces, much by Britain. Though lucrative, such business was pursued at considerable political cost. In Germany in particular, anti-American sentiment was expressed at this de facto alliance with Britain.

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By the middle of 1916 Wilson had launched both a preparedness campaign —with the aim of armed neutrality—and a personal initiative to end the war. He continued this diplomacy after his re-election as President that year, but his aim of a peace without victory was not welcomed. The final straw was the Zimmermann Telegram, in which Germany proposed an alliance with Mexico if America entered the war. This convinced Wilson that Germany could not be trusted. In his speech to the joint session of Congress calling for a declaration of war, he said that ‘[t]he world must be made safe for democracy’: It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilisation itself seeming to be in the balance. But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts—for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own Governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free.2 Though his speech was received well, it was clearly a depressing moment. He commented afterwards: ‘My message…was a message of death for our young men. How strange it seems to applaud that.’3 In his survey about the American cinema and the war Jack Spears said that Hollywood went through five chronological phases: first were those films advocating neutrality; second, those supporting preparedness; third—following the entry into war—those which favoured intervention; fourth—in the mid- to late 1920s— those portraying the war as an adventure. Finally, there was the bitter period of the rejection of conflict.4 The actual release of films was not as crude as this. Whilst it is correct that a number of influential pacifist shorts and features were released up to the end of 1916, there were other films in circulation which dissented from the official position. Nevertheless, many of the films made at this time did oppose intervention in Europe. Even though in the early days of the war there was an undoubted official wish to remain neutral, the American people were interested in, indeed fascinated by, the conflict. A reviewer in February 1915 said the film audience had an ‘abnormal interest in exploding shells, rattling artillery and fields strewn with the dead and dying’.5 There was considerable sympathy for the French and English; equally, though, many American citizens were allied to the German cause. Cinemas were not slow to take advantage of this new market: French, Italian and German films showing historical aspects of conflict were imported in 1914; just after the outbreak of war, faked documentary footage appeared—in such films as European Armies in Action and War in Europe—purporting to show the fighting nations at war. These were followed by films from the front (again, probably fakes) in such newsreels as the Hearst-Selig News Pictorial and the Universal Animated Weekly. The pervasive nature of the subject led a commentator to say, following a tour of movie theatres, that ‘war is the one current attraction which needs no arranged publicity’.6 This obsession worried the administration, even though it had yet to manifest itself into a wish to join the fighting. It was also of concern to official censor bodies and state governments. Taking their cue from Wilson, the National Board of Censors of Motion Pictures requested that producers preceded war newsreels with the caption: ‘ln accordance with President Wilson’s proclamation of neutrality, patrons will please refrain from expressions of partisanship during this picture.’7 This failed to stop trouble: in some cities, such as San Francisco and New York, bans were threatened or imposed on films showing partiality. It was the death of Americans in a foreign country, in a conflict for which they were not responsible, that prompted the early campaigns against the war. An early hit song of the time said ‘I Didn’t Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier’ (subverted somewhat in the Selig release of December 1915 to I’m Glad My Son Grew Up to Be a Soldier). Such sentiments also appeared in many films of the time. In September 1914, Powers Co-

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Universal released Be Neutral, a short, in which an argument about war leads to the destruction of property. Other shorts on reconciliation themes followed and at least four anti-war films were released in 1914 after Lay Down Your Arms: One of Millions, Prince of Peace, The Envoy Extraordinary or, The World’s War and A Victim of War. Whilst all these four were opposed to war, they remained non-partisan in their condemnation. Thus, in The Envoy Extraordinary conflict is prevented when the declaration of war is destroyed before it can be enacted. One of Millions—in a convoluted plot—had a woman going mad following the death of her husband in war and the victorious general is poisoned by the man’s mother. The best of these was Prince of Peace which Variety described as perhaps ‘the most interesting peace sermon yet put on the screen’, congratulating the film makers on providing nothing that ‘could possibly give offense to partisans of the warring nations’.8 It told of a young woman sent to a convent after she has driven her sweetheart mad by a practical joke. Following the outbreak of war, the boy’s father penetrates French enemy lines. There, he is exposed unwittingly by the nun as German and is executed, the same shot killing the girl. Motion Picture World said that the film culminated with scenes of the ‘spirits of the heroes slain in the conflict… rising from their earthly bodies with arms outstretched on the way to the land where “war” is unknown’.9 Prominent in 1915 were two other allegorical films. In The War O’Dreams an explosive is discovered by a poverty-stricken inventor. This guarantees him his fortune, but after realising the destruction and disaster his discovery will create, he destroys the formula. He states that it is better to ‘live in poverty than live in wealth stained by the blood of mankind’. The Blood of Our Brothers was also about personal distress and suffering, with a pacifist finding that he has killed his brother-in-law by mistake during a war. Throughout 1915, and for part of 1916, official coverage of the war continued to attract audiences. ProGerman newsreels and documentaries were popular, culminating in the release of The German Side of War, produced by the Chicago Tribune, which attracted audiences across the states with an average of 50,000 viewers attending each week for the first three weeks of the Broadway run. The sheer numbers and popularity of German films—or German-inspired material—led to more Allied films being shown, including official British war propaganda. Such films often received quiet government support and endorsement, and were sometimes used as charity events. Like the German material, they encouraged good audiences for cinemas. They also indicated some of the subtle shifts beginning to appear in the American position. One reviewer of a Pathé film, The Horrors of War (about battles between the Turks and the Russians), said: ‘Much is made of shots of death…and we venture to say that no stronger plea in favour of preparedness could be presented.’10 By this time the advocates of involvement had come to the fore. In 1916 there were preparedness parades in a number of American cities. This period saw some of the most significant anti-neutrality films and the decline of favourable mentions of Germans. The Battle Cry of Peace was the most notorious example. As J.Stuart Blackton said (though after the war), it was a deliberate attempt to foment intervention: It was propaganda for the United States to enter the war. It was made deliberately for that purpose. It was against the administration because at that time Mr. Wilson was arguing for neutrality and peace, and talking about being too proud to fight… The Battle Cry of Peace went out as a call to arms.11 Another was The Fall of a Nation, a Thomas Dixon production about an invasion of America. Dixon was well known to Americans, having written The Klansman which D.W.Griffith made into a classic film a year previously. Dixon’s film ridiculed pacifists and included caricatures of Henry Ford and William Jennings Bryan. At one point an officer substitutes the words ‘Authority, Obedience and Efficiency’ for ‘Equality, Liberty, Fraternity’ on a blackboard. The film was a great success.

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THE US AND ANTI-WAR CINEMA, 1914–16

It was not a clear run for the advocates of preparedness and intervention, however. 1916 remained a year of peace. As Craig Campbell has said, ‘there was still…a spirit of peace, a spirit of anti-war sensibility that existed side by side with the gaining thrill and glory of the surrounding war drums’.12 There was also concern amongst some film commentators about the mendacity of the preparedness films then appearing. In February 1916, Motion Picture Magazine said that these films: have not presented to our view the actual proof of the toll of war. They have not shown us the millions of widows and the millions of orphans that are the results of this conflict. They have not proved to us the hopelessness, the despair, the hunger and suffering that have been inevitable consequences of the War. And—having failed to present these consequences …—these pictures have not been logical arguments in favor of Peace. They have been military—they have been martial in the extreme.13 In the same month that The Fall of a Nation was released, the Democrat Convention rejoiced in the fact that the country had not gone to war. They followed this with their rallying cry for Wilson in the 1916 election: ‘He kept us out of the war.’ In that year two films in particular were praised for their attempts to maintain neutrality and to promote empathy and friendship between peoples and nations: Civilization, produced by Thomas Ince, and Intolerance, one of the greatest of all silent films, made by D.W.Griffith. Both were important in American political debate and in promoting peace; both were Wilsonian in the views they put forward. But they were meretricious as anti-war films. Unquestionably creative—especially in recognising and promoting talent and in virtually introducing the studio system—Thomas Ince was an opportunist who reflected, rather than promoted, a pacifist spirit in his film. He was also keen to curry political favour wherever and whenever he could. William S.Hart, who worked with Ince in 1914, called him ‘ruthless, conniving and selfish’.14 Whereas Ince was calculating, Griffith was confused. Intolerance was a masterpiece, a brave, eloquent, unique piece of film making, but it represented a transitory phase for the great director, not his final word. Griffith could not make up his mind about the war until he returned to the subject triumphantly in the 1920s. Thomas Ince was one of the most prominent of the early film makers.15 He had started as an actor (following his parents onto the stage), but became a director in 1910 for Carl Laemmle’s IMP company. His success there, and later for the New York Motion Picture Company, led him to create Inceville which, in the mid-1910s, became one of the leading Hollywood film studios. His directing career culminated in 1913 with The Battle of Gettysburg which was praised by the critics. Soon after, he gave up direction but still retained a strong hold on the creative forces of the studio by editing each film and supervising the writing of scripts. Ince collaborated with the leading producers and directors of the period and had a talented team at his disposal (for Civilization he relied on six directors and seven cinematographers). In 1915, he formed the Triangle Film Company with Mack Sennett and D.W.Griffith. Under the auspices of Triangle, Ince made Civilization. It was very influential, particularly in the politics of the period. President Wilson obviously saw it as an opportunity— he endorsed it publicly and was filmed with Ince at his summer home, Shadow Lawn, footage which found its way into later prints of the film. Overall, it was felt to have helped Wilson in his reelection campaign. It also made a lot of money, bringing in $900,000 for an investment of $100,000 according to Terry Ramsaye.16 Its reputation did not travel well, however, and subsequent views have been mixed. Twenty years on, Creighton Peet in Esquire said the film symbolised for him the ‘transparent veneer’ of American

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2 A contemporary advertisement for Civilization (1916), one of the last—and, perhaps, the most meretricious—of US ‘peace’ films.

neutrality.17 Jack Spears called it ‘[n]aïve and shallow in conception’18 and Kevin Brownlow damned it as the ‘most pretentious American pacifist film’ of the war:

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THE US AND ANTI-WAR CINEMA, 1914–16

[it] has practically nothing to commend it, and its undeniable impact on audiences of the time now seems baffling…. Civilization is a… disconnected, highly theatrical fable, as simple-minded as the most earnest Victorian morality play…. The acting is wooden, and the film presents the view of war of those who have never seen it.19 Brownlow also said that this was a strange project for Ince: patriot, not pacifist, his studio had become adept at making violent films—‘a film opposing the whole idea of war must have seemed blasphemous’, he said.20 It also had a troubled production. Because of poor reception on the West Coast, new parts were added from another Ince production (made back-to-back with Civilization, using the same cast and uniforms), The Purple Cross. It was this version that was released in June 1916. Civilization was undoubtedly pacifist in outlook. But this was a typically cynical move by Ince—a man who always concerned himself most with the bottom line. As Anthony Slide emphasised, Ince had ‘an uncanny knack for knowing just what the public wanted’.21 Similarly sardonic was Irvin Willatt, who worked for Ince, and had transformed Civilization with his use of material from The Purple Cross, and later made some of the most bizarre and violent of the anti-German films, including Behind the Door, another Ince production. At the start of the war Willatt was pro-German, but as time went on his support lessened. He told Kevin Brownlow that for him Civilization was a problem to be solved (which he did in the re-edit) and the propaganda was secondary.22 Indeed, most of Ince’s film makers didn’t really care—they wanted to make money. In his foreword to Civilization Ince said that his film ‘is an allegorical story about war—it does not concern itself about which side is right or wrong, but deals with those ranks which are paying the grim penalty—the ranks of humanity’.23 Ince repeated such sentiments in advertisements and programmes in which he dedicated the film to ‘the vast pitiful army whose tears have girdled the universe—The Mothers of the Dead’. Like the advertisements the product ladled on the message thickly. Its opening contrasts a peaceable kingdom with a debate in parliament, where the King’s advocacy of war is supported by all but a few members. Meanwhile, Count Ferdinand, an inventor, and creator of the King’s powerful submarine, is converted to pacifism by his girlfriend—a leading campaigner in the peace movement. The war leads to many deaths and calls for more enlistment. Ferdinand is commander of his submarine, but his opposition to war leads him to oppose the sinking of a cruise liner and he kills all the crew when they try to overpower him. Ferdinand also dies. Whilst his body is sent home, his spirit wanders until he is ordered to return to earth (at one stage the film had the title He Who Returned) and spread the pacifist message. He now leads the peace movement, but is captured and condemned to death. During a visit by the King the spirit of Jesus leaves Ferdinand’s body and takes him on a tour of the battlefields where he finds many dead, hospitals destroyed and his own name missing from a humanity list. Following a massive demonstration by women against the war, the King declares peace. Reviewers generally liked the film. The New York Times said it was ‘an excellently elaborate photo pageant on the physical horrors of war… a leaf out of the pacifists’ primer’.24 Motion Picture News called it ‘a sermon based on the uselessness of war’25 and Variety said it had been ‘designed as a strong protest against the horrors of war…[which] ranks with the world’s greatest cinema productions’.26 The reviews were one indication of the film’s success. Another was the response of viewers. Ince reported that he had been sent over 1,400 letters praising the production within weeks of the opening of the film. In the Moving Picture World he placed one in an advertisement for Civilization. In part, this read:

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3 Christ walks amongst the wounded on the battlefield in Civilization (1916).

For one who has been through the Gehenna of Nations in France, and for the millions who remain, as I went, to lay down my life for the defence of my country and my loved ones, I thank you, sir, with a simple soldier’s prayer that your wonderful picture Civilization may waken your own great race to the Demoniac madness of modern war. What you in your screen sermon have depicted—vivid, remorseless and truly horrible as it is—is but the least part of the Saturnalia of war.27 For its British release in 1917 Civilization was changed, scenes were added and a new title used— Civilization, What Every True Briton Is Fighting For. Ince, characteristically, was happy to change the film from a pacifist proclamation to support for the war. He still fell foul of the censor who refused to allow Christ on the screen, though eventually the film was shown. Whilst most critics in the trade papers approved, some were not so favourable. The Bioscope warned that this new version could still foment pacifism: We cannot think that it is the time to advocate any measures which might relax the determination of the British public to prosecute the war to its final conclusion, and even the extremely beautiful concluding scenes, where the happy villagers welcome back their husbands, sons and sweethearts… lose something of their effect from the fact that the returning soldiers belong to that army for which at the present moment any excessive sentimentality would only be a sign of weakness.28

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THE US AND ANTI-WAR CINEMA, 1914–16

Kevin Brownlow said the film’s success mirrored that in the United States, though, according to James Robertson, its run was limited: it opened to the public in October 1917 and was exhibited at some London cinemas for the next five months.29 A new version of the film—with an added soundtrack, and, possibly, a lengthy anti-war inter-title—was prepared in 1931 to cash in on the wave of pacifist cinema. However, this was banned by the censors, again possibly due to the portrayal of Christ. Civilization was a success—with audiences, critics and politicians. Intolerance failed. Film historians differ in their explanations of the reasons for this. Only one year before, Griffith had been fêted by critics and audiences alike for transforming motion pictures with his epic classic, The Birth of a Nation. This had survived accusations of racism and some censorship (he wrote a pamphlet, The Rise and Fall of Free Speech in America, as a reaction to this) to be a hit throughout the country. Intolerance itself received positive initial reviews, and did good business, with runs for many months in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, amongst others, but this initial success tailed off. Even though it made money, Griffith’s insistence on each film show being a major event cut into any profits made. The reasons suggested for failure range from audience difficulty with the confusing structure to an adverse reaction to the film’s pacifist message, an explanation Griffith himself favoured. As Lillian Gish outlined: In 1916 and early 1917 the country was preparing for war. The papers were filled with war headlines. Yet here was a picture that preached peace and tolerance. It was the antithesis of what people were then interested in. As the country grew more and more war-conscious, Intolerance was censored and barred in many cities.30 These two reasons may be true; it was innovative—comparable, indeed, with nothing that had gone before— and by the end of 1916, America was on the verge of intervention and the film’s conclusion was at variance with the developing national mood. However, War Brides, a pacifist film that followed Intolerance, was a success. Richard Schickel, Griffith’s biographer, has come up with a simpler solution—the film did not have the staying power to succeed, and as a consequence, it failed to reach through to the larger audience.31 Given that admissions had begun to wither well before America entered the war, it is this that seems the more likely explanation. The origins of Intolerance lay in a shorter film Griffith had made in 1915, The Mother and the Law, a capital-versus-labour story. Following the success of The Birth of a Nation, Griffith felt that the viewer wanted more epics and The Mother and the Law became part of a four-story film highlighting intolerance through the ages: features on the crucifixion of Christ, the destruction of Babylon and the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of the Huguenots joined his earlier production. The film culminates with an epilogue clearly highlighting the intolerance then dividing Europe and showing the devastation war brings, with an imaginary bombing of New York by airship and soldiers killing. The ending had angels in the sky with the title ‘And perfect love shall bring peace forevermore.’ Like Ince, Griffith took advantage of the war. An opposition to the conflict was not the initial motivation in making the film—this lay more in a wish to continue to impress the cinema audience. Richard Schickel points out that Griffith wanted to upstage the Italian makers of the epic Cabiria (which inspired some of the great sets) but also that he did have a genuine social conscience, with the modern story influenced by a visit he made to prisons in San Francisco and San Quentin.32 Suggestions that Intolerance was made to atone for the accusations of racism engendered by The Birth of a Nation seem not to be true, however: Griffith felt he had nothing to be ashamed of.

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Part of the problem was Griffith’s confusion about the war. He was a supporter of the peace movement initially. In The Birth of a Nation he had brought home to the American audience the horrors of modern warfare, as did the carnage depicted in Intolerance. The value of this was clear to Griffith at the time. He is reported to have said: ‘If moving pictures properly done of the horrors of war had been innoculated [sic] in all the nations of Europe, there would be no bodies of men lying on European battlefields.’33 However, he later gave support to intervention. At the London première of Intolerance—which took place the day after America declared war on Germany—he told the audience that he was happy ‘to think my country will soon be taking part with yours in this great fight for freedom’.34 He was in London at the invitation of Lord Beaverbrook to make a film for the British propaganda effort, Hearts of the World. Throughout this process, he continued to have mixed views about the war. There are some anti-war elements in Hearts of the World, in particular the depiction of attacks on civilians, though these are more than offset by the crude scenes showing German atrocities.35 Mixed views also resulted from his first-hand experiences of the conflict (Griffith had toured the trenches). He said in 1918 that the war was ‘in some ways disappointing’ as a drama. In the same interview he described modern conflict as: neither romantic nor picturesque…. Everyone is hidden away in ditches. As you look out across No Man’s Land there is literally nothing that meets the eye but an aching desolation of nothingness—or torn trees, ruined barbed wire fence and shell holes…. There is nothing but filth and dirt and the most soul sickening smells. The soldiers are standing sometimes almost up to their hips in ice cold mud…. It is too colossal to be dramatic.36 He had also been moved by the impact of war on the civilian population. Following a daylight raid, he found a nursery school destroyed by a bomb with almost one hundred children killed. Lillian Gish recalled him saying: ‘This is what war is. Not the parades and the conference tables—but children killed, lives destroyed.’37 Following the Armistice his views about the war were more consistently critical. In 1919 he told the socialist and anti-war activist Max Eastman, editor of The Liberator: ‘I served in the war and made a famous war film, but I don’t really believe in wars. I think they’re always wrong on both sides.’38 His conversion was complete by the early 1920s when he made perhaps the most sympathetic and moving Hollywood treatment of German suffering, Isn’t Life Wonderful. Lillian Gish said this was his apology to the German people for having made Hearts of the World.39 Although Intolerance failed in the United States, it proved to be a great success worldwide, particularly in Canada, Japan and, after some cuts and changes to titles, in Russia. The last of the great peace films prior to America’s intervention was War Brides, Herbert Brenon’s production released in November 1916 starring Nazimova and, in his screen debut, Richard Barthelmess. Like Ince and Griffith, Brenon later went on to make pro-war films, in particular The National Film for the British government (see chapter 5). War Brides, an allegorical study, showed that generally the German people did not wish to fight in the war. It was well received by critics and audiences (and was very profitable), though it was censored, with a slide preceding each showing which toned down the anti-war message: This drama photoplay will show Mothers’, Wives’ and Sweethearts’ reasons for opposing all wars, but between the lines everyone will perceive the reason why American homes and American Womanhood must be adequately protected by a strong army and strong navy. Young man enlist now. Do your part

22

THE US AND ANTI-WAR CINEMA, 1914–16

in the world fight against Prussian Militarism. Then there will be no such scenes as this photoplay will portray. This is the time to show your colors. You will be fighting in the greatest of all wars for the greatest cause for which any people ever contended. Enlist today.40 After American entry, the film was withdrawn from many states following intervention by local censorship boards. Surprisingly, it was passed by the British censors. James Robertson says that one of the likely reasons for this is that ‘the film is set in a European country resembling Germany, and that the woman commits suicide once she realises her anti-war efforts have failed and war would always exist’.41 The peace movement was split by the time America voted to intervene. Ford’s peace-ship initiative was but a distant memory by April 1917. The transition was complete with the Carnegie Peace Foundation stating that it now supported the war as it would ‘serve the ideal of its founders best by lending all its strength to the persecution of the armed conflict to a triumphant conclusion’.42 By now the film industry had been fully mobilised to support the expeditionary force: there was heavy censorship, anti-war pictures were banned, cinemas became the focus for patriotic rallies (a war tax was placed on admissions), movie stars sold liberty bonds and official propaganda films toured the country. Prowar special interest groups were active, including the Daughters of the American Revolution, the American Defense League and the National Preparedness Society. There was a clampdown on the activities of pacifists and socialists, the force of which was intensified after the Bolshevik revolution in November 1917. Any pro-German sentiment was dealt with rapidly. It was not an easy time: paranoia was rife, a mood best summed up by the case of Robert Goldstein who was imprisoned for ten years for making what was judged to be an anti-English, and, hence, pro-German, film in his portrayal of the American revolution, The Spirit of ’76. His sentence was later commuted to three years and he was released in 1920.43 Historians and film makers have not looked with much sympathy on Hollywood films of the war period. Terry Ramsaye said: ‘The peculiar fact for screen history is that the vast experience of the war contributed nothing whatever to the art of the motion picture.’44 For Jack Warner, writing over four decades later, even the pro-war films failed: ‘The motion picture industry was anxious to help’, he said, ‘but because the government controlled the entire war film production program, there were no great inspirational pictures made.’45 But they were crucial, as Louella Parsons illustrated in Photoplay in September 1918: If German vandalism could reach overseas, the Kaiser would order every moving picture studio crushed to dust and every theatre blown to atoms. There has been no more effective ammunition aimed at the Prussian empire than…pictures of German atrocities…. The followers of the cinema have seen with their own eyes how German militarism is waged against civilisation. They have seen the rape of Belgium, the devastation of France and the evil designs against America…. And while these films have been raising the temperature of the Allies’ patriotism to a blood heat, Germany has been gnashing its teeth.46 They were also important for the future of world cinema. The American film industry had come of age by 1918. There were also significant cultural and geographic shifts in film production as the war years witnessed the demise of European film making and the growth of the American cinema as an artistic and entertainment force worldwide. Anita Loos said that ‘World War One was the reason for Hollywood’: At the time war broke out, movies had gained a very substantial place in Europe. They were being made in France, and in Italy they were particularly good, and there was no need for Hollywood. But

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the war broke out and that changed the whole scene. It was impossible to work with the economics of war surrounding these studios. So I really credit Hollywood on World War One.47 Compared to many countries involved in the fighting, America’s suffering was not so acute. The minimum estimates of 48,000 casualties—though disastrous for all involved—were far less than the millions of German, French, Russian and British deaths. The economy had prospered and its film industry was triumphant, a position that remains today. In common with many countries, the war was to have a lasting negative impact, however. Ultimately, it created a generation of forgotten men and an economy on the edge of disaster. By the late 1920s, it was difficult to remember why the war had been fought, let alone celebrate the victory. These themes were all to be reflected in Hollywood over the next forty years, but it was to be some time before the bitter impact of the war made it to the screen.

Chapter 3 The Great War seven years on The Big Parade

The declaration of the Armistice dealt a severe blow to American cinema. Anticipating a continuation of the conflict, producers had invested heavily and many new war films were ready for release. Hasty re-editing and extensive publicity (often stressing that the picture was not a war story) ensured partial success but it was clear that exhausted viewers had turned against the genre. Many large budgets proved wasted, exacerbating an already difficult financial situation in Hollywood as the war film faded away. In the years that followed, however, the war did not disappear altogether from screens, though any films made tended to relegate the conflict to the background and their general failure only endorsed the conclusion that the subject was anathema to audiences. Even the success of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in 1921 failed to inspire producers who knew that it was Rudolph Valentino who attracted cinemagoers and not the war scenes. It was in a difficult context, then, that MGM launched its own spectacular film on the war in 1925. Industry fears were quickly dispelled when King Vidor’s The Big Parade was critically acclaimed on release as a great film. Most important of all it found an audience, becoming the highest grossing film of the silent era. The Big Parade is not the bitter anti-war statement of All Quiet on the Western Front. Much of the film centres on a romance between the two leading players and there are many comic scenes. Indeed, some recent commentators have argued that the film is not anti-war at all. Its credentials, however, are clear: the film was greeted as anti-war by many contemporary critics and its lack of patriotic glorification of combat was markedly different to the crude propaganda that preceded it. The film opens in spring 1917 in a peaceful, successful America. Jim Apperson (John Gilbert) leads a life of leisure granted by parental wealth. As noisy celebrations herald the declaration of war, Jim tells his mother (Claire McDowell) that he will not fight. However, his sweetheart, Justyn (Claire Adams) declares how handsome he would look in an officer’s uniform and, later, he enlists with his friends at a patriotic parade. Unlike his wife, Mr Apperson (Hobart Bosworth) is proud when he hears the news. Jim makes friends with Bull (Tom O’Brien) and Slim (Karl Dane) and they march together into France. In Champillon the tired soldiers are greeted by cheering crowds but, instead of rest, they are forced to dig over a manure patch. The next day Jim meets Melisande (Renée Adorée) but is unsuccessful in his lovemaking as neither can speak the other’s language. They meet again that night at the weekly gathering of villagers to hear patriotic news from relatives at the front. Eventually they fall in love. However, one day Jim admits he has a fiancée and Melisande walks away. Suddenly, mobilisation orders arrive and they are reunited in the confusion. Jim promises to return and throws a necklace, a bracelet and a boot to her. As the Big Parade leaves for battle, Melisande is left in a deserted road clutching her mementos.

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Near the front Flying Fritzie shoots at them and they are attacked by snipers and machine guns as they advance through a wood. Once through they are met with artillery and gas bombardments. Slim and Bull are killed as the three attack. Jim, wounded, falls into a shellhole with a soldier he has shot but is unable to kill and gives him his last cigarette. When he sees the German has died he smokes the cigarette himself. In hospital he discovers that Melisande’s village has been overrun and, despite his injuries, goes to find her. However, she has fled with the others and, as the village is attacked again, Jim is carried off by ambulance shouting for her. One of Jim’s legs has had to be amputated and with the war over he returns home. Whilst Jim has been away his brother Harry and Justyn have fallen in love. When he enters the house, Mrs Apperson embraces him, but Jim is angered when Harry tells him that he looks great. When she learns of Melisande his mother tells him to find her. Back in France, Melisande ploughs a field. She pauses and pulls some gum from her mouth. Far away she sees a man. As he gets closer she begins to run and, happy, they kiss. By 1925 King Vidor was a Hollywood veteran. He had started by producing and developing his own films but, obsessed with Hollywood, he moved to Los Angeles in 1915. He spent three years writing scenarios and acting as an extra, then graduated to direction with a series for Judge Willis Brown. Ironically, two of these were propaganda shorts containing themes he was to reject in The Big Parade. In the first, Bud’s Recruit (1918), a patriotic boy enlists his older brother by visiting the recruiting station in disguise. His example awakens his brother’s responsibility and, rejecting his slacker past, he becomes a loyal soldier. The second, I’m a Man (1918), had a German-American citizen accused of espionage. His reputation is saved when his son unmasks the real spies and their plans to destroy oil wells. Such films were made to enhance Vidor’s directorial ambitions rather than with any belief in their themes. Vidor yearned to be a second D.W.Griffith. By 1922 he had founded his own studio, Vidor Village, and had idealistic plans for film production. In his Creed and Pledge, published at the time, he said he believed in motion pictures that carry ‘a message to humanity’, promised to draw upon the sources of good for his stories and never to ‘picture evil or wrong, except to prove the fallacy of its lure’.1 However, financial difficulties bankrupted the company and he joined MGM where, following some minor successes, he made The Big Parade. For some time Vidor had wanted to make films which would ‘not just come to town for a few days and be forgotten’.2 Approaching MGM production head Irving Thalberg in 1924, he suggested three possible subjects: war, wheat or steel. Despite prevailing industry judgement they decided on war and began looking for suitable screenplays that fulfilled Vidor’s vision: All war stories up to that time had been ones that glamorized war. The leads were all played by handsome officers in highly polished boots, tailored uniforms, and wonderful hats. My idea…was not to glamorize war, but to just have a GI, a common soldier who didn’t want to make war. He didn’t think enough against it to start a campaign against the war, but he still felt badly about it.3 Vidor also said that he wanted to make an ‘honest war picture…with some feeling of anti-war, realistic war’.4 The stories available in the scenario department were, however, poor, tending to promote those themes he rejected. In the meantime, Thalberg was in New York where he saw the Broadway hit What Price Glory?, praised as one of the first honest commentaries on the war. The play was co-written by Laurence Stallings, a marine veteran who had lost a leg at Belleau Wood, and Maxwell Anderson, a pacifist, who was later to contribute to the screenplay of All Quiet on the Western Front. Despite Stallings’ experience, he was ambivalent about the war and his writings tended to mix bittersweet memories with cynicism and horror. What Price Glory? provided a condemnation of war,

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THE GREAT WAR SEVEN YEARS ON

particularly in its second act, but primarily comprised a fight between the two leads for the love of a French woman. Prior to What Price Glory? he had written Plumes, a semi-autobiographical novel about the difficult rehabilitation of a disabled war veteran. However, it was not all a disillusioning experience for the soldier. Michael Isenberg has written ‘the sound of the trumpets persisted among the carnage. Despite a shattered leg, his hero, Richard Plume, remained a patriot, albeit a troubled one.’5 In 1934 Stallings made a bitter anti-war documentary film, The First World War, based on a picture history he had published the previous year (considering that it was still known as the ‘Great’ War at this stage, and the Second World War was five years off, this was a remarkably prophetic work). In the 1960s he returned to his earlier ambiguous memories of the war in his history of the American Expeditionary Force, The Doughboys. MGM held the rights to Plumes but Thalberg wanted What Price Glory? However, Fox had already purchased the screenplay and the film was released in 1926 to acclaim (it was remade in 1952 by John Ford). Thalberg remained confident that there was still room for Vidor’s film. He discussed with Stallings the possibility of writing another scenario, and a five-page outline, with the title The Big Parade, was prepared on the train back to California. Vidor was pleased with this but wanted more. Stallings disliked Hollywood, however, and returned to New York accompanied by Vidor and Harry Behn, co-scenarist of the film (and later to co-write Hell’s Angels). This proved to be a crucial journey for Vidor as he encountered some of the realities of the war: Towards morning, when I’d hear Stallings snoring up above, I’d tell myself that it was time to relax and get to sleep. But the horrors and details of Château-Thierry and Metz had me too excited for sleep. I kept saying to myself, ‘This is all too fantastic and unreal. It never happened.’ One night, as I sat in my lower berth with eyes closed, the train started a violent swaying action. Stallings’s wooden leg, hanging on a wall hook, swung in a wide arc with the motion of the train and the heavy brogue on the wooden foot kicked me hard in the chin. When I recovered from the blow, the evidence of the swaying leg with the sock and shoe still on it was all too real. I could never again say to myself that the horrors of war didn’t happen; I accepted the facts. I have often wondered if this timely blow on the chin didn’t contribute much to the reality and later success of the film.6 Little progress was made in New York but three days after Vidor and Behn’s return to California the complete screenplay was ready. By this stage the major rôles had been assigned. Cast against type (he was soon to be established as the great lover of the screen), John Gilbert was given the lead, with Renée Adorée —a minor MGM contract actress—playing Melisande. At first both Vidor and Stallings disliked the choice of leading man (Vidor wanted a lesser-known actor who could portray an ordinary person as James Murray would do in his later film, The Crowd) and, initially, there was a poor relationship between the director and the star. For his part, Gilbert resented the realistic portrayal of the doughboy—no make up, ill-fitting uniform, dirty fingernails and face—which he feared would ruin his image. However, he acquiesced and later praised the film: ‘No achievement will ever excite me so much…. No reward will ever be so great…. All that has followed is balderdash.’7 The two leads were complemented by the choice of the tough Irish actor, Tom O’Brien, as Bull and the gangling Karl Dane as Slim. Earlier, as Carl Dane, he had played the German Chancellor BethmannHollweg in two propaganda films: My Four Years in Germany and To Hell with the Kaiser (both 1918). The Big Parade made him a popular comic actor in the late silent period but, like Gilbert (though for different reasons), he found the transition to sound impossible and committed suicide in 1934. Originally, the crucial rôles of Jim’s parents were small but when Thalberg first saw the picture he ordered the strengthening of the home scenes and stronger actors were cast. Vidor made an inspired choice

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in Claire McDowell, who provides some of the film’s most poignant moments. Instead of just grieving over Jim’s injury and trying to help re-establish his relationship with Justyn, she tells him to find his real love back in France even though she knows that he will leave home again, this time, perhaps, for ever. The choice of Hobart Bosworth as the father was also apt. In 1919 he had starred in the most notorious of the vengeance films, Behind the Door, where he extracted revenge on the U-Boat commander who seized his wife by skinning him alive with a razor. The expansion of the home scenes was one example of Thalberg’s influence on the production. The credit given to Thalberg for the film was something Vidor resented later as he claimed his rôle had been exaggerated and that many of the improvements to the screenplay for which he was praised were already in the original script. In his search for realism Vidor viewed nearly one hundred reels of Signal Corps footage (small parts of which were included in the film), and received the co-operation of American Expeditionary Force veterans as technical advisors and the assistance of the United States Army at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio. Vidor himself had military experience, though not in combat. One of his first jobs had been to film army manoeuvres. He had attended the Peacock Military Academy in Texas (but absconded after a few months) and participated in the Hollywood Officer Training Corps during the war. In addition, some of the technical staff and cast on the film had combat experience: James Basevi (art director) had been an artillery officer in the British Army, Tom O’Brien was a veteran, Joe Farnham (title writer) had been a motion-picture cameraman for the Carnegie Peace Endowment and George Hill—director of the additional night battle scenes ordered by Thalberg—was a former Signal Corps Captain in France. William Wellman (a veteran flyer and later director of the aviation classic, Wings) also provided advice for the flying sequences. Finally, many of the actors hired as extras were veterans, some telling Vidor they had fought against each other during the war. All this helped the director but he realised that artistic control and his own vision and research were essential and a number of scenes were filmed against the advice of the army and some veterans. He was later to state that there were eucalyptus trees in The Big Parade which were not in France. This gave him the sardonic title for his autobiography, A Tree is A Tree.8 Two scenes were criticised by the military. The first is the main mobilisation of troops from Champillon to the front. Vidor wanted a long straight line of men and machines and sent Dave Howard, his assistant director, to film. Whilst on location in San Antonio, army advisors told Howard that such a long line could not have happened in France (in reality they were reluctant to travel the twenty-five miles to the nearest straight road) and he filmed twelve reels of a zig-zag formation. The results appalled the director and he persuaded Thalberg to re-shoot the entire sequence despite the extra costs involved. Vidor personally directed these new scenes, using 4,000 army personnel and 200 trucks, referring any further complaints to actual Signal Corps footage of straight-line formations. Howard’s original material was not wasted and parts of it were used later in the mobilisation sequence. The second scene criticised was the walk through the wood based on the actual advance through Belleau Wood where Stallings had lost his leg. Vidor was again influenced by Signal Corps footage, though not of the original attack. He had seen in one film a march slower than others and it was only when a flag-draped coffin came into view that he realised it was a funeral march. This struck him immediately: It was a rhythm of suspended animation and their movement suggested an ominous event. There was no sound track, but the whole pattern spelled death…. If I could duplicate this slow, measured cadence as my American troops approached the front line, I could illustrate the proximity of death

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with a telling and powerful effect. I was in the realm of my favourite obsession, experimenting with the possibilities of ‘silent music’.9 To replicate the scene Vidor beat out the pace of the advance with a metronome and drum on the set. He wanted to show that the advance represented the war as death, not glory—what he called a ‘bloody ballet, a ballet of death’.10 When a soldier had to die or fall injured he was directed to do so on the next beat of the drum. To heighten the tension in theatres, Vidor rejected any music and suggested that a drum beat out the steps of the soldiers. He achieved this in California but not in New York, where the melody ruined the effect. Despite overcoming military criticism Vidor remained concerned that once the army became aware of the type of film he was making they would persuade distributors and theatre-owners to withdraw bookings. His worries came to nothing. He said later that the military praised the film’s realism, he received an armed escort to the première and even had an offer from the munitions manufacturer Dupont to show the film in tents if there were problems with distribution. Vidor recognised all this, optimistically, as a ‘new movement about honesty in war’.11 On release the film was praised for its technical achievements, excellence of direction and acting and the realistic portrayal of the conflict (although Alexander Woollcott complained that some in his audience applauded the deaths of German soldiers12). Variety said: ‘It may be a bit morbid; folks may object, but it is one of the greatest pieces of propaganda ever launched against war.’13 In Life Robert Sherwood called it a ‘spectacular, harsh, raw-meaty and somewhat sardonic drama of that grim travesty, the Great War’.14 Furthermore: I could not detect a single flaw…not one error of taste or of authenticity —and it isn’t as if I didn’t watch for these defects, for I have seen too many movies which pictured the war in terms of Liberty Loan propaganda… The Big Parade is eminently right. There are no heroic Red Cross nurses in No Man’s Land, no scenes wherein the doughboys dash over the top carrying the American flag.15 The film was awarded the Photoplay Gold Medal for 1925 and the New York Times said it was the best film of the year. The immediate success at the box office confirmed Vidor’s belief that his film would last longer than a week. In New York it played for nearly two years, earning $1.5 million, and it ran in Hollywood for six months. By 1930 it had earned £15 million and was re-released the following year with synchronised sound. Its current gross stands at $22 million. For a cost of around $380,000 this is a great achievement. The film’s positive critical reception in the United States was not matched in Britain. Although most critics praised its technical qualities, there was great objection to what was seen as the film’s ignorance of the British contribution to victory in the war. At least two newspapers called on the London representative of the MPPDA (the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America—sometimes known as the Hays Office) to withdraw distribution. The Evening News called it ‘unreal…[a film] that lacks relation to fact’.16 The Daily Express said it was a travesty of history: Curious issues, some amusing, some annoying, but all disconcerting, are raised by this mighty and disingenuous effort in national publicity, which suggests, by direct inference and thinly veiled innuendo, that the war began when American troops arrived, after which, of course, further German resistance was futile.17 The day before, an Express columnist had written:

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It is true that there were American troops in France, though they never had a winter in the trenches. It is true that they did gallant things in the Argonne and at Château-Thierry where ‘shows’ were provided. All honour to them…. But what will be the reaction of the London public to a war film in which there is no British ‘Tommy’ or French ‘Poilu’; which suggests, in a riot of ‘he-man’ subtitles, that our weak, worn, and wilting armies in France could not push the war to a successful conclusion without the manly aid of a million dashing ‘doughboys’?18 Although these comments were representative of general British press coverage some critics were evenhanded. The Bioscope restated the problem but argued ‘there is no suggestion of vainglorious propaganda’.19 It went on: intrinsically the picture contains nothing offensive to British sentiment. It is not, in fact, in any respect a narrowly national picture, but rather an epic of fundamental human emotions too generously universal to be circum scribed by political prejudice. In the midst of its nationalistic criticism, the Star did acknowledge that the film was ‘pacifist in its major effect; for “glory” plays a short-lived part’.20 In this it agreed with George Bernard Shaw who defended the film strongly, calling it ‘a fine pacifist study of war…. It shows the excitement of people before they go to war, and contrasts it with their subsequent discovery of its realities.’ In answer to the criticism that it dismissed the British contribution, Shaw said: ‘It is an American film. If we were to produce a British war film, would we put American soldiers into it?’21 One of the few English commentators to examine The Big Parade in detail was Iris Barry in The Spectator. In common with all reviewers she praised its technical achievements and noted its likely unfavourable reception in most Allied countries. She also found a number of scenes too comic and chided at some of the military improbabilities and over-patriotic subtitles. She was also critical of Shaw’s comments and was one of the few contemporary critics to deny the film the status of being anti-war: Mr.Bernard Shaw is being advertised widely as having said that he likes The Big Parade because he is a pacifist. This must be a joke. The War was not a great game ending in twenty-four hours of fighting: no film dare show what it resembled. But to say that a sentimental and romantic war-film like this does anything in the interests of peace is madness. It wreathes machine-guns in roses.22 Despite the adverse criticism the film did well in its London run and played to record-breaking audiences at the Tivoli for twenty-four weeks. The film was also criticised on nationalistic grounds in France (where it was released in 1927 and was a success) although most reviewers praised its technical achievements. To provide a French angle the characters’ names were changed: Jim Apperson became Robert de Beaumont; Justine became Gladys and Melisande was changed to Lisette. Edmond Epardaud in Cinéa-Ciné Pour Tour found the military scenes truthful and recorded that the audience cheered and applauded the realistic battle sequences that followed the mobilisation.23 However, he criticised the comic-opera-style French farm and, in common with English reviewers, argued that the film was mainly for the edification of the American public. In a general condemnation of war films, one critic in Mon Ciné said he disliked those actors who participated vicariously in combat through being in films about war. Film stars could not —and did not—know about the effects of war and their wounds were nothing compared to the real suffering that resulted.24

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There has been much debate about the status of The Big Parade as an anti-war film. Vidor has almost consistently classified it as such, though in an article published near the original release he did not want to be over-didactic: In the Great War many were wondering why in an enlightened age we should have to battle. I do not wish to appear to be taking any stand about war. I certainly do not favor it, but I would not set up a preachment against it.25 And as late as 1974 he was still rethinking his approach: ‘I don’t like it much…. Today I don’t encourage people to see the film. At the time I really believed it was an anti-war movie.’26 There are important points which need to be stressed here. The first comment was made near the initial release of the film and Vidor was perhaps nervous about its reception given the lack of war-related films in recent years. The second comment came after a lifetime of cinema, and at a time when the anti-war film was seen to be represented more by the bitter statements of Lewis Milestone and Stanley Kubrick, which may have led to a fading of the film’s relevance in Vidor’s mind. Although the film was praised for its anti-war stance on release, recent commentators have been more circumspect. Michael Isenberg has said that it fails to question both American participation and the war aims of the Allies. Furthermore, he argues that the film is similar to pro-war propaganda productions with its emphasis on the virtues of commitment, duty, heroism and sacrifice. He is critical also of claims that the shellhole sequence is anti-war, arguing that the leads all participate in the killing: In this context, The Big Parade offered a most admiring view of the American soldier and his war efforts. The doughboy is a committed civilian who, when aroused, becomes a dominant warrior, only to yearn for the blessings of peace. Here Vidor’s humanitarianism, which infused the film, was unable to overshadow the ambiguities of Stallings’s relationship to the war. Stallings and most of his comrades could never finally admit the possibility that the whole thing had been unnecessary, meaningless, disastrous. This would have made the loss of life and limb unbearable as well as tragic. So the war became a legitimate theater for the heroics of the democratic fighting man.27 And Raymond Durgnat and Scott Simmon have said: Although The Big Parade…was often assumed to be ‘antiwar,’ Vidor’s comments at the time of release suggest a related, but different, view: war’s horrors are the precondition of war’s heroism. ‘Antiwar’ covers a multitude of positions, and The Big Parade (whose title is ironic but not all that ironic) follows a common feeling then, that one can be antiwar, but one has to fight just wars or wars of liberation.28 Despite this re-evaluation, there is much in The Big Parade that classifies it as an anti-war picture. Certainly, it was a very different view of the war than had been put forward hitherto. The film eschews any feeling of romance about war itself. The flag-waving is confined to the initial parade—showing how Jim is motivated to enlist by the enthusiastic crowds and the exhortations of his friends—and to the troop’s reception in the French village. The battle scenes highlighted how far-fetched previous war films had been. Finally, the impact of the conflict on those left at home (both in America and in France) provided a condemnation of war.

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4 The wounded Jim Apperson (John Gilbert) in The Big Parade (1925) which did much to promote a more critical view of the war in Hollywood and which paved the way for the bitter statements of the 1930s.

The main focus in The Big Parade is Jim Apperson. Initially an idler, his experience of death and injury leads him to reject the lifestyle he once enjoyed and move to a simpler life in France and his real love. Jim is first seen being shaved by his black butler, relishing the luxury allowed by parental wealth. He is not going to work in his father’s mill he tells him. When he learns of the declaration of war he says that he will not fight but this soon changes when Justyn tells him that he would look handsome in uniform and with his friends’ encouragement to enlist. There is little patriotism in his decision; as Paul Rotha said, he was just one of hundreds of thousands of people ‘howled into war’.29 What patriotism he feels soon disappears when he returns home to find his worried mother. He cannot tell her of his enlistment and his enthusiasm is not rekindled by his father’s pride on hearing the news. He is just confused. Once in the army his previous life is soon forgotten and he links up with the working-class Slim and Bull. The war proves a great class leveller and the three remain comrades throughout. When they are in their billets at Champillon Jim finds his real love in Melisande. The relationship they developed initially was important for Vidor as he was keen to highlight the carefree love and romance present at a time when death was often near for soldiers and civilians. Despite the language difficulties they fall in love and their parting, in the rush and confusion of mobilisation for the front, is justly claimed as one of the greatest scenes in cinema history. Up to this point the troops have had no experience of combat. For all but Jim the war has been tedious: rookie training camp, billets, digging manure and washing their own clothes. This is changed in the final third of the film as they go into battle. For Jim it means leaving his lover but it also brings home to him the

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realities of war. At first it seems like an adventure and they ignore the wounded men walking away from them as they disembark near the front. Even the attack by Flying Fritzie has little impact. The turning point is the advance through the wood. Here Jim walks slowly with Slim and Bull at his side. He is apprehensive, nervous, wide-eyed. He sees men fall dead and injured around him. When they are trapped in a shellhole the war becomes hell and the death of Slim and Bull shows Jim that it means the murder of his friends. This turns him briefly from benign indifference to a manic fighting machine as he rushes towards the German positions: ‘They got him! God damn their souls!’ and ‘You got my buddy, you b —s!’ This is not done for patriotism and glory, however. A sub-title reads: ‘Parades when we left and when we get back! Who the hell cares… after this?’ Jim soon avenges Slim’s death but is wounded and lies in a shellhole with the German soldier he has shot. He thrusts the bayonet at the German but, repulsed by his action, he is unable to deliver the final blow. Here Vidor shows that it is easier to kill from the relative anonymity of the trenches than when face to face with a human being, even if that person is the enemy. Jim’s hatred of the soldier is short-lived and he gives him his last cigarette. However, after checking his own wound he discovers that the German has died and smokes the cigarette himself. This scene was important for Vidor as it said that there is little enmity between the ordinary man on either side: There’s not going to be any animosity directed towards some young German fellow just because he happened to be born in Germany and then was drafted. He might be a school teacher, an accountant, or even a screen actor. You can’t put animosity down to two individuals facing each other. That’s what the picture says. Up until this picture, that type of scene never happened.30 American reviewers were impressed. Alexander Woollcott said it turned the film from being ‘a good picture into a great one’. As Jim pushes the bayonet towards the German’s throat: one saw the flames suddenly die down in Jim’s eyes, the anger give way in his heart to an uncomfortable bewilderment. For, after all, his man was only just such another frightened kid as Jim himself, sucked helpless out of just such another tranquil home as his perhaps, a fair, fine youth as divinely fashioned for the wonder of life—no more than Jim, no less than Jim, responsible for the failure at the business of living, the monstrous failure of which a long wave had, for a little moment out of eternity, washed these two corks into the same eddy.31 And Robert Sherwood said: ‘I doubt that there is a single irregular soldier, volunteer or conscripted, who did not experience that same awful feeling during his career in France—who did not recognise the impulse to withdraw the bayonet and offer the dying Heinie a cigarette.’32 The scene proved so impressive that similar sequences were used in All Quiet on the Western Front and The Man I Killed (see chapter 8), though in these films a greater case for remorse was made. Jim then cheers on the advancing American forces, but in a delirious manner, and is taken to hospital. Lying there, flies on his face, he sees one soldier so disturbed that he has to be secured to his bed (a scene cut from the British release). When he discovers Melisande’s village has been destroyed he crawls out of the hospital only to find that she has fled. His return to America is low-key. There is no victory parade and the household is subdued. His father can only look with distaste at Jim’s body during the car journey home. His brother Harry, full of false bonhomie and praise, welcomes him back, to which Jim reacts with anger. It is only his mother who really understands. She tells him to find Melisande as she knows that this will secure his future happiness. What

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follows, presumably after a long search, remains one of the most joyful of cinema reunions. Having left behind his world of privilege and wealth, Jim makes his long voyage through war, death, injury and pain to his real love and home. Stallings’ original ending was more ironic. Harry and Justyn travel through France and find Jim and Melisande happy in their peasant cottage. Each couple feels sorry for the other. The Big Parade was the first silent film to portray no-man’s-land and shellhole life in realistic detail. For audiences used to the crude propaganda of the war years the night battle scenes must have been a revelation. Ivan Butler saw the film on its original release in Britain and wrote years later that ‘many of the front-line scenes—though weakened since by imitation in later films—were at the time we first saw it both harrowing and moving’.33 The realism was enhanced by the adroit use of the orchestral accompaniment. To simulate real battle sounds, ten-foot metal drums were used for explosions and bugles heralded the mobilisation scenes. The results were impressive. Vidor said that ‘to sit there and have those terrific explosives going off was really frightening. It really affected you.’34 An additional theme is war’s impact on the civilian population in America and the French village, particularly on the leading women of both communities. Jim’s mother did not want him to go to war. Unlike her husband and Harry, she knew how it would end. The scene where she hugs Jim on his return and remembers him as a baby carries great emotion. This is not shared by Justyn, who is naïve and full of the romanticism of war. She tells Jim how handsome he’ll look as an officer and in a letter imagines his picturesque environment and the glory of leading his men in battle (at this point Jim has just dug the manure patch and is sharing a barn with the others). For Melisande—who sees her lover taken away to fight—and the citizens of Champillon the war brings great misery with the destruction of their homes. The retreat from the village, where the remaining citizens walk slowly away carrying their meagre belongings, evokes the scene of the injured in Lay Down Your Arms and its sub-title ‘Those the war has made homeless.’ Finally, there is the title. Although it refers mainly to the great mobilisation sequence of men and machines of war, there is more than one big parade. That scene, and the patriotic gathering at the rally, contrast starkly with the long parade of ambulances carrying the victims of war (‘Another Big Parade’) and the retreat from Champillon. There is no victory parade. The end of war is summarised in one sub-title: ‘The last guns had thundered! The fields of France were stilled in peace. The Apperson home knew its greatest hour! Jim was coming back!’ Although there were great parades up Fifth Avenue and elsewhere, for Vidor the end of the war is symbolised not by patriotic speeches, rallies and medals but with the return of a soldier minus a leg and without his friends. He is saying the same as Tietjens, the hero of Ford Madox Ford’s Parade’s End: At the beginning of the war…I had to look in on the War Office, and in a room I found a fellow… What do you think he was doing… what the hell do you think he was doing? He was devising the ceremonial for the disbanding of a Kitchener battalion. You can’t say we were not prepared in one matter at least…. Well, the end of the show was to be: the adjutant would stand the battalion at ease; the band would play Land of Hope and Glory, and then the adjutant would say: There will be no more parades…. Don’t you see how symbolical it was—the band playing Land of Hope and Glory, and then the adjutant saying There will be no more parades?… For there won’t. There won’t, there damn well won’t…. No more Hope, no more Glory, no more parades for you and me any more. Nor for the country…nor for the world, I dare say…. None…Gone…Na poo, finny! No…more…parades!35 When compared to some of the later films about the war, The Big Parade inevitably falls short, although its elevation to classic status soon after release has not been reversed over the years. Boxoffice considerations ensured the presence of humour and romance to make it acceptable; without them it might have led to rapid failure and a swift consignment to the archives. However, recent

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commentators have gone too far in their criticism. The film’s lack of patriotism, its almost complete absence of glory in battle, and its illustration of war’s effect on home life, provided the first great antiwar film in the United States following the Armistice. Most important of all, Vidor proved that critical films about the war could be successful and reach an audience. His vision paved the way for the bitter statements of the 1930s.

Chapter 4 The measure for all anti-war cinema All Quiet on the Western Front

The bitterness expressed in some of the war films of the late 1920s reflected the war memoirs and novels published in the years 1928 to 1930. Although works of disillusionment had begun to appear earlier, the numbers published, and the immediate elevation of some to classic status, indicated that anti-war sentiments represented the spirit of the times. Edmund Blunden’s Undertones of War, Frederic Manning’s Her Privates We, Arnold Zweig’s The Case of Sergeant Grischa, Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, Richard Aldington’s Death of a Hero and Siegfried Sassoon’s Memoirs of an Infantry Officer, all contained a more realistic view of trench combat than had appeared before, telling readers of the futility and brutality of conflict and promoting the necessity of preventing another war. Chief amongst these, and most successful of them all, was Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front which sold in millions to an eager domestic and international audience. Like the film that followed it was the source of much dispute, particularly in the author’s native Germany where it was banned and later consigned to the flames in the book burnings of 1933. Remarque wrote All Quiet on the Western Front to expiate the malaise and depression which had afflicted him and his friends since 1918. It had taken nine years to identify the war as the cause of his despair. Just after the publication of his book he commented: It was through…deliberate acts of self-analysis that I found my way back to my war experiences. I could observe a similar phenomenon in many of my friends and acquaintances. The shadow of war hung over us, especially when we tried to shut our minds to it. The very day this thought struck me, I put pen to paper, without much in the way of prior thought.1 Writing in the evenings, he completed the book within six weeks. It was not to provide the catharsis he yearned for, however, and he never escaped the war. He completed a trilogy of First World War books with The Road Back (1931) and Three Comrades (1937), both of which were filmed (see chapter 8). Much of his work after this was concerned with Nazism and the Second World War. The success of All Quiet on the Western Front also led to personal disaster in Germany: the Nazis forced him into exile and later took further revenge by executing his sister. The huge success of the book prompted Universal Pictures to purchase the rights and production commenced on Armistice Day, 1929. Despite the success of some recent pictures, war films were still seen as troublesome. It was a great risk for Universal: the book was bleak; it represented the German side of the war and there was little romance. The company itself was in financial trouble. Fearing failure the Universal Board voted to veto the production with only the company’s founder, Carl Laemmle, and his twenty-yearold son, Carl Jnr (recently installed as head of production), voting in favour. Laemmle Snr pushed the

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decision through because the book’s stance mirrored his own, whilst Laemmle Jnr saw it as the perfect vehicle for his ambitions to move Universal into big-budget features. Laemmle Snr had become a pacifist by 1930 and he was particularly proud of All Quiet on the Western Front. During the war his views had followed public opinion. At first he was one of the supporters of Ford’s ‘Peace Ship’. Later he supported American entry, even though it was against his homeland, and he joined other Hollywood producers in making pro-war films, including the most notorious in 1918, The Kaiser: The Beast of Berlin. In the mid-1920s he was an enthusiastic advocate (and financial supporter) of the campaign to send relief to Germany. The Universal Board’s fears were soon dispelled when the picture was released to great acclaim and a good box office, later gathering a collection of accolades including two Academy Awards for best film and direction, with additional nominations for screenplay and photography. Hollywood had made a great film with an anti-war message—in the words of one 1960s commentator: ‘the most powerful indictment of war’s stupidity, waste, carnage, agony and confusion yet captured on film’.2 The success of the film led Laemmle Snr to believe that he could win the Nobel Peace Prize and he hired the English dramatist, John Drinkwater, to write a biography to promote his case.3 There is no record that he was even nominated. It is the early days of the war and troops are being mobilised amidst scenes of great jubilation. Himmelstoss (John Wray), the mild-mannered village postman, and Meyer, the butcher, both agree it will all be over within a few months. At school, Kantorek (Arnold Lucy), the patriotic teacher, speaks of the romance and glory of the war and the need to defend the Fatherland. Following their leader, Paul Bäumer (Lew Ayres), the whole class enlists, although the glory is soon shattered when they reach training camp. They meet up again with Himmelstoss, now a sadistic drill sergeant, who forces them to crawl through mud. They obtain revenge that night by beating him as he stumbles back to barracks drunk. The soldiers move up, receiving their first taste of war when the railway station is bombed. Arriving at their billets they meet some already hardened and cynical veterans of the war: Katscinsky—Kat (Louis Wolheim), Tjaden (George ‘Slim’ Summerville) and Westhus (Richard Alexander). Wiring duty follows and, as shells fall nearby, the young recruits are scared. Behm (Walter Browne Rogers) fouls himself and is killed soon after. The troops move to the trenches where the men’s nerves are shattered as the bombardment lasts for five days. The French attack and, in a series of brutal battles, half the company is either killed or injured for no gain in territory. A welcome break follows, although the cook refuses at first to serve the meal as only half the company is present. After eating they visit the injured Kemmerich and discover that his leg has been amputated. He dies whilst Paul is trying to comfort him. A number of other classmates are then killed, Kemmerich’s boots passing to each in turn. A second major battle follows. As the troops wait in the dugout Himmelstoss arrives in the trench. He bullies a young soldier, but his attempts to take command of the others are greeted with derision. The assault then begins: Himmelstoss goes over but stumbles into a shellhole where Paul accuses him of cowardice. Ordered to advance by a senior officer they run forward and Himmelstoss dies. Paul is caught in a shellhole where he fatally stabs a French soldier (Raymond Griffith) but is forced to stay with him for two days. When he dies, Paul promises to help his family after the war. Later they march into a new town. Whilst bathing in a river Paul, Albert (William Bakewell) and Leer (Scott Kolk) see three French women who tell them to visit that night. Tjaden is also invited but the others persuade Kat to get him drunk. The following morning they march out of the town but are attacked and both Paul and Albert are injured. In the hospital, Albert’s leg is amputated but Paul, to everyone’s surprise, recovers and is allowed home leave. Back home the cheering crowds have gone and the streets are deserted except for some injured veterans. Paul finds his mother (Beryl Mercer) ill and there is little food. He goes to meet his father in a beer garden.

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5 and 6 The men who made All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)—the greatest of all war films: Carl Laemmle Snr talks with Erich Maria Remarque and Lewis Milestone reads Remarque’s book.

There he is told how to win the war but leaves as the others argue. As he walks up the street he hears Kantorek once again attempting to get the class to enlist. Kantorek asks him to speak to the class. Paul’s

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speech is bitter, he is accused of cowardice, and he returns to the front even though his leave is yet to finish. Meeting up with the company he finds that only Tjaden and Kat are alive. He meets Kat as he searches for food but Kat is injured and dies as Paul carries him back. Paul dies in the last few weeks of the war, shot by a sniper as he tries to reach for a butterfly. The ghostly figures of the dead soldiers march towards the sky over hundreds of crosses and graves. The brilliance of All Quiet on the Western Front was principally due to its Russian-born director, Lewis Milestone, although he was not the first choice. Paul Fejos, director of the early musical, Broadway, and Herbert Brenon were both considered but dropped (Brenon made The Case of Sergeant Grischa instead for RKO). Milestone was a veteran of the Signal Corps where he had edited army film footage (he had also worked at the Thomas Ince studios). By 1929 he had become a Hollywood director of some repute, having won an Academy Award for the war story, Two Arabian Knights, the previous year. He was the perfect choice. Tired of the strictures sound had brought to motion pictures, and influenced by the great Russian director Eisenstein, Milestone freed the camera, creating some of the most realistic and horrific battle scenes in cinema history. Though truncated, and with a straight chronological narrative replacing the flashback structure, the film proved to be a faithful adaptation of the book. The screen-writing team encompassed some of the best talent Hollywood and Broadway could offer, writers, moreover, who were sympathetic to the theme. C.Gardner Sullivan, author of Civilization, wrote the original scenario. The final screenplay was written by Del Andrews (editor on Civilization), Maxwell Anderson (a pacifist and co-author of What Price Glory?), and George Abbott. Milestone made important contributions to the script, over-turning much of Anderson’s work. Significant parts were also played by Arthur Edeson, cinematographer on The Thief of Bagdad, who was hired to shoot the film, and George Cukor, in his first Hollywood job, who was the uncredited dialogue director. The first rôle to be cast was that of Katscinsky, the hard but sympathetic veteran who guides the young recruits in battle. Milestone chose Louis Wolheim who had been in Two Arabian Knights. With his broken nose (the result of a football injury), portly figure and rough, booming voice, Wolheim was ideal. John Wray, a noted Broadway actor recently arrived in Hollywood, was given the part of Himmelstoss, the postman transformed into a sadistic drill sergeant. It was his favourite rôle, but one destined to be cut heavily on release. It was not such an easy task to fill the other rôles and over two hundred tests were made before the cast was ready. Slim Summerville, former Sennett comedian, played the cynical Tjaden (Summerville was also in a comic sketch about All Quiet on the Western Front in the musical King of Jazz released the same year). William Bakewell was Albert Kropp, friend of the lead; Ben Alexander, later to feature on television in Dragnet, played Kemmerich, and smaller rôles were played by Scott Kolk (Leer), Owen Davis Jnr (Peter), Russell Gleason (Müller) and Walter Browne Rogers (Behm). The part of Mrs Bäumer was originally given to the great Zasu Pitts, though poor audience reaction at the preview led to her being replaced by Beryl Mercer, a matronly English actress, and the part was filmed again. For the French soldier Milestone cast the great silent comedian Raymond Griffith. Griffith had suffered from a vocal affliction since childhood and he could speak only in whispers but this was not a problem as his rôle was mainly silent. The crucial lead rôle of Paul Bäumer remained to be cast and a number of actors were considered including Douglas Fairbanks Jnr, Johnny Harron and even Erich Maria Remarque (he was to feature as an actor in the 1950s film of his book, A Time to Love and a Time to Die). All were rejected. It was late in the day when Paul Bern, a producer at MGM, suggested Lew Ayres who had recently appeared with Greta Garbo in The Kiss. They failed to make contact initially; it was only later, when Milestone was viewing some tests Cukor had made that he saw the perfect actor for the rôle. It turned out to be Ayres and he was cast

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(although Laemmle Jnr, George Abbot and Cukor objected). Though inexperienced, Ayres provided a superbly controlled performance of a sensitive young boy growing to manhood and rejecting the war he had entered with his enthusiastic class. He appeared later as Dr Kildare in the long-running MGM series, but his pacifism (for which All Quiet on the Western Front was partly responsible) led to his conscientious objection to the Second World War, a decision which provoked the wrath of many in Hollywood. Even Remarque was critical and, whilst Ayres served with great distinction in the medical corps, his career was blighted. After the war he returned to Hollywood and later went on to make films about the world’s religions. All Quiet on the Western Front proved more difficult to make than anticipated and the budget (projected at $891,000—four times the cost of a normal Universal film) rapidly escalated to $1,440,000, placing further strain on the studio’s already over-committed finances. Some of the additional cost was consumed by Milestone’s wish to create a realistic view of the war. A large-scale reconstruction of a First World War battlefield, including trenches, no-man’s-land and barbed wire was built on the Irvine Ranch near Balboa. A special crane (built for Broadway) was used to lift the camera for the battle scenes. Authentic uniforms were imported from France and ex-German-army technical advisors were hired to drill the actors like soldiers. The result was an impressive re-creation of the war. The ending, however, proved to be a problem. In the book Remarque abandoned his first-person narrative and said simply that Paul Bäumer died: on a day that was so quiet and still on the whole front, that the army report confined itself to the single sentence: All quiet on the Western Front…. He had fallen forward and lay on the earth as though sleeping. Turning him over one saw that he could not have suffered long; his face had an expression of calm, as though almost glad the end had come.4 This was difficult to translate into film and a number of endings were suggested (one had the soldiers of all nations marching to a common grave with Bäumer running towards them shouting and pleading for the war to end).5 Milestone was not happy with any of these and, with Universal pressing him to finish so they could begin to recoup some of their investment (even the laboratory was in hock at this stage), he solicited the help of the German cinematographer Karl Freund, then in Hollywood, who had filmed the great silent pictures, The Last Laugh and Metropolis. After he had seen the film, and considered various endings, Freund said it needed to be simple. Milestone had realised by now that he needed a diminuendo, not a crescendo and, after looking at the book and film, they came up with the idea of Bäumer being shot as he reached for a butterfly. By this stage Edeson had left the production and Freund shot the final scene with Milestone’s hand substituting for Ayres’. The film was released in June 1930 to great acclaim. Variety called it a ‘harrowing, gruesome, morbid tale of war, so compelling in its realism, bigness and repulsiveness…. Nothing passed up for the niceties; nothing glossed over for the women. Here exhibited is war as it is, butchery.’ It recommended that the League of Nations should distribute it in every language to be shown every year ‘until the word War shall have been taken out of the dictionaries’.6 The New York Times (who voted it one of the best ten films of the year) said it gripped the audience in almost total silence and claimed some of the battle scenes resembled actual newsreel.7 The Nation felt Journey’s End was better drama, but that All Quiet on the Western Front remained, like the book: ‘a terrifying document that reveals the carnage of war with staggering force…[and which] surpasses [all previous battle scenes on film] in the stark horror and madness of the business of fighting’.8

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7 Mobilisation for the front whilst under attack in All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). Copyright © 1930 by Universal Studios, Inc. Courtesy of MCA Publishing Rights, a Division of MCA Inc. All rights reserved.

Photoplay was more circumspect, though it later awarded All Quiet on the Western Front its Gold Medal as best film of the year. It said: The efforts to screen…[Remarque’s] powerful portrayal of the effects of war is a huge undertaking and almost certain to fall short of perfection. Not a real master-picture, but it does give a realistic story of the war experiences that happen to any youth. The daily intimate experiences are impressive, the battle scenes tremendously dramatic.9 It was released internationally in the same year, receiving similar critical acclaim in most countries. The official governmental reception was not so positive, however. Censors encountered many problems and a number of scenes were deleted. In most countries the section where the soldiers spend the night with the French women was cut and there were reductions to the shellhole sequence. In Poland even the ending and Bäumer’s death were excised, along with other crucial parts not cut elsewhere.10 The enthusiasm that greeted All Quiet on the Western Front in the United States was matched in Britain, where it was the first film to have simultaneous runs in two London cinemas. Sydney Carroll in the Sunday Times said: Realism reaches its zenith in this picture. I hate it. It made me shudder with horror. It brought the war back to me as nothing has ever done before since 1918…. No detail of horror has been spared to us. The dangers, the savageries, the madness of war, and the appalling waste and destruction of youth, the

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shattering of hopes, illusions, beliefs, the futility of patriotism and nationalism—all these are depicted with relentless veracity, unshrinking crudity, and on a scale as colossal as the world-war itself.11 For James Agate it was one of the best films ever made, even though he was not moved and would have preferred it to be a silent rather than a sound film.12 The left-wing Reynolds News called it a wonderful picture: It is the protest of youth against its exploitation by older men, who, under the illusion that fighting is a glorious and necessary thing, throw the boys into the hell of war—turn them into cannon fodder. All the fighting, attack, counter-attack, bombardment, is tragically real, and the fear which is contained in these young men is not only understandable but inevitable. And when there is no fighting it is nearly all mud and filth, brutality and misery.13 It was also liked by the trade papers. The Bioscope called it the greatest war film ever produced14 and Kinematograph Weekly said that as an ‘indictment of the futility of war it is as great as the book was; no praise could be higher than that’.15 The film did not fare so well elsewhere. It was banned in Italy (finally receiving its première in 1956), in Austria following riots, and in Hungary, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. It was initially banned in New Zealand where the chief censor found no entertainment value, claiming it was ‘[p]acked with the nauseating side of war from start to finish. Its only merit is that it is claimed to be an indictment of war, and strong peace propaganda. This is doubtful.’16 Universal appealed, and a revised version was released to acclaim and played in cinemas without intermission so that ‘the atmosphere of realism shall not be disturbed’.17 Similar cuts were made in the Australian release, although, again, there was great praise from the critics. The Sydney Morning Herald called it a ‘magnificent production’18 and the Daily Pictorial said this ‘superbly directed film must be classed as one of the most brilliant achievements of the screen…. All previous war films fade into insignificance when compared with this screen classic.’19 Contrary to popular belief, the film was not banned in France, although there was some protest at the portrayal of the French women and the scene was cut. There were also some deletions to the shellhole sequence. Despite this, the film was praised widely. Variety’s Paris correspondent said the film was very popular and that the French looked upon it as peace propaganda.20 A French reviewer in Ciné-Miroir said it had been made ‘with tact, sensitivity and humanity…. It is an absolutely remarkable film and it deserves to cause a great and legitimate stir in Europe.’21 The biggest problems were encountered in Germany where the film became the focus for military and political turmoil.22 Universal—represented by Sam Spiegel (later to produce The Bridge on the River Kwai, amongst others)— had been forewarned of possible problems because of the controversy created by the book. However, Germany was the second largest market in Europe and Laemmle Snr was keen to see the film released in his homeland (controversy was also good for gaining an audience). Universal prepared a specially dubbed German edition, approved by Remarque, with cuts lessening some of the more overt aspects of German militarism (in particular the character of Himmelstoss) and eliminating parts of the discussion amongst the soldiers about the causes of the war. This was not enough for opposition forces who, led by Nazi groups, disrupted the première on 5 December 1930. Goebbels made a speech to the audience; mice, stink bombs and sneezing powder were released in the auditorium and there were riots outside the cinema. The Nazi daily, Der Angriff, called All Quiet on the Western Front ‘a Jewish lie’ and ‘a hate film slandering the German soldier’.23 Five days later demonstrations were suppressed in Berlin, followed by the film being banned by the Supreme Film Censorship Board. The Nazis were jubilant. Der

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Angriff said ‘Victory is ours! We have forced them to their knee[s]’,24 and some American observers forecast presciently that the events surrounding the film were the beginning of the end for democracy in Germany. Germans were still able to see the film in cinemas across the border in the Netherlands, Switzerland and France where the German-language version played to full houses, and special trains and buses were provided to meet the large demand. However, Universal were keen to end the ban and prepared a new version. Seemingly in desperation, the company also agreed that this would be the official print for future worldwide release. The film was banned again on Hitler’s accession to power and was not seen until 1952. The reception for All Quiet on the Western Front—whether in the enthusiastic response of the critics, the spellbound, often shocked audiences or the political controversy it aroused—is testament to the film’s attempt to provide a different view of the war than had been presented hitherto. It is perhaps unsurprising that it provoked so many reactions as, of all anti-war films, its condemnation of militarism was total. Overall, the film is a study of the waste of a nation’s youth illustrated in the rôle of Paul Bäumer. It highlights the patriotism that sent men to fight and the demoralisation that resulted in those able to return. It also showed that those behind the lines or left at home failed to see (or did not wish to see) the realities of the war. Moreover, the film said that whilst war leads to bitterness, it can also, for a short time, create monsters out of normally mild men. The film rejects romanticism and its brutal battle scenes—which still rank amongst the greatest ever filmed—showed that war resulted in destruction, injury and death and not glory. Indeed, the film provided the first realistic portrayal of life in the trenches during the war. Although most people would have known by 1930 that war was not the glamorous pursuit the patriotic journals and films had said, they would still have been appalled to see the cold, squalid, rat-infested trenches which had been home for many soldiers. The most important theme in the film is conveyed through the transformation of Paul Bäumer. Initially a supporter of the war, he soon learns that this gallant conflict is nothing but slaughter and becomes bitter. His is just one amongst millions of futile, unheroic deaths. Bäumer is the sensitive, ambitious class leader, an aspiring writer who—when called upon by his teacher to take the lead of a group needing inspiration— agrees to enlist. Against a background of jubilant street scenes Kantorek harangues the class: Now, my beloved class, this is what we must do. Strike with all our power, use every ounce of strength to win victory before the end of the year…. You are the life of the Fatherland…. You are the iron men of Germany. You are the gay heroes who will repulse the enemy…. It is not for. me to suggest that any of you should stand up and offer to defend his country. But I wonder if such a thing is going through your heads? I know that in one of the schools the boys have risen up in the classroom and enlisted in a mass, and of course, if such a thing should happen here, you would not blame me for a feeling of pride.25 And shortly after: I believe it will be a quick war, that there will be few losses, but if losses there must be, then let us remember the Latin phrase which must have come to the lips of many a Roman when he stood embattled in a foreign land, ‘Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori’. Sweet and fitting it is to die for the Fatherland. Inspired, the boys decide to enlist, singing and throwing papers in the air. Four years later, after he has seen the death or injury of many of his friends, Paul returns home. The parades and cheering crowds have gone,

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victims of the war walk on crutches in the streets. Entering the classroom, he sees Kantorek trying to get his current class to enlist: From the farms they have gone. From the schools, from the factories. They have gone, bravely, nobly, ever forward realising that there is no other duty now but to save the Fatherland. The age of enlistment is now 16 years, and though you are barely men, your country needs you for the greatest service a citizen can give. Paul has arrived at an opportune time for Kantorek: as if to prove all I have said, here is one of the first to go…a lad who sat before me on these very benches, who gave up all to serve in the first year of the war; one of the Iron Youth who have made Germany invincible in the field. Look at him, sturdy and bronzed and clear-eyed. The kind of soldier every one of you should envy. He asks Paul to speak to the impressed class. Paul is reluctant at first but, when pressed, admits there is little he can say that the class does not already know: ‘We live in the trenches out there. We fight and try not to be killed; but sometimes we are. That’s all.’ This is not what Kantorek wishes to hear and Paul begins to get angry. He remembers the teacher’s original speech to the class and knows after his experiences that ‘Pro patria mori’ —the old lie, as Wilfred Owen characterised it—is horribly wrong: I heard you in here reciting that same old stuff. Making more iron men. More young heroes. You still think it’s beautiful and sweet to die for your country…. Well, we used to think you knew; but the first bombardment taught us better! It’s dirty and painful to die for your country. When it comes to dying for your country, it’s better not to die at all. Accused of cowardice by members of the class, Bäumer turns on them: ‘Three years we’ve had of it…four years! And every day a year and every night a century. And our bodies are earth and our thoughts are clay, and we sleep and eat with death.’ The scenes at home also highlight the fact that perceptions of the war are different behind the lines from those at the front. Paul finds his mother has cancer, her illness exacerbated by lack of food. Despite this her only concerns are whether he has enough to eat (she has even saved a rare bottle of fruit for him) and to warn him to be on his guard against French women. Paul cannot be honest with her about his life at the front (it’s not so bad and it’s just talk about gas and modern weapons, he assures her) and before he leaves he says that he will get a transfer to the cookhouse where it is safer. The war has changed Paul’s relationship with his mother. Home offers nothing for him now; his real family is at the front with Kat. Worse comes for Paul when his father takes him to the beer garden to meet his friends. There they toast him, his father saying: ‘We’re behind the lines; but we know how to honor the soldier who goes on in spite of blood and death.’ As they all argue about how to obtain victory, Meyer (the butcher seen at the start of the film) tells Paul: ‘You don’t know anything about it. Of course you know about the details; but this relates to the whole.’ A fierce debate follows with all but Paul pointing to maps about the best way forward. They fail to see him leave. Earlier in the film the soldiers encounter a different type of complaint from behind the lines. After the first main battle the part of the company left alive retires for a meal and rest. The cook complains when the soldiers are late. Fighting is ‘a lot easier than cooking,’ he says. ‘Sleeping all day and all night…. I’d like to

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see any one of those fellows do my job.’ Despite the pleas from the soldiers, the cook refuses to serve the food because he had cooked for 150 and only eighty have turned up. Kat rounds on him in anger: ‘You’re the yellowest baboon that ever drew a cook wagon. And you’re scared of shells…. Why, you keep your kitchen so far back of the line that we never get anything to eat until its cold or we’re asleep.’ Unlike some anti-war films, the indictment of those behind the lines is directed at the family, teacher and minor functionaries, and not at the High Command. But the implication is clear. Although the film’s main focus is on Paul Bäumer, its concentration on the progress of a number of members of the class highlights that the war was a waste of the nation’s youth and would destroy them all— mentally if not physically. This is clear from the outset when the foreword to the book is placed almost verbatim at the start of the film (it was removed from prints after 1930 to make room for announcements of the Academy Award and other accolades): This story is neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by the war. The first to die is Behm, the one most reluctant to enlist. As the battles progress, the class is decimated. Prior to the second major assault Leer estimates that there are now few left from the original class: three are alive and have become officers, nine have died, four are wounded and one is in the madhouse. Like Paul Bäumer, all had seen the promise of life extinguished by the war. At first each of the boys yearns for the romanticism of war. During Kantorek’s speech one of them imagines sitting in a carriage in his soldier’s uniform with two women, and other women throwing flowers at him. There is talk of how enjoyable the war is going to be and the glory of killing. However, when the boys enter training camp the war is seen to involve marching, diving into mud and, after arrival at the front, hunger, pain and death. Part of this misery is caused by Himmelstoss whose character illustrates how, just as war can turn men into bitter opponents of combat, so it can also turn them into monsters. Himmelstoss used to deliver the post in the village and was mocked by the boys. When they encounter him as drill sergeant they laugh but learn quickly that he has been transformed by his new responsibility. As he forces them to dive into the mud (laughing to himself at their misery) their mockery turns to anger. They obtain their revenge by beating him as he returns to barracks drunk. Later, when Himmelstoss is transferred to the front, his attempts to pull rank are met with derision and when he goes over the top with the others he is seen to be a coward and is killed. This does not happen in the book. Although he is a martinet at first—and is seen to be a coward in combat—he becomes friends with the boys after he brings one of the wounded back and favours them with food. The main target for attack in the book is Kantorek. When Paul goes on leave he finds that the teacher has been called up as a member of the territorial reserve and he sees one of his class drilling him hard, repeating the phrases used by Kantorek when he persuaded the class to enlist. The portrayal of Himmelstoss was to provide the focus of criticism for the German censors and the Nazis. There was resentment at both his overt militarism and his ultimate cowardice. It was one of the most important arguments in the whole film (and played by one of the most talented actors in the group) but seen by few. Even now, little of the cut material relating to Himmelstoss has been restored. All Quiet on the Western Front, like The Big Parade (and La Grande Illusion—see chapter 7), showed that there was little dividing the common soldier on either side. When Bäumer is forced to spend two days

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in a shellhole with the French soldier he has killed, he is seen to move from initial panic in stabbing him, through despair to remorse. As Duval lies dead Bäumer pleads for forgiveness: when you jumped in here, you were my enemy. And I was afraid of you. But you’re just a man like me. And I killed you. Forgive me, comrade. Say that for me. Say you forgive me. No, no. You’re dead. You’re better off than I am. You’re through. They can’t do any more to you now. Oh, God! Why did they do this to us? We only wanted to live—you and I—why should they send us out to fight each other? If we threw away these rifles and these uniforms you could be my brother just like Kat and Albert. You have to forgive me, comrade. I’ll do all I can. I’ll write to your parents…. I’ll write to your wife…. I promise she’ll not want for anything. And I’ll help her and your parents too. Only forgive me. Forgive me. Similar ideas are stressed in the book. When Paul is in training camp after his leave he finds himself based close to some Russian prisoners of war. As he gives them cigarettes he thinks of the almost risible concept of an enemy: A word of command has made these silent figures our enemies; a word of command might transform them into our friends. At some table a document is signed by some person whom none of us knows, and then for years together that very crime on which formerly the world’s condemnation and severest penalty fall, becomes our highest aim. But who can draw such a distinction when he looks at these quiet men with their childlike faces and apostles’ beards. Any non-commissioned officer is more of an enemy to a recruit, any schoolmaster to a pupil, than they are to us. And yet we would shoot at them again and they at us if they were free.26 Since its release and dismemberment there has been little progress in restoring All Quiet on the Western Front to its former glory. In 1934 a ninety-minute version was released, forty-five minutes shorter than the original. Three additional scenes were cut although the night scene with the French women was included. Laemmle Snr added a personal preface. The film was being re-released, he said: when the whole world is again fearful of war. The story was written by one who hated war because he knew from experience that it is hell not glory…. It is greater than mere entertainment, because it is a war against war itself. I am intensely proud to offer it to you.27 The most bizarre version appeared in 1939 when the 1934 release, with an anti-Nazi, anti-war narration, was rushed from the editing rooms just after the outbreak of the Second World War.28 An extra reel was added at the beginning and at the end with the narrator—in March of Time style—speaking over documentary material of the war and the rise of Nazism. The film was also interrupted at various points with the narrator speaking over scenes. Regarded by Milestone as a horror,29 the film was released to maintain American neutrality in the war. At the end of the first reel, the narrator says: All Quiet on the Western Front is shown again to help re-assay the human values that keep us within the bounds of watchful peace. It is more than a privilege, it is our sacred duty at this time, to again present All Quiet on the Western Front—and to retell in terms of today the bitter lessons of yesterday. It is our contribution to the prayers of all our people—that there shall be No blackout of peace in America!

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The 1939 version received mixed reviews, got few bookings and was not released outside the United States. Frank Nugent in the New York Times said: That it isn’t as good a film this way, that it comes, in fact, closer to stupid vandalism—and what can be more stupid than mutilation of one’s own art treasures? —is merely a personal opinion. I’ve no doubt a number of filmgoers will find that its semi-documentary beginning and close, its narrator’s fuller explanation service lend it topical significance and patriotic fervour…but we should have preferred seeing it as it was before it went through its second battle on Hollywood’s western front.30 All Quiet on the Western Front was re-released in 1950 during the Cold War and was heralded by some reviewers (influenced by studio publicity) as the full version. It was still nearly forty minutes shorter than the original. The release retains the cuts of previous years and was badly put together. Even the ending was changed, with swing replacing the solemn music accompanying the ghostly images of the dead soldiers. In 1980 a television version, made by Delbert Mann, was released. It failed to have an impact. In 1984 a dubbed reconstruction of the original, painstakingly restored from existing prints by Jürgen Labenski, was broadcast by ZDF Television in West Germany. At 142 minutes it is very close to Milestone’s original cut. The broadcast proved a great success, with viewing figures approaching eleven million. There was great irony—and not a little justice—in the restoration process. One of the prints used came from the private collection of that noted cinephile, Joseph Goebbels, thus ensuring that the man who had done most to destroy the film indirectly contributed to its eventual re-construction. The history of All Quiet on the Western Front is a tragedy. Interference by censorship boards and political opposition ensured that few people saw the full version. However, the attempts to destroy the film all failed and, sixty-six years on, it retains great power, even in its shortened versions. Milestone himself was glad to report that ‘the picture proved to have a longer life than many a politician and is still going strong in spite of brutal cutting, stupid censors and bigoted politicos’.31 It remains, and will continue to be, the measure for all anti-war films.

Chapter 5 Bloody slaughter, honourable death and utopian vision—the British cinema and the war Journey’s End, Tell England and Things to Come

The cinema was a vital source of entertainment in Britain during the First World War, one which weekly reached millions of people. It was also a crucial component of official propaganda. In common with many countries, coverage of the war in British film making changed after 1918. Whether it is possible—as elsewhere —to describe the films that were made as anti-war is questionable, however. The conservatism of the film establishment, and the need to censor anything that could remotely be described as controversial, meant that little of importance could be broadcast. There was also a class bias in British war memoirs and films which meant that the trench life portrayed in literature and on the screen offered only a limited impression of the reality of the conflict. For the British cinema, it seemed, whilst the war was bloody slaughter, the deaths that resulted were not necessarily wasted. The most eloquent view of this was the classic stage play and film, Journey’s End and the story of Gallipoli, Tell England. The industry was keen from the outset to be involved in the war effort although initially its potential rôle was dismissed by the services. This did not prevent commercial exploitation: at least forty-four films with a war theme had been released by December 1914.1 Nakedly patriotic, and popular, they included England’s Menace, Boys of the Bulldog Breed and The Shirker’s Nightmare. The trade also launched a boycott of German film companies, though this was soon dropped. Like the American cinema (but lacking the initial condemnation of war) British producers embraced many genres and techniques in selling the war. Despite this, there was a depressing uniformity to the fictional films produced and they fell from favour quickly. Rachael Low said that after 1915 the battlefield was disliked as a theme and the ‘abrupt disappearance…[of war films] must have seemed a welcome relief’.2 Not all the films were poor. Rachael Low likes The Man Who Stayed at Home (1915), a Hepworth production which tried to avoid sensationalism and crudity, and A Munition Girl’s Romance (1917) on the breakdown of class barriers and the growth of women’s work. Others which stand out in this dismal period include Hepworth’s Unfit and Maurice Elvey’s Lest We Forget (both 1914) which had a slightly more sophisticated approach in their depiction of ‘individual experiences rather than national enemy stereotypes’ according to James Robertson.3 Near the end of the war, Democracy highlighted the breakdown of class prejudice and George Pearson’s The Kiddies in the Ruins (released two days after the Armistice) portrayed children in a war-devastated France. In common with other European countries, domestic production was heavily affected by Hollywood’s expansionism. Michael Balcon said that the war ‘virtually killed off…production and the Americans, quite properly … [took] full advantage of this to provide all the films that British cinemas required’.4 American films were undoubtedly popular, but it was not simply the case that American productions supplanted home material. As Roy Armes notes, Hollywood ‘merely replaced…French production companies which already controlled over eighty per cent of the market’.5 Whatever the reason, it is clear that the war had a profound impact on the industry: resources were limited, technicians and actors conscripted and income lowered by

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an entertainments tax and the export ban. But there were other reasons for poor production. The British industry was technologically backward and production was often affected by the poor climate. Above all was the simple fact that American films had better stars and more adventurous stories. Many inside and outside the industry condemned this colonialism but no action was taken as the government saw great value in the link with a then neutral country. The industry was disturbed further, however, when D.W. Griffith was invited to make his propaganda film, Hearts of the World. It is in this area of official propaganda that interesting work was done. The government had realised from the start the need for a persuasion strategy and had appointed Charles Masterman—Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster— to organise the campaign. However, the first official film was not released until the end of 1915. According to Nicholas Reeves this was because Masterman had decided that propaganda would be based on fact, not fiction— a position at variance with prevailing unofficial persuasion by patriotic groups and the press (and also with propaganda in previous wars).6 Adrian Brunel, a leading British film director, was a member of the official film department almost from the start of the war. In his autobiography7 he outlined three key ways in which they fulfilled Masterman’s vision: entertainment came first (‘We would rather have a good film with ninety per cent. entertainment and ten per cent. propaganda, than one with ninety per cent. propaganda and ten per cent. entertainment’8); the truth was essential and, when attacking the Germans, to aim at the ‘“Prussian” and never hit below the belt’.9 The result was a success. According to Brunel: our films, innocent and a little crude though they may have been according to modern standards, were acceptable to the public, and were shown throughout the world. Clever as some of the German films were, they tended to become more and more blatant and only suitable for their own people…when our own case was subtly under-stated in our product, neutral countries accepted our point of view, and our propaganda films ultimately ousted the Germans’ in most neutral states.10 To obtain actuality material Masterman needed the support and assistance of the Admiralty and the War Office. Despite the important rôle played by the movies (by 1916 there was a weekly attendance of twenty million) they were reluctant: film was a trivial, vulgar form of working-class entertainment —even though other combatant countries were having considerable success with their own propaganda—and there was a fear that sensitive information would be disclosed. The first cinematographers did not set off for the front until October 1915 after assurances that secrecy would be maintained. The first film, Britain Prepared, containing material about the navy and munitions manufacture, was a great success on its release in late December 1915. The first material shot at the front was not so successful: the cost was too high and, when shown, exhibitors felt that it drove audiences away. Despite this, film soon became established as an important method of propaganda, covering all aspects of wartime activity including life on the home front, the royal family at war (or, rather, visiting the front) and Allied troops. Around 240 films and over 150 issues of the official newsreel were released between 1915 and 1918. In addition there was the film ‘tag’, a two-minute production usually advocating economy and selfsufficiency. Many of these films were shown overseas in the cinemotor—a vehicle equipped with exhibition facilities. The most popular were those features which covered a single military operation, with the best known being the 1916 release, The Battle of the Somme. This presented an almost sympathetic view of German soldiers in a generally dispassionate production, emphasising, according to Nicholas Reeves, ‘the common humanity of men engaged in bitter and bloody war’.11 This was due mainly to the policy of factual representation (even if the film did include some faked shots). The rôle of cameraman Geoffrey Malins, the

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most famous of the war cinematographers, was also important. He believed that genuine films had to show the ‘suffering and agony’ of conflict and present death ‘in all its grim nakedness’. And even though he felt that by the end of the film the audience ‘should be restored to a sense of cheerfulness and joy’ it was still a remarkable achievement to be so honest.12 The use of film became more widespread after 1917 when it was clear that domestic morale was low. Propaganda units were reorganised and use began to be made of the fiction film. In addition to Griffith’s Hearts of the World, Herbert Brenon—director of the pacifist War Brides—was invited in October 1917 to make The National Film, known also as The Invasion of Britain, a feature speculating on life in an England under German occupation. It was a troubled film with a difficult history: the only print was lost in a fire in June 1918 and the remake was not completed until just before the Armistice. Then distribution was postponed because of its anti-German bias, and sixteen months later it was destroyed on Treasury instructions. The National Film indicated how far policy had moved away from Masterman’s approach. Another example was The Leopard’s Spots, a Hepworth tag from August 1918 which had two German soldiers striking a woman and her baby in France. The anti-German sequences and intertitles in the film were uncommon, but as Nicholas Reeves argues, this would have been the first of many such films if the war had continued.13 Between 1918 and 1925 the cinema’s coverage of the war mirrored that of most other countries. Generally the subject was disliked, though in Britain this was as much to do with recession in the industry than a realisation that the public wished to avoid such subjects. The few productions that did result were generally lacklustre work from an unconfident and under-financed industry. It was not that the cinema itself was unpopular. By the 1920s the picture palace was favoured more than ever as a place of relaxation and entertainment, though, as before, it continued to be a working-class pastime. The problem was that Hollywood had extended its hold over exhibition: its products were favoured by viewers because they were better and exhibitors liked them because they were cheap. The position improved for domestic producers after 1927 when the Cinematograph Films Act ensured that a number of British films would be shown each year. With the production of many ‘quota quickies’ the quantity of British films made increased, though this was often at the expense of quality. Given this background, it is surprising that any films about the war were made at all. Bucking the trend were the popular war reconstructions produced by Harry Bruce Woolfe’s company British Instructional Films. The first two, The Battle of Jutland (1921) and Armageddon (1923, about General Allenby and the Palestinian campaign), were critical and commercial successes. British Instructional Films brought out a new film each year up to 1927: Zeebrugge (1924), Ypres (1925), Mons (1926) and, in 1927, the most important of them all, The Battles of the Coronel and Falkland Islands. In addition, two similar films—The Somme and ‘Q’ Ships—were released by New Era in 1927 and 1928. Both were directed mainly by Geoffrey Barkas, a former member of Woolfe’s team. This was a significant development—a precursor to the documentary film movement: all used real settings and non-professional casts but some were marred by poor technical work, unrealistic uniforms and melodramatic acting. Paul Rotha regarded them as excellent productions.14 Rachael Low called them Woolfe’s ‘original contribution to the development of the cinema’.15 Contemporary critical opinion was mixed. Bryher, the acerbic reviewer for the fastidious Close Up (which rarely reviewed British films), described Mons as ‘disappointing from every point of view…badly photographed… [and] full of the kind of sentimentality that makes one shudder, a sentimentality that Hollywood even would not dare offer to a Middle Western audience’.16 Although not a bad film, she said

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The Battles of the Coronel and Falkland Islands saw war as ‘an elaborate and permissible [boys’] adventure’ and did not even suggest the stupidity, horror and waste of conflict.17 Even though it was a success, The Battles of the Coronel and Falkland Islands was to be the last of the reconstruction dramas. British Instructional Films turned to fictional features with the first planned to be about Gallipoli. However, Tell England was not released until 1931 after a number of other films about the war had been made. British fictional films about the war appeared after 1918, though like elsewhere, it was to be some years before they returned in any significant form. Initially, it was hard to discard the prejudice built up over four years of bitter conflict. James Robertson notes that the few war films shown in Britain in the two years after the Armistice ‘were mostly vengeful, seeking to capitalise on immediate post-war germanophobia’.18 During this period, foreign features were shown, although German products were excluded under a ten-year import ban imposed in 1918 (this was lifted in 1920, but it was to be another three years before the first films arrived). Both J’accuse and The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were well received and faced no censorship trouble, although Abel Gance’s film was not shown outside London. Problems began to occur in 1925. In April Hearts of the World was re-released whilst negotiations for the Locarno Treaty—the non-aggression pact between Germany, Belgium and France—were at a crucial stage. German protests led to the Foreign Office, in an uncharacteristic move, intervening, and two of the more controversial sections were deleted. There was dissent also the following year with the American productions, The Big Parade and The Unknown Soldier, Renaud Hoffman’s film about a shell-shocked amnesiac. As chapter 3 notes, Vidor’s film was eventually allowed, but objections from patriotic organisations to Hollywood’s hijacking British traditions—the title and film showing the burial of an unknown soldier at Arlington cemetery—threatened to delay the latter. Despite petitions to the Home Secretary and the British Board of Film Censors (BBFC) the film was exhibited. Other American productions did suffer at the censor’s hands: both What Price Glory? and Wings had material deleted and Hell’s Angels lost almost thirty-five minutes. The only British war film to be banned before 1925 was the 1921 production, The Betrayal of Lord Kitchener. The film had blamed the death of the Minister of War on information given to a female German spy by a member of the War Office. Accusations of inaccuracy led to an immediate ban by the London County Council and later by the BBFC. Following Foreign Office intervention, authorities in France and the United States also stopped the film. With one exception, all other British films in the twelve years after the Armistice proved to be less controversial. These included Mademoiselle from Armentières (1926); Roses of Picardy, a 1927 production of two novels by R.H.Mottram about the love between an English officer and a French farmer’s daughter in Flanders; and an expensive production of Maurice Maeterlinck’s story, The Burgomaster of Stilemonde (1929), which told of German atrocities against hostages in their custody. More ambitious and critically praised was Madeleine Carroll’s first film, Guns of Loos, released in 1928 about a blind veteran who returns to manage an industrial empire. One of the most interesting, and financially successful, war films of the late 1920s was Adrian Brunel’s Blighty, the story of an officer who after the Armistice returns to his old job as a chauffeur. Although Brunel had not directed a picture for almost four years he was reluctant to take this on as the war film was a subject he wished to avoid. This was ‘not only because nearly every war film was based upon the chivalry, bravery and sacrifice of men in the fighting forces, and inevitably was pro-war propaganda’, he said, but because ‘the public was sick of them’.19 Eventually he compromised. Whilst Après La Guerre (the title was changed later) was a patriotic film in that it showed a resolute, ‘decent English family behaving decently’,

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they refused to sing ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ and ‘The Hymn of Hate’. There were no scenes of actual combat, although newsreel showing the drift to war and an Armistice Day ceremony was used. Brunel described it as ‘quietly, an anti-war picture’.20 He is joined by Leslie Halliwell, who despite criticisms of some of the technical aspects, regards it as ‘one of the key British films of the twenties to make a comment about the war’.21 Roy Armes is not so keen. He says that Blighty: offers a view of war that omits the dirt and squalor and uses the love affairs of the younger generation not to probe the problems posed by class and nationality but to celebrate the myths of the British aristocracy: gallantry in action and tolerance in behaviour, patriotism and self-sacrifice but… tempered with resolute self-control.22 By far the most important British film about the war before 1930, and one of the censorship controversies of the period, was Herbert Wilcox’s 1928 release, Dawn, the story of the life and execution of Edith Cavell.23 Wilcox was a veteran who had served with the Royal Flying Corps. He attempted to minimise controversy by avoiding anti-German sentiments and stereotypes in Dawn. As James Robertson argues, the film emphasises throughout ‘nursing as the saviour, and war…the taker, of life’.24 Over half is devoted to Cavell’s work as a nurse before the war and to her assistance to escapees. German characters are treated sympathetically and some are portrayed as humanitarian: a soldier discovering her helping a wounded Royal Flying Corps member fails to report her; a diplomat intervenes on her behalf; one of the jailers is clearly saddened when she is taken away and a private refuses to join the firing squad. These failed to stop the protests and the film was banned in February 1928, the decision justified by the BBFC on the grounds that it would damage Anglo-German relations. It was also banned in Holland, Australia and Ontario as undesirable and inaccurate.25 Wilcox attempted to overcome the ban and in April the London County Council allowed the film in the capital and other local authorities followed. Wilcox remade the story for RKO in 1939 as Nurse Edith Cavell, with his wife Anna Neagle playing the lead. According to the star this was a distressing time. ‘With war on the horizon’, she said, ‘we intended this to be an anti-war film.’ However, on release ‘our intentions were frequently misunderstood. We were often either accused of, or congratulated on, making war propaganda—the last thing we had in mind.’26 Interestingly, Wilcox submitted the screenplay to the BBFC and, in a covering note, said that the film highlights the dichotomy between humanitarian values and patriotism in war. As in Dawn the Germans were portrayed humanely, but this may have been as much to do with American neutrality as the author’s original intentions. In common with many countries, in the late 1920s and early 1930s there was a turn against war in Britain. Building on the 1927 Kellogg-Briand Pact (in which fifteen nations renounced war) and the 1932 disarmament conference, considerable anti-war and pacifist sentiment developed. The League of Nations and the concept of collective security were never more popular. It was a time which saw the publication of Vera Brittain’s best-selling Testament of Youth and of Cry Havoc by Beverley Nichols; when the Oxford Union could agree in 1933 in an influential vote that it would fight for neither king nor country; and when the Peace Pledge Union, within two years of formation, could sign up over ten million members who agreed to ‘renounce war and never again…support or sanction another’.27 Such strong opinion forced the political debate. The then Leader of the Labour Party, George Lansbury, was a committed pacifist who preached the cause worldwide. He also knew the value of film propaganda— he was President of the Socialist Film Council whose (odd) anti-war film, Blow, Bugles, Blow, was shown at the 1934 Labour Party conference. In the same year the Socialist candidate in the East Fulham by-election defeated the Tory on the armaments issue. The high point was the peace ballot of 1935 in which ten million

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people voted for disarmament. That year Stanley Baldwin won the election on the basis of no increase in armaments. Popular culture in Britain was not immune to this debate. Film—in both features and shorts—proved to be influential. In contrast to the United States and Germany, however, the criticism was not so strident. Many of the shorts stressed disarmament and collective security rather than putting forward outright opposition to war. Feature films also had their problems. As Jeffrey Richards has said: The [British] war films of the early Thirties certainly portrayed war as hell, but in tacit acknowledgement of the class system, as a hell endured nobly by the upper classes and with comic resignation by their inferiors.28 There was also the continuing problem of censorship. Dawn had not been an isolated incident: pacifism continued to be seen by the BBFC as ‘controversial politics’, despite prevailing public opinion, and they refused to approve any such films. Jeffrey Richards has said nine projects were banned.29 Some of these attacked armaments producers—the ‘merchants of death’ in the popular mind. The Rumour and Dealers in Death were both banned by the censors, though armaments producers were portrayed as villains in adventure and science-fiction stories, including the 1936 Seven Sinners (in which they masqueraded as pacifists) and Four Men and a Prayer (1938). A second area was the ‘return of the dead’ films. Colonel Hanna of the BBFC said that he disliked ‘these morbid and fantastic stories of the Great War’,30 so The Road of the Poplars, He Died Again (in which the unknown soldier comes to life and says that only Christianity could bring peace) and Miracle at Verdun were all prevented from being turned into anti-war films. The most prominent British film in this period is Journey’s End.31 There is considerable dispute as to whether Journey’s End, or the celebrated play by R.C.Sherriff which preceded it, is anti-war (and, indeed, if a film that was made in Hollywood can be called a British film). Nevertheless, it is the most important of the British films of this period to cover the war and it is almost unique in its concentration on life in the dugout and the trench. The newly commissioned Second Lieutenant James Raleigh (David Manners) arrives eagerly at the British trenches in St Quentin in March 1918 where he joins the company commanded by his old school friend, Captain Dennis Stanhope MC (Colin Clive). He is met by Lieutenant Osborne (Ian Maclaren)— affectionately known as Uncle—and tells him of his love for Stanhope’s sister. He also meets Trotter (Billy Bevan), a jolly, crude fellow; Hibbert (Anthony Bushell), who is affected by neuralgia and contriving to get leave, and Mason (Charles Gerrard), the cook, who is obsessed with food and pleasing his commander. Stanhope has been affected badly by the war and he fears that Raleigh will tell his sister of his drinking. He warns him that all letters are censored, though the first he sees contains nothing but praise for him. The next day the Colonel orders Stanhope to capture a German. Osborne and Raleigh lead the raid and a gunner is taken prisoner. To Stanhope’s bitter dismay, Osborne is killed, though that night they celebrate the success of the raid with champagne. Stanhope gets very drunk, but is disgusted when Raleigh refuses to join them. They are reconciled the next day after Raleigh has been fatally wounded. As Stanhope leaves, a bomb destroys the trench. Sherriff based Journey’s End on his experience of combat (he had seen action at Ypres and on the Somme, and had been wounded badly at Passchendaele) and an extensive record he wrote after returning from France. Originally this was intended only for his mother and it was not until 1927 that he began to work on the play (he had written a number of amateur dramas previously). The original theme was hero

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worship between two boys after schooldays. Later he decided to set the action in a dugout in the war, but did not decide the title until he had finished. After being turned down by a number of leading directors, the play was given to James Whale, regarded at the time as a jack of all trades in the theatre. He was also a veteran who had served for three years in some of the most violent theatres of combat including Arras, Ypres and the Somme, before being captured in Belgium in 1917 and imprisoned in Germany, near Hanover. On his release after the Armistice he rejected his old factory job for a move into the arts. He acted in and directed a number of productions, making his West End débuts as a director in 1923 and as an actor two years later. Whilst involved in High Treason, Noel Pemberton-Billing’s play about a bishop who assassinates a prime minister about to declare war, the Stage Society offered him the direction of Journey’s End. Having the patronage of the Stage Society meant that the play would have a West End opening (albeit for a Sunday night and Monday matinée only) though there was little money available for paying actors and for publicity. Nevertheless, the Stage Society was a prestigious organisation and, if the reception was good, it could lead to a longer London run. Whale had never heard of the author but he was impressed with the script, seeing it as a unique portrayal of life on the front line. Working with a low budget, and with only two weeks preparation time, he performed wonders. Sherriff was impressed: it was clear that Whale was devoting considerable time to a project which initially, at least, would earn him little. The low budget hindered the choice of cast but Whale was not disappointed when leading performers turned him down as he realised that a team of unknown actors would enhance the script. The crucial rôle of Stanhope was given to Laurence Olivier. Later Olivier called the play a masterpiece and said it was his favourite rôle. At the time his enthusiasm was not so clear. His biographer, Anthony Holden, says that he accepted the rôle because he had ‘always regretted, in a romantic sort of way, that he had been too young to fight in France’.32 More crucial was his need at this time to demonstrate his versatility to Basil Dean so that he would cast him as the lead in the theatrical production of Beau Geste (he got the part, but it lasted only a month and closed with heavy losses). Despite the problems, Journey’s End was a hit. Hannen Swaffer in the Daily Express called it the ‘greatest of all war plays’.33 James Agate devoted his entire radio programme to the play. He said that he had ‘never been so deeply moved, so enthralled, so exalted’ but like many others felt that no theatre managers would be brave enough to take on a war production.34 Initially this prediction was right. It was a depressing play (with no feminine interest) about a war that most preferred to forget. Eventually, Maurice Browne, a pacifist who thought the play magnificent, offered to produce. A West End production was new to him, although he had spent many years in the United States presenting classic dramas, and he raised the £5,000 budget from wealthy friends. The only problem remained the lead. Olivier had left for Beau Geste, and whilst some of those who had turned down the part were now available and keen, Whale wanted another unknown. After many tests he chose Colin Clive, whose only previous part of any significance was in Show Boat. Journey’s End opened at the Savoy on 21 January and was an immediate triumph. It then moved to the Prince of Wales Theatre and soon around twenty companies were preparing productions in countries worldwide, including France, Spain, Germany, Russia and Denmark. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) broadcast a wireless version on Armistice night, 1929. Gollancz published a novelisation of the play written by Sherriff and Vernon Bartlett, a journalist and author. When it opened in America it was the talk of New York for many months. It had a considerable impact on those who had served in the war. Winston Churchill pronounced it brilliant; a special performance was given for 320 holders of the Victoria Cross (the author was cheered by them for some minutes at the close according to a contemporary account) and Sherriff’s original manuscript

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was auctioned for £1,500 for the League of Nations Union. It is said to be one of the influences behind Vera Brittain’s writing Testament of Youth. As the stage success of its time, it was ideal for the tyro talkies. Many offers arrived from Hollywood but Sherriff and Browne wanted this to be a British production with English actors who they felt best understood the characters. Eventually, Michael Balcon of Gainsborough Pictures and Welsh-Pearson (headed by Tommy Welsh, and the highly regarded veteran of the industry, George Pearson) combined to produce. Despite their lack of capital, and the failure of some recent productions, they offered the unprecedented sum of £16,000 for the rights. Balcon was forced to find a co-producer in America as Gainsborough was not equipped for sound and Welsh-Pearson had no studio. He decided to collaborate with Tiffany-Stahl from poverty row, who provided the production budget in exchange for a 50 per cent interest. Balcon retained artistic control, but Tiffany insisted that a new director was found to replace the incumbent V.Gareth Gundrey, an ex-army officer and veteran who in 1929 was a film director with Gainsborough. The director chosen was Whale. By this time Whale had arrived in Hollywood, a place and lifestyle he found fascinating. Prior to starting work at Tiffany, he was a dialogue director for Howard Hughes on his troubled production Hell’s Angels (Whale ended up directing most of the film). He then began work on Journey’s End but was so dismayed on reading Gundrey’s screenplay that he rejected it outright. It was surprising that Sherriff was not given the task of writing the screenplay. Presumably, his inexperience in film had prompted the producers to look elsewhere for a writer. Sherriff did claim later that Carl Laemmle Snr had asked him to prepare the screenplay for All Quiet on the Western Front but that he had turned down the commission as he wished to return to his mother. He would eventually become one of Hollywood’s highest-paid English screenwriters with such films as The Invisible Man, The Road Back, Goodbye Mr Chips and Mrs Miniver. George Pearson was sent to Los Angeles to supervise the production. Browne agreed with Pearson that Gundrey’s script had some excellent points, but it was over-elaborate and missed the simplicity of the play. ‘To my mind’, Pearson wrote later, ‘the stark realism of Journey’s End was due to Sheriff’s [sic] observation of life, rather than its dissection.’35 While Pearson worked on the script, Whale attempted to get the cast together. This was a slow process. In his autobiography, Pearson provided a description of the characters they were trying to create: Stanhope, a strong man afraid of being afraid, drinking to forget, and only the love of a woman keeping him from giving way to fear. Osborne, schoolmaster and visionary, reading Alice in Wonderland while shells burst outside his dug-out, but when ordered to lead a raid that meant certain death, obeying with calm and a flow of trivial conversation. Trotter, a cockney risen from the ranks, who thinks more of the apricots for supper than of saving his life, talks only of his ‘missus’, his garden at home, and the height of his hollyhocks. Raleigh, straight from his public-school where he had been with Stanhope, whom he heroworships, but arriving to find his god a whisky-sodden churlish brute, but unaware of Stanhope’s reason for resentment against him. Raleigh’s sister was the girl whom Stanhope loved; it was fear that the boy might write her of his drunken downfall, that had embittered him. Mason, cockney servant, his only problem how to keep the taste of onions out of the tea. His one aim to make bully-beef look different. Hibbert, cowardly, malingering, but eventually proving as brave as any when he conquers his cowardice and faces death.36

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Because of the difficulties in fulfilling Pearson’s requirements, Whale did consider simply transplanting the London, New York or Chicago productions. By the middle of November things had improved, with only Stanhope left to cast. It was difficult to imagine anyone but Colin Clive in the rôle. Pearson wanted him, but thought this impossible, and checked if Olivier was available (he was on the stage in New York at this time). Eventually, he requested that Browne release Clive. Browne agreed, but only if he was away for no more than eight weeks (with travel this left only four weeks for filming) and be back on the stage by 13 January 1930. Sherriff was not happy with this. He feared that Clive’s absence would harm the play and he was proved right: after he left empty seats began to appear. The problems with the screenplay were exacerbated with Tiffany’s reluctance to increase the budget (the film is estimated to have cost around $300,000—one million dollars less than All Quiet on the Western Front). To solve the crisis, Pearson hired Joseph Moncure March, a veteran and screenwriter on Hell’s Angels. March needed a release from his contract but also, to Pearson’s horror, wanted $7,500. Hughes would only agree to release March for four days if Whale served a further four days on Hell’s Angels. Subsequently, Pearson reduced March’s fee to $1,000 each day. Rehearsals began on 18 November 1929, a week after All Quiet on the Western Front. After problems with Clive’s voice test the production ran smoothly. The team worked a six-day week, and with only Christmas day off, Clive was able to return on schedule. By 9 March 1930 the film was ready. The première was held four days later and was a great success. The film was released within a month in Britain and the United States and was greeted with acclaim. Indeed, the notices often equalled, or excelled, the praise given to its contemporaneous release, All Quiet on the Western Front (though this would change). Tamar Lane in the New York Herald welcomed ‘a truly great talking picture’ which was even better than the original play.37 Photoplay said it was unique and unforgettable: ‘a magnificent milestone in motion picture history’,38 and Mordaunt Hall, in the New York Times, called it ‘an absorbing piece of work’ with scenes ‘undoubtedly far better than any other glimpses of warfare that have come to the screen’.39 Variety’s London reviewer said that it highlighted the futility, stupidity and uselessness of war; it was probably the best English picture ever made, and as it was co-produced by an American company, would contribute more to better relations between the two countries than ‘a thousand columns of print and a million after-lunch speeches’.40 ‘Looker On’ in Reynolds News called it ‘a very great picture indeed’.41 The cast, direction and technical qualities were all praised, with Colin Clive attracting considerable attention. Sherriff was very satisfied. ‘My first feeling after seeing the picture was one of relief’, he said in a letter to the company, ‘followed by admiration for a very beautiful piece of work. I did not detect a single false note throughout the whole picture. The scenario is true to the play…the scenes outside the dug-out are brilliantly conceived.’42 Despite all the praise, the film was overshadowed by All Quiet on the Western Front and failed to receive any nominations for awards. Most of the critics who knew the play agreed with Sherriff that the film was a literal translation. The dugout continued to be the main set and much of the dialogue remains the same. At some points Whale took the camera into no-man’s-land but generally it was a filmed version of the original. This makes difficult viewing today: straight translations from the stage often seem ponderous and—unlike comparable productions discussed here—Journey’s End suffers from arcane and laughable language with ‘topping’, ‘rugger’ and ‘frightful’ peppered throughout. More recent commentators fail to agree on the importance and quality of Journey’s End. For Jeffrey Richards the play and the film offer a definitive study of the First World War,43 whilst Roy Armes has said that it ‘does not contain a single significant image…and reveals a quite theatrical sense of timing, rhythm and placing of characters’.44 Basil Wright said it ‘was almost painfully English’ and could not believe that

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‘the strangulated emotions which resulted can have meant much to audiences outside the English-speaking world’.45 Despite all these differences it remains, as Michael Balcon emphasises, ‘one of the rare films that had something to say at that particular time’.46 How anti-war is Journey’s End, therefore? Many critics at the time felt it condemned the Great War and taught the world never to go to battle again. This was not Sherriff’s intention. In his autobiography (published in 1968) he said his was a play ‘in which not a word was spoken against the war, in which no word of condemnation was uttered by any of its characters’.47 It may be that Sherriff did not turn against the war to the same extent as many of his contemporaries and regarded with distaste the prevailing views about international conflict in the late 1920s. Alternatively, thirty-nine years may have allowed him time to revise his opinions, as others did: Henry Williamson wrote in 1959 that he regretted the anti-staff views he put in his satirical The Patriot’s Progress (originally published in 1930) as he now realised that the staff class had their own problems.48 But it seems wrong for Sherriff to distance himself so much from the anti-war position. Whilst the film may lack the militancy of All Quiet on the Western Front, it is impossible to watch without believing war is hell: the waste and slaughter of the trenches, the intolerable burdens placed on the men in command at the front and the ultimate tragedy emphasise the futility of it all. There is no patriotism or pronouncement of war aims in the film, just as there was no patriotism in the trenches—that was reserved for civilians and prisoners according to Robert Graves.49 This lack of patriotism was a common component of British films about the war at this time. Jeffrey Richards notes that the ‘causes and principles become unimportant… the war itself is the monstrous central fact of life and getting through it decently is the main thing’.50 Osborne and Raleigh both say that the war does seem ‘rather silly’ and the uselessness of it all is perhaps what Osborne is trying to say when he recites to Trotter a section from Alice in Wonderland: How doth the little crocodile Improve his shining tail, And pour the waters of the Nile On every golden scale! How cheerfully he seems to grin And neatly spread his claws, And welcomes little fishes in With gently smiling jaws! Trotter says that he cannot see the point; Osborne says that is precisely the intention. One of the problems with the suffering portrayed both in the film and the play is that, unlike similar American, French and German productions, it is incurred almost totally by the upper class. Their nobility enables them to endure the hell stoically. They behave decently and with honour whilst the working-class characters—Trotter and Mason—provide comic resignation to the conflict (and light relief for the audience). This was a result, in part, of Sherriff’s beliefs. He described the soldiers as simple ‘unquestioning men who fought the war because it seemed the only right and proper thing to do. Somebody had got to fight it, and they…accepted the misery and suffering without complaint.’51 But it was also because most British memoirs of the conflict were written by the officer class. An additional factor in the film is the dispassionate treatment of the enemy. Like much of wartime propaganda there are few epithets thrown at the Germans; when adversaries are mentioned it is done sympathetically. According to Jeffrey Richards this had much to do with the disgust felt by many at the

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harsh treatment meted out to Germany at Versailles. The result was films which did not cover ‘brutal stormtroopers, ranting Führers or concentration camps…[but focused on the] inflexibly honourable, heelclicking and monocled Prussian officer’.52 This humanity is seen at two points. The first is when Osborne replies to Raleigh’s comments about the Germans being decent. He says: Yes—they’re alright. I remember at Ypres, one of our men on patrol got shot about dawn. That night three of our fellows crawled out to bring him in. We were so near the German trenches that they could have shot our men down one by one. As they started to drag the wounded man over the broken field, a big German officer stood up in their trench and shouted ‘Carry him’. Our men stood up and carried him back. The Germans even fired some lights for them to see by. The next day we blew each other’s trenches to blazes.53 Sherriff based this on a true story. The second is when the raid has returned with the German prisoner. He is questioned briefly before being taken to headquarters. Even though they have faced years of brutal warfare, no one is angry. He was probably treated less well behind the lines. The High Command is attacked obliquely in Journey’s End. They are condemned—as they would later be in Paths of Glory (see chapter 10)—for their demands that the men undertake impossible tasks. More directly, Stanhope criticises the Colonel when he interrogates the prisoner. At first he is shocked when the Colonel fails to enquire about the men after the raid. When the Colonel says that the Brigadier will be very satisfied at the news, Stanhope twice says cynically that it is ‘awfully nice if the Brigadier’s pleased’. The key point to emerge from Journey’s End is the impact of the war on those in command at the front line. Robert Graves said that the average life expectancy of an infantry subaltern on the Western Front was at some stages only three months—by then, the soldier had been either killed or wounded.54 Knowing this was enough of a burden, but for those who had served for years, or had been wounded or returned (as was the case for many), the pressure was intolerable. Of the soldiers in Journey’s End, only Raleigh is enthusiastic, but he is just out of school and this is his first posting. Second Lieutenant Hibbert is the opposite. He complains constantly about his neuralgia to an increasingly unsympathetic Stanhope, who has already allowed one member of the company to go on sick leave. Hibbert says the pain is driving him mad. Stanhope threatens to shoot him for desertion, though he would rather save him from the disgrace. Later he recovers some of his empathy and comforts him. ‘Supposing the worst happened,’ he says, ‘supposing we were knocked right out! Think of all the topping fellows who’ve gone already. It can’t be very lonely there—with all those fellows. Sometimes I feel it’s lonelier here.’ Finally, he appeals to Hibbert: You may be wounded. Then you can go home and feel proud—and if you are killed, you—you won’t have to stand this hell any more. Go on, see it through, old man. Why, it’s the only decent thing a man can do. Hibbert reluctantly agrees to fight on and eventually dies. Hibbert is portrayed as a coward and was recognised as such by Pearson, Sherriff and the critics. But the pejorative description applied is no longer relevant. Only sympathy can be expressed, for even if faked, his actions were perhaps one of the few sane options available in the face of slaughter. Another character who appears more interesting now is the avuncular Osborne, pocket-book philosopher and voracious reader of Lewis Carroll. He accepts that the war has to be fought. The novelisation of the play has Osborne think:

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8 Lieutenant Osborne (Ian Maclaren) with Captain Dennis Stanhope (Colin Clive) who endures the burdens of command with drink in Journey’s End (1930).

There was a job to be done—it ought never to have arisen and it should never be allowed to arise again, but that was not the point at the moment; that would be for the survivors to wrangle about— there was a job to be done, and there was a deep satisfaction to be got out of it.55 He knows that little divides him from the Germans and realises that he is likely to die. In the film (and more particularly in the book) he talks about his life at home and the children he will not be able to see grow. His attempts to take his and Raleigh’s mind off the impending raid is one of the most emotionally charged moments in the film. In the end, though, he is an officer and he has to fight. As in the play, the most important character is Stanhope. Though too mannered and stagy for audiences now, Colin Clive’s performance still manages to convey some of the magnetism which attracted theatregoers in 1929. Stanhope has been three years at the front, has been awarded the Military Cross and is loved by those under him. Beneath this success lies a bleak and tormented man, driven to drink and to the edge of madness by the burdens of command. Raleigh’s arrival pushes him closer to the brink as he fears that the one thing he has in the world left to love will be taken away when Raleigh writes and tells his sister of his alcoholism. The war has made Stanhope highly cynical of life. His treatment of Hibbert —and the party he hosts on the night of Osborne’s death—shows how far removed he is from normal convention, even though these were abnormal times. His explanation for his reliance on alcohol is given to Osborne early in the film: ‘[after] that awful affair at Vimy Ridge’, he says, ‘I knew I’d go mad if I didn’t break the strain. I couldn’t bear being fully

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conscious all the time.’ Holding up his glass he goes on: ‘There were only two ways to break the strain. One was pretending I was ill—and going home; the other was this.’ Later, sobbing, and deep in his cups, he tells Raleigh that he drinks to forget. Some critics thought the drink issue was overdone. It was undoubtedly realistic, however. Robert Graves talks of officers he knew who after two years of continuous service had become dipsomaniacs: ‘I knew three or four who had worked up to the point of two bottles of whisky a day before being lucky enough to get wounded or sent home in some other way.’56 Stanhope is not sent home but is killed in the German attack. Stanhope is the fictional equivalent of Siegfried Sassoon. Both were awarded the Military Cross for bravery (Sassoon threw his into the Mersey), both served for many years in command and both got increasingly frustrated by the war they were fighting. It is a shame that Sherriff could not have made Stanhope take the jump into outright opposition as Sassoon did when he made his declaration against the war in 1917 (and for which he was placed in a psychiatric hospital): I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority, because I believe that the War is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it. I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers. I believe that this War, upon which I entered as a war of defence and liberation, has now become a war of aggression and conquest. I believe that the purposes for which I and my fellow soldiers entered upon this War should have been so clearly stated as to have made it impossible to change them, and that, had this been done, the objects which actuated us would now be attainable by negotiation. I have seen and endured the sufferings of the troops, and I can no longer be a party to prolong these sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust. I am not protesting against the conduct of the War, but against the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed. On behalf of those who are suffering now I make this protest against the deception which is being practised on them; also I believe that I may help to destroy the callous complacency with which the majority of those at home regard the continuance of agonies which they do not share, and which they have not sufficient imagination to realize.57 Stanhope (or Sherriff) shared that lack of imagination; but it would only have been a short step for him to make. Journey’s End probably influenced John Monk Saunders in his writing of The Dawn Patrol (1930 and remade 1938). Although set in the air, much of the film takes place in the officers’ quarters on the airfield. One of the lead characters, Major Brand, is near to breaking point and has turned to drink. Early in the film he says something which could have come from Stanhope: ‘You know what this place is? It’s a slaughter house, and I’m the butcher. Send A Flight out on another rotten show?… And do our boys complain? never. They just say right, and go and do it.’ In 1976 Journey’s End and The Dawn Patrol were combined with Sagittarius Rising, Cecil Day Lewis’ autobiography glorifying air combat (he did admit that trench warfare was senseless), in Aces High, a film about the Royal Flying Corps. Despite some fine flying scenes, there seems little point to the film. Journey’s End itself was remade by the BBC in 1988 in a faithful adaptation of the Whale version. Filmed in colour, it failed to convey the bleakness and horror of trench warfare (the brutality of war has always been portrayed best in monochrome) but it still highlighted a sometimes gripping subject. A year after Journey’s End came the long-awaited Tell England, the film of Ernest Raymond’s bestselling novel of the Gallipoli campaign. Tell England could have made a great statement about international conflict. In a war characterised by brutal, pointless slaughter, Gallipoli was one of the bloodiest campaigns. It aimed to defeat the Turkish forces, who were supporting Germany, and bring the war to a swift end. It

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was a very popular battle: officers rushed to take part, one of them being the patriotic poet, Rupert Brooke, who died before he was able to reach the front. The War Office estimated that 5,000 casualties would be needed. Despite early, but limited, success this proved to be a gross underestimate with at least 86,000 Turkish and 46,000 Allied soldiers killed. The Allied forces withdrew in December 1915. Tell England was Anthony Asquith’s first sound film. He had a direct link with the events he was seeking to portray. His father was Prime Minister at the time and he had lost a brother in the war. The film took well over a year to make. Asquith was assisted by Harry Bruce Woolfe, Geoffrey Barkas and, on dialogue, A.P.Herbert who had served at Gallipoli and who in 1919 had published his bitter novel, The Secret Battle, which, in part, covered the campaign.58 Ernest Raymond had also been at Gallipoli, as a chaplain. Despite the actual fact of the battle being a disaster, British Instructional Films received considerable help from the Admiralty with the loan of ships and extras for the cast. It was generally a faithful adaptation of the novel, though more downbeat, having lost a little of the ‘great romance of glorious youth’, as the original dustjacket described the book (or what John Grierson called ‘Raymond’s rather sissified story of English heroism’59). Schoolboy friends Edgar Doe (Carl Harbord) and Rupert Ray (Tony Bruce) enlist enthusiastically at the outbreak of war and, following commission, they are sent to Gallipoli. There is no quick victory, however, and soon the horrors of the conflict become apparent. Doe’s nerves are shattered after months of combat and he breaks down (like Stanhope he relies on alcohol to get through). He also argues with his old friend Ray who has been promoted. Doe recovers after he is chosen to lead a raid on the Turkish mortar which has been devastating the Allied forces for months. He is successful in the attack, but is fatally wounded. Just after he dies, the Allies withdraw. The film ends with German and Turkish officers walking amongst the graves. Tell England contains some anti-war sentiments. The newsreel-like scenes in the trenches in particular are powerful, with Asquith making effective use of the new sound medium. These show—as All Quiet on the Western Front did—the carnage and futility of trench warfare. This is highlighted in a montage section when a fragile Doe says that he’d like to tell England the truth about war. As he screams three times, ‘This is what I’d like to tell England’, various shots appear: machine gun fire and a soldier sprawled on barbed wire; a soldier stabbed by a bayonet; a dugout bombed. The film is sympathetic also to relatives at home, showing Doe’s mother fainting as she thinks about Edgar (again with the effective use of montage) just after seeing him off at the station. The problem is that the film, infused with the rosy tinge of Rupert Brooke, ultimately says that sacrifice was necessary and implies that, like Waterloo, the war was won on the battlefields of Eton. It is a glorification of the public schoolboy and the class system. As Jeffrey Richards has said, Doe realises that: war and indeed death, though messy and a trifle unpleasant, are a small price to pay for the preservation of the England of the fine, brave days before the war, the England which they, as public schoolboys, were produced and trained to defend.60 This is emphasised in the film’s epitaph when the inscription on Doe’s gravestone is seen: Tell England, ye who pass this monument, We died for her, and here we rest content. Some critics mentioned the emphasis on public schoolboys winning the war. None, however, described the film as an anti-war statement. Picturegoer said that the film could not ‘be considered to rank with war

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9 Tell England, ye who pass this monument, We died for her, and here we rest content.’

pictures of the calibre of The Big Parade’61 whilst Variety (it was released in America as Battle of Gallipoli) groaned, ‘War again…’, and said the film lacked guts.62 Technically the film is undoubtedly proficient, and in parts innovative. It is this which attracted some praise from contemporary commentators. The Evening News reviewer called it a ‘brilliant piece of work pictorially… [which] contains many novel and impressive ideas in the use of sound’.63 Paul Rotha—who liked the film generally, though felt it was a poor story— said: The culmination of death as heroism in Tell England (1931). the brilliance of Tell England lies in the scenes of the two landings and in Doe’s capture of the Turkish trench mortar…. It is in these terrific spectacles that the combined talent of Geoffrey Barkas… and Anthony Asquith…puts on the screen something which has never been done before.64 The war that Doe died for—indeed, the England that sacrificed him—was not worth it. To have any pretensions of being a condemnation of the war, Tell England needed to end with an attack on militarism, not on a note of justifiable slaughter. Perhaps they should have used Herbert more, whose novel—and, more importantly, his poem ‘Half-Hours at Helles’ —summed up the horror of Gallipoli: This is the Fourth of June Think not I never dream The noise of that infernal noon, The stretchers’ endless stream,

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The tales of triumph won, The night that found them lies, The wounded wailing in the sun, The dead, the dust, the flies. The flies! oh God, the flies That soiled the sacred dead. To see them swarm from dead men’s eyes And share the soldiers’ bread! Nor think I now forget The filth and stench of war, The corpses on the parapet, The maggots in the floor. The campaign was seen again on film in 1981 with the Australian production, Gallipoli. Again a romantic view of the war, though at least this time it showed it from an Australian point of view. For a brief period in the mid-1930s some interesting anti-war short features, documentaries and newsreels were released in Britain. It was a transitory phase: many of these came from the Left and it was not long before these companies moved to making films warning of the rise of the dictators and calling for intervention in the Spanish Civil War.65 The first of these pacifist shorts was the 1930 production, Peace on the Western Front, which had Moore Marriott explaining to his son what the war had really been like. In 1934, the conservative British Movietone, in a valiant attempt at impartiality, released Peace or War. In this four women call on women everywhere to prevent war. One of the four was Madeleine Carroll whose feature film, I Was a Spy, was released the previous year. Also released in 1934 was the documentary, Forgotten Men, which, through the use of actuality footage, some of which had already been included in the 1927 German production, Der Weltkrieg (see chapter 6), highlighted the waste and absurdity of the war. Some of the film used was horrific, leading the Sight and Sound commentator to argue that ‘nobody under twenty should be allowed to see the film’.66 Rachael Low called it safe and obvious and complained that it failed to put forward solutions.67 However, she went on: as a way of reminding people that war was not a thing to play with it must have been emotionally effective, and it ventured into areas where neither the newsreels nor the documentary movement ever strayed.68 Four other shorts were released in 1935. The most important was the part-drama, part-actuality Thunder in the Air, made by Hans Nieter who made films for the League of Nations Union. The film emphasised that collective security was needed to ensure that the Kellogg-Briand Pact was enforced. Ralph Richardson plays a young soldier from ‘Anywhere, 1914–1918’ who is killed in the war. Vernon Bartlett—who provided the commentary—describes this as the war to end all wars, but, over actuality footage and shots of cemeteries and the unemployed soldier, states: ‘There never has been such folly in the world as since the war.’ Later, the film attacks armaments manufacturers. It ends with Richardson’s son going to fight the next war asking his grieving mother: ‘This is a war to end war…isn’t it?’69 A different plea for collective security was made in Paul Rotha’s three-minute short, The Peace Film. Rotha’s film achieved brief notoriety when its certificate was initially delayed by the BBFC (for a time it was wrongly believed that the

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film had been banned) —an action condemned widely and attacked by both Liberal and Labour leaders. When it was released it was shown in many commercial cinemas, though the number of viewers who followed the film’s advice to write to their MP has not been recorded. The forgotten men of the war were seen again in the North London Film Society’s Jubilee, the film of the celebrations of George V’s Silver Jubilee. Also released in 1935 was Norman McLaren’s pacifist film short, Hell Unlimited. Like Thunder in the Air it was an attack on armaments manufacturers, only its criticism was more virulent. If governments wouldn’t listen it called on people to stop work. The film culminates with a strike which ends the arms race. Though creative—if, perhaps, amateurish—these shorts would have reached few viewers. Two features in the 1930s which were innovative, and which reached an audience (though whether they made their money back is another question), were The Tunnel (1935) and Things to Come (1936), both pacifist sciencefiction films with Jules Vernesque plots. The story of The Tunnel, a remake of Der Tunnel, a German film released two years previously, was simple: a transatlantic tunnel is built to promote trade and peace between the United States and Britain (already a Channel tunnel has been built and another linking Miami and the Bahamas). The project is opposed by armaments manufacturers, but they fail to take control of the company. Eventually, the tunnel is finished and opened by the President and the King, though the monarch had to be called the ruler of the British Empire to overcome the ludicrous censorship rule that no reference be made to the King in fictional films. The Tunnel was directed by Maurice Elvey. Six years earlier he had made another pacifist science-fiction film, High Treason, based on Pemberton-Billing’s play (which James Whale had been involved with). The film told of international tension between the United States of Europe and the United Atlantic States (based in New York), fostered by the International Armaments Corporation who destroy the Paris-London Express in the Channel Tunnel. Blaming the United Atlantic States, mobilisation is ordered. This is opposed by the twenty million members of the World Peace League. Dr Seymour, Head of the League, tries to persuade the President of Europe not to go to war and his daughter mobilises women munitions workers to stop the European Air Force. The European Government votes to fight, but Seymour shoots the President dead and announces that there will be no war and that negotiations will open with the United Atlantic States. War is averted, though Seymour is executed for murder and dies, willingly, as a martyr for his cause. Things to Come, was influenced by High Treason. They shared a similar historical timeframe and both used Fritz Lang’s Metropolis as a basis for the depiction of their cities. It was based on H.G.Wells’s novel The Shape of Things to Come, which put forward a utopian vision of the future arising out of war. In this case it was a Second World War, presciently predicted to start in 1940 and accurately forecasting ruin. Set in Everytown, Things to Come follows the Cabal and Passworthy families from the days before the war to the period long after conflict has been banished and the age of space travel has begun. Passworthy is a complacent man, believing that war will not come; even if it does, he says, war is a stimulus to progress. Cabal is not so confident: ‘If we don’t end war, war will end us,’ he says. As the children play with their Christmas toys (which include weapons) it is announced that war has broken out. There follow twenty-six years of conflict until—in 1966—civilisation has almost been destroyed and plague is widespread. Ruling over this Dark Age is the Boss, a militaristic dictator running a totalitarian government. He is defeated only when ‘Wings Over the World’, an international organisation dedicated to the re-creation of order, law, sanity and ‘the freemasonry of science’, drop ‘peace gas’ bombs on Everytown. Only the Boss is killed. Everytown is transformed by 2036. A new society has been created, led by Oswald Cabal: under ground, sanitised, with artificial air and light. Science and progress are triumphant, though seeds of discontent are fostered by Theotocopulos, an artist, who rails against continued development, in particular the gun which

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will take Cabal’s and Passworthy’s children into space— the next great leap forward. The rebellion fails, though as the projectile is launched, Passworthy questions whether there will ever be a time of rest. Cabal’s reply is the culmination of the film, and provides a summary of the Wellsian world view: Rest enough for the individual man. Too much and too soon, and we call it death. But for Man no rest and no ending. He must go on. Conquest beyond conquest. First this little planet with its winds and waves. And all the laws of mind and matter that restrain him. Then the planets about him. And at last out across immensity to the stars. And when he has conquered all the deeps of space and all the mysteries of time—still he will be beginning…. It is this or that. All the universe or nothingness. Which shall it be, Passworthy? Which shall it be? Which shall it be?70 The film was widely praised, in particular for the special effects, the blitz attack on Everytown and for its sheer ambition—something which the British cinema has often lacked. C.A.Lejeune said that: There has never been anything in the cinema like Things to Come. No film, not even Metropolis, has even slightly resembled it…. The film has been used for the first time to state a hard and fairly complex argument, and to state it with a force and beauty that gives you no choice but to follow and attend.71 And Sydney Carroll in the Sunday Times called it a ‘leviathan among films…as a scathing commentary on the martyrdom of man and the vanity of human wishes, there will never again be a film of greater significance than this’.72 The ravages of the real war and the imaginary conflict (then) of 1940 in Things to Come, demanded the creation of a new society. Wells proposed a New World Order run by benevolent planners based on science, technology and continued progress, where emotion and artistic endeavour were tolerated at best and minimised where possible. It was undoubtedly an ambitious film which, despite some appalling acting, continues to inspire today, thanks to the performances of Raymond Massey as the two Cabals, the music of Arthur Bliss and the great sets. But the society created seems uncomfortable now, when science and technology fail to guarantee progress, and must have been more so in 1936 with the blacksuited figures of ‘Wings Over the World’— and Oswald Cabal himself—resembling too closely the dictators of Europe and Mosley’s Blackshirts. Nevertheless, with official efforts failing, utopian visions were needed to provide some hope of a better future beyond international conflict. Things to Come offered interesting views on war and peace which were far removed from those put forward elsewhere. It was the crowning achievement of British cinema at this time. Overall, however, the British cinema lacked the passion and vigour in its comments on the war that appeared in other countries. Whilst some wartime propaganda was interesting for its moderation, the class basis to feature films hindered more radical coverage, and the confines of censorship ensured that controversial subjects could not be put forward. Journey’s End and Tell England had their merits, but the anti-war elements were always tempered by the view that the sacrifice of a nation’s youth was justified and honourable.

Chapter 6 From the defeated Westfront 1918, Kameradschaft and Niemandsland—the German cinema and the war

The German defeat in November 1918 was total. The country was demoralised and exhausted, with at least one-and-a-half million dead and another four million wounded. It was also guilty, blamed for starting the war and having to bear the cost through the humiliating settlement at Versailles. All combatant countries had suffered; but others—albeit for a short time only—had the comforts of victory. ‘A war ends in rags and dust’, says Anton Gill.1 There is no better description for Germany in November 1918. In common with all countries, anti-war cinema emerged in Germany in the late 1920s, though this was in the brief period before the Nazis took control of government and claimed cinema for propaganda. In addition to its political importance, it was the culmination of an extraordinary period in world cinema. German films, of the 1920s in particular, had a quality unmatched in Europe and in Hollywood. The impact of the anti-war films was, however, limited. According to the leading historian of the German cinema, Siegfried Kracauer: ‘The German militarists did not have to fear the German pacifists.’2 Nazism was already a powerful force; within a few years it controlled government and by the end of the 1930s the world was again in conflict. The origins of this remarkable period of cinematic innovation and creativity have been traced back to the war itself. Unlike many other European countries, cinema prospered in Germany during the war. At the outbreak of hostilities few companies were involved in film production (compared to over 240 in 1919), exhibition was dominated by foreign films and cinemagoers favoured light comedies and American westerns over domestic product. The war provided an opportunity for film makers and companies. Whilst the blockade meant that no films could be imported from the Allied forces and the United States, the strong demand for cinema in other parts of Europe created an export market for German producers. As H.H.Wollenberg said: With the increasing burden of warfare and the increasing strain on the population, the desire for relaxation [and] diversion…grew and with it the number of cinema attendances. The gap made by the elimination of English, Italian, American and especially French productions had to be filled…. The German studios began to work at high pressure. New studios were built; mass-production started.3 The relative health of the cinema led to the country becoming one of the leading film producers in Europe. During this time it attracted some of the best European technicians, personnel, actors and actresses, who had left their moribund companies to work in a thriving film industry. Inevitably, much of this was devoted to supporting the war effort. It was mostly wasted: German propaganda was ineffective as it was disorganised and failed to address the crucial issue of morale at home. In any case it was doomed from the outset. Although most of the atrocity stories were untrue, Germany’s morale initiative, as Alice Goldfarb Marquis has said, ‘was lost…through deeds —the invasion of Belgium, the sinking of the “Lusitania”, the execution

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of Nurse Edith Cavell—and further demolished by…[the] use of poison gas and unrestricted submarine warfare.’4 It also faced formidable enemies whose more professional propaganda had achieved considerable success. In order to promote better-organised and more effective propaganda, the government promoted a strongly interventionist policy towards the industry and invested directly in production companies. In 1916 it joined with a number of film companies to form Deulig—Deutsche Lichtspiel-Gesellschaft —which promoted Germany through propaganda films at home and in neutral countries. This was followed in early 1917 with the establishment of the government’s own photographic and film office, Bufa, Bild- und Filmamt, which built between 800 and 900 cinemas on the Eastern and Western fronts which were popular with the troops. Inevitably, the product offered was nationalistic, with documentaries being the main output, though some faked material was also released. There were also fictional films, which utilised all types of genre, though they were generally grim—‘rubbish filled to the brim with war brides, waving flags, officers, privates, elevated sentiments and barracks humour’, according to Siegfried Kracauer.5 As in Britain, these films quickly lost their audience, which returned to their pre-war preference for comedy entertainment. By this time visiting the cinema had become a popular and necessary pastime: during the war the middle classes began to attend to view newsreels; more fundamentally, cinemas provided heat and a roof for poorer families. This enhanced status is responsible for the massive increase in the number of cinemas which grew from 2,446 to 3,130 between 1914 and 1917, a figure which continued to rise through to the mid-1920s.6 Another attempt to influence film production was made with the formation of Ufa (Universum Film A.G.) in November 1917, which was financed jointly by private industry and government. By this stage, the military had accepted the importance of film propaganda. Four months earlier, General Ludendorff, the chief of staff, had written: The war has shown the overwhelming force of pictures and films as a medium for educating and influencing the masses. Unfortunately our enemies have used the advantage they have over us in this field so completely that we have suffered considerable damage…. For this reason it is desirable, if the war is to be brought to a successful conclusion, to ensure that film is used to make the deepest possible impression wherever German influence is still possible.7 Though Ufa’s immediate objectives failed with the declaration of the Armistice, it quickly became established as a major force domestically and in international film exhibition, where its purchase of theatres enabled the post-war boycott of German films to be broken. By this stage government investment—which had attracted considerable controversy—had been rescinded. Ufa later came under the control of the right-wing Alfred Hugenberg, when it exercised considerable power. Despite such persuasion, opposition to the war had been present in German popular culture. Though there had been little agitation against the war from the peace movement (which was weak8), poems and paintings opposing the conflict up to, and after, 1918 were prominent, in particular through the work of Käthe Kollwitz, John Heartfield, Otto Dix and George Grosz. However, the political turmoil of the early Weimar period seemed to occupy most people’s attention. There was also the simple fact that, after years of poverty and misery, people simply wanted to have fun. Anti-militarism remained an important factor, though. One of Bertolt Brecht’s songs from the immediate post-war period, ‘The Legend of the Dead Soldier’, highlighted this: And when the war reached its fifth Spring

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with no hint of a pause for breath the soldier did the obvious thing and died a hero’s death. The summer spread over the makeshift graves. The soldier lay ignored until one night there came an offi cial army medical board. The board went out to the cemetery with consecrated spade and dug up what was left of him and put him on parade. The doctors sorted out what they’d found and kept what they thought would serve and made their report: ‘He’s physically sound. He’s simply lost his nerve.’ It took some time before such sentiments influenced cinema production and exhibition (though in this respect Germany was no different from other countries). In 1920, Das Cabinet des Dr Caligari (The Cabinet of Dr Caligari) was released. This story, of a mad director of a lunatic asylum, and his (innocent) somnambulist Cesare, who recreate the murderous exploits of an eighteenth-century showman, could have been one of the first post-war, anti-militarist films. It is now—and was then—rightly known as a horror story and a remarkable piece of cinema. However, its authors, Carl Mayer and Hans Janowitz, had written the screenplay explicitly as a condemnation of military authority.9 Both had been in the war: Mayer, who was Austrian, had suffered badly at the hands of a military psychiatrist who had questioned his mental state (the character of Dr Caligari was based on this man); Janowitz, a Czech, had been an infantry officer who left his regiment a determined pacifist. On meeting in Berlin, and discovering they shared similar views, they embarked on the screenplay. For them, Dr Caligari with his power and his disregard for human life represented authority, whilst Cesare was the ordinary soldier, forced to kill, however unwillingly. The director, Robert Wiene, turned this on its its head by introducing a prologue and epilogue which concluded that the director is innocent and that the real madman is Francis (one of those who helped expose the murderer in the original screenplay). The film ends with Caligari stating that he will be able to heal him. As Siegfried Kracauer said, this ‘perverted, if not reversed …[the writers’] intrinsic intentions…. [T]he original story exposed the madness inherent in authority, Wiene’s Caligari glorified authority and convicted its antagonist of madness. A revolutionary film was thus turned into a conformist one.’10 The attack on militarism was not to be included in the story of Caligari. Reflecting the position worldwide, it was to be some years before an anti-war film was released. In the meantime, the war featured rarely in films. A 1921 production, Die Bergkatze (The Mountain Cat), attacked militarism (see chapter 8). The war was used to justify hedonism in Fritz Lang’s 1922 production, Dr Mabuse, Der Spieler (Dr Mabuse, the Gambler), about the descent into madness of a dictatorial criminal. Its portrayal of decadence reflected the outbreak of enjoyment and fun in leading cities like Berlin which had been stymied during the war. Indeed, the publicity brochure for the film noted: ‘Mankind, swept about and trampled down in the wake of war and revolution, takes revenge for years of anguish by indulging in lusts.’11

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A clearly identifiable anti-war film appeared two years later. Namenlose Helden—War, or Nameless Heroes—was released in the week before Armistice Day in November 1924, despite criticism from the German army minister who feared that it would open the military to ridicule. The film tells the story of a working-class family driven to poverty and disaster after Scholz, the father, has been conscripted. Forced to give up their home, his wife lodges in an attic with their two children, where one is killed in a fire. This disturbs Scholz so much that he is careless and is blinded in a mine explosion. His wife is also dead now, and, on returning home, he tramps the streets with his son. Scholz is shot dead when he enters a restricted area. Nameless Heroes was directed by Kurt Bernhardt, who made a number of films in Weimar Germany. In 1933, he made the French and German versions of The Tunnel, though by this time he had left Germany due to the rise of Hitler. The film was around two hours long and combined documentary footage (derived from a number of combatant nations) with dramatised material. It seemed to have attracted some positive notices, though the reaction of audiences has not been recorded.12 Such films were unlikely to be popular. In the mid- to late 1920s (when cinemagoing peaked in popularity) most Germans favoured escapist fare with mountain and nature dramas, biopics and horror. During this time, many of the actors and technicians who had arrived during the war emigrated to Hollywood, to work in the new sound films. The country had also recovered some of its stability and status at home and abroad. Despite opposition from the Right, the Locarno Treaty was successfully concluded in 1925, finalising the issue of frontiers. In 1926 Germany became a member of the League of Nations and, two years later, signed the Kellogg— Briand Pact. The country was once again part of the international community. Much of the momentum for this was a wish to overturn the Versailles settlement. It was also the case that a peace movement had begun to emerge. In 1922, a rally in Berlin had attracted over 100,000 people who proclaimed ‘Never Again War’. Two years later Ernst Friedrich’s War against War!, a book consisting mainly of horrific photographs from the conflict, was published.13 This was the first time many of these images had been seen, and the fact that Friedrich’s book was reprinted at least ten times by the end of the decade, and distributed internationally, suggests that he had a considerable impact. In 1924 also, Friedrich opened his Anti-War Museum in Berlin. This was later destroyed by the Nazis. The war was not altogether absent from screens during this period, with some of the leading war films exhibited in Germany: What Price Glory?, for example, enjoyed a lengthy and popular run in 1927. Domestic production, though, was limited, and any films released were predictably neutral. There was at least one covering the story of Mata Hari (in 1927); and two naval films, Kreuzer Emden (1926) and U-9 Weddigen (1927). As in Britain, a number of documentary films were released portraying the conflict historically through the use of original film material, maps, diagrams and dramatised reconstructions. Ufa prepared three films in 1927 in its programme Der Weltkrieg (World War), which were released internationally as The World War as seen through German Spectacles; The World War: Part II; and Behind the German Lines. Reviewers were lukewarm, though this was more to do with the likely poor audience reception than to the quality of the production. Variety’s Berlin reviewer condemned the second as ‘a compromise, not anti-militaristic enough for the pacifists and not patriotic enough for the fire eaters’.14 However, its American reviewer found the third instalment overwhelming, describing it as ‘effective propaganda against militarism’: [war is revealed] in its actual ghastliness, stripped of the madness of patriotism, wild flag-waving and bombastic oratory. It is war in its complete regalia of living horrors, a far more convincing and

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awesome spectacle than the most diabolical brutality conceivable by any directors of fictionized war pictures.15 It said that this was a film which all should see; it concluded, rightly, that few would. The anti-war elements contained in the documentary films were also seen in some fictional features. Two have been mentioned in passing by reviewers and historians though neither have stood the test of time. One, Am Rande Der Welt (At the Edge of the World), a 1927 production of an allegorical story about a mill on the border of warring countries, is seen as confused; the second was a Franco-German co-production, The World Unarmed (probably 1927), about which little is known. Germany’s prime contribution to anti-war cinema was the two films made by G.W.Pabst in 1930 and 1931: Westfront 1918 and Kameradschaft. Pabst was a pacifist, an internationalist, a ‘film apostle of idealistic brotherhood between nations’,16 as one commentator has said. Naturally, he was on the Left and had acquired the nickname ‘Red Pabst’ as a result. He was also, by the time these films were released, one of the world’s leading directors. In 1931 C.A.Lejeune described him as the ‘director’s director, actor’s director, camera-man’s director, and…director of sound…whom the best cinema brains of Europe have backed to win’.17 Though he was involved in the war his two films were not based on personal knowledge of the trenches. He served out the whole four years in a prisoner-of-war camp, having been arrested as an enemy alien on his return from the United States in the autumn of 1914. These were not wasted years, however. Building on his pre-war experience as an actor and director in Austria and America, he produced shows in the prison theatre. Following the Armistice, he returned to Vienna and took up theatre work again. He met with Carl Froelich, who had been involved in the film industry almost from the start, and they moved to Berlin, with Pabst making his début as a director in 1923 with the expressionist film, Der Schatz. Ein altes Spiel um Gold und Liebe (The Treasure).18 Pabst’s first real success came two years later with Die freudlose Gasse (The Joyless Street), a film about the suffering arising from post-war inflation, which had a strong cast, including Greta Garbo and Asta Nielsen. The heavy censorship and cuts imposed in a number of foreign countries, and the release the year before of D.W.Griffith’s Isn’t Life Wonderful, meant that Pabst’s film was over-shadowed. Pabst had wanted to follow with a film on the Kiel naval dispute of 1918— along the lines of Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin—but this fell through. He went on to direct Die Liebe der Jeanne Ney (The Love of Jeanne Ney), from Ilya Ehrenburg’s novel, before making his classic Die Buchse der Pandora (Pandora’s Box) with Louise Brooks in 1929. He worked with Brooks again that year in Tagebuch einer Verlorenen (Diary of a Lost Girl). Pabst entered the sound era with Westfront 1918. It is the last year of the war. German soldiers are billeted in a French house behind the German lines. There, the student (Hans Joachim Moebius), the Bavarian (Fritz Kampers) and Karl (Gustav Diessl) flirt with Yvette (Jackie Mounier), who shares the house with her grandfather. Whilst the household shelters from artillery attack, Yvette and the student realise that they are in love, but he leaves soon after, when the soldiers are mobilised. They are led to the front by the Lieutenant (Claus Clausen). Once again they face artillery attack, this time from their own forces. Karl and the Bavarian are trapped under ground and struggle desperately to shore up their collapsing dugout. The student is sent to call off the attack; on his way he finds the dead, smouldering body of a dog sent before him. The two soldiers are rescued from the dugout. The student gets the attack called off. At headquarters he sees how plentiful the food is. On his way to visit Yvette he passes groups of men making many wooden crosses. After seeing his lover he returns to the front. He meets with Karl who is on leave for the first time

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in eighteen months, and tells him of his love for Yvette. Karl is not so lucky. He reaches home as more troops are being mobilised for the front and, after giving short shrift to a fat businessman who questions the failure to take Paris, he discovers his wife in bed with the butcher’s son. He threatens him by gunpoint, and demands that the lovers kiss, before throwing him out. Karl’s mother, in the meantime, arrives home after a failed mission to buy meat. Karl returns to the front without reconciliation. The attack is now on. The student is killed during brutal hand-to-hand combat and Yvette’s home (which she is reluctant to leave as her lover will not be able to find her) is destroyed. Karl and the Bavarian volunteer for a suicidal mission, and, after a lengthy battle, the Bavarian is killed and Karl is injured fatally. As he lies in hospital, the lieutenant—now insane —is carried in. After Karl dies, an injured Frenchman in the next bed holds his hand and calls him his comrade. Westfront 1918 was based on the book Vier von der Infanterie (Four Infantrymen on the Western Front) by Ernst Johannsen which had been published in 1929. In common with a number of countries, anti-war literature appeared in abundance in Germany in the late 1920s. This was a marked difference from the immediate post-war years when pro-war memoirs, diaries and literature were pre-eminent. This move towards documentary realism and objectivity can be seen to be part, perhaps even the culmination, of the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity)—the art movement which had emerged in the mid-1920s once political and financial life had begun to improve and which effectively replaced expressionism.19 Joining Johannsen’s book were Ludwig Renn’s War (1928), Edlef Köppen’s Higher Command (1930) and, most important of all, Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, amongst many others. The reputation of few of these writers has survived, and Johannsen is no exception. Whilst Remarque was world-famous in 1930, Johannsen was unknown (as he has remained), even though his book was translated into English by A.W.Wheen (translator of All Quiet on the Western Front) and published in London in 1930 as Four Infantrymen on the Western Front, 1918.20 There is no evidence that the book has been reprinted and it is rarely mentioned in surveys of war literature. Though the book (like the film) is not as good as Remarque’s classic it deserves greater recognition. Four Infantrymen on the Western Front, 1918 is set almost solely on the battlefield. It was dedicated ‘ln Memory of the Slain’ and has as its prologue the statement Unto Death: THEY marched, these Four, in sun, and rain and wind,—in mud of the roads, in ice and snow— through flowering lands, through the desolate waste—by day, by night, to victories and terrible loss. Though eloquently written, it is a grim and bitter book, which lacks the humanity of Remarque. The horrors of war are overwhelming: there are dead bodies, bodies without limbs, injured bodies; bodies mutilated by gas and eaten by rats; dead bodies left unburied. The four protagonists, Job, Lornsen (Karl in the film), the student and Müller (the Lieutenant is a separate character), serve at the front but are just waiting for the end, outgunned, outnumbered, resigned to their fate—a slow death, as one of them states. Like the film, the novel opens with the men in the French billets. Following this, it is set wholly at the front. The scene with Lornsen’s (Karl’s) wife is included as a flashback, though he seems more amused about his discovery than in the film. The comradeship of enemies and of compatriots is here, though this is towards the beginning rather than the close. At one point the author states: Community in danger and in face of death has stirred a sense of bitter comradeship among the men of the trenches. For the Germans this embraces even the enemy. He is also ‘Comrade.’ He also is under the great shadow…. The Americans, English and French sometimes give evidence of this feeling too.

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All those who actually fight one another with weapons feel themselves to be comrades, feel a tie that binds them together.21 All four die in the end: Müller walks off and is killed; Lornsen is wounded and begs Job to end his life, which he does; Job is blown to bits by a grenade and the student is shot. The book ends with the epigraph followed by the words: They fought, and knew not to what end; they died without hope, without consolation, dully resigned to their fate…. No memorial tells of their suffering; and words fly like leaves on the wind. Over the bodies of ten million slain, life goes its accustomed way.22 Westfront 1918 was first shown at the Capitol Cinema, Berlin, on 23 May 1930. The reception was generally good wherever it was released though Lee Atwell, Pabst’s biographer, claimed that German reviewers were critical: [whilst] acknowledging Pabst’s artistry, the press found little to praise in a work that so graphically showed German military defeat, especially at a time when the country was already primed for another war for the Fatherland.23 This was not the case, however. Michael Geisler has surveyed the reviews and concludes that most praised the film. A critic in the Berliner Tageblatt said: ‘ln the fight against war…[Westfront 1918 is] worth more than thousands of books, pamphlets, and articles’;24 another, in Die literarische Welt, described it as ‘the most important German film in years’.25 One dissenting voice was provided by the Communist Party, though as it had traditionally rejected pacifism this is unsurprising. For Siegfried Kracauer it was an important historical film, though he disliked the sections on life at home. He wrote in the Frankfurter Zeitung: Already a generation has reached the age of maturity which does not know those years from personal experience. They have to see, and see time and again, what they have not seen for themselves. It is unlikely that the things they see will work as a deterrent, but they must at least know about them.26 Unsurprisingly, the Right disliked the film. The German economy by mid-1930 had entered crisis with the worldwide depression and once again political turmoil dominated the headlines. However, the Nazis lacked the organisational skills and muscle which within a few months was to provide such determined opposition to All Quiet on the Western Front. Although attempts were made at the première to end the performance, the Nazis were opposed by war veterans. Westfront 1918 was eventually banned—along with other pacifist films—on 27 April 1933, following Nazi victory. In France the film was released in both a dubbed and the original version in December 1930 as Quatre de I’ lnfanterie. According to Variety’s Paris reviewer it was a success, with full cinemas.27 There were fears initially that the film would be banned as it was controversial (only a month before All Quiet on the Western Front had faced riots in Germany) and because it showed fraternisation between French and Germans. Cuts were made to the opening sequence and to some of the shellhole shots to accommodate this criticism. More importantly, Charles Delac, a partner in the distribution company, was also President of the French Producers’ Union and was friendly with the government. This ensured distribution. To link with

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10 The desolate, barren landscape of war in Westfront 1918 (1930).

contemporary debates about peace, a trailer with brief comments from Jose Germain, President of the Union of French Authors (essentially a war veterans’ organisation), was shown prior to each performance. For Variety’s Paris reviewer Westfront 1918 was better than Milestone’s film: [All Quiet on the] Western Front voices clearly a conclusion. This German production leaves it to the spectator to draw that conclusion for himself, and he can’t fail to do it. This effort is unquestionably far more realistic and horrible than the American film. Its picturization of the war scenes is unsurpassed and technically perfect.28 The film was released in its original version in the United States in February 1931 as Comrades of 1918. The response was generally favourable, though by now American critics and audiences had seen All Quiet on the Western Front become an instant classic. Mordaunt Hall for the New York Times said it was wellacted with splendid war scenes, but failed to provide good entertainment. What it did offer was the reality of war: There are the trees that are stripped of leaves and branches, the stakes bearing the barbed wire, the seared earth; men darting hither and thither, hiding in shell holes, tossing bombs, firing machine guns…. Only the skies above appear to be at peace—on the days when airplanes are not buzzing around and dropping their loads of high-explosives—and occasional puffs of smoke soar up and join the soft clouds that are silvered by the sunlight.29

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Earlier the Berlin correspondent of the New York Times had been enthusiastic, though he had not yet seen Journey’s End and All Quiet on the Western Front. He called Westfront 1918 ‘the most vivid argument yet contrived against war…[which drove] home the senseless brutality of war as nothing else’.30 This view was shared by Time who said it was ‘one of the best directed and most gruesome of War pictures’.31 The Variety reviewer also praised the war scenes, the acting, photography and sound, though it was too long. Overall, it was ‘a well made episodic war film telling no story except the horror of conflict’.32 Despite the lack of sub-titles or dubbing, both Time and Variety felt that it would do good business. Indeed, Variety said that the film was ‘as good without as with dialog’.33 One critical comment was made by the New Yorker critic who said ‘It’s the horrors of war again, and there are some bits as truly agonizing as anything we have seen…. If you don’t know German…you are going to be floored by the story.’34 Westfront 1918 was first shown in Britain by the Film Society on 6 December 1931. It was not widely distributed, no doubt because of the lack of a sub-titled print (seven exploratory titles were included in the English release version). The impact, therefore, was less widespread than elsewhere, though Richard Whitehall—in a lengthy study of the film (written in late 1960) —said that ‘it appears to have impressed itself deeply on the minds of those people who saw it’.35 Bryher—reporting for Close Up from Berlin—praised the film: In the course of another generation, when the history of the cinema comes to be written, it is probable that Westfront 1918 will occupy the same position with regard to the sound film that Potemkin occupies in relationship to the silent picture…. [E]very moment of this film is experimental, creative experiment with a new medium, sound as connected with visual motion…it should be recorded that real creation with sound and movement began with Westfront 1918, and history must owe something always to this film, and to its use of visual image with auditory sensation…. [I]n Westfront 1918 there is no static moment, it moves more swiftly than any film I have seen, except for some sequences in the work of Eisenstein.36 For The Times, however, it was flawed: [It] is at its best and strongest when the characters are actually in the trenches, but Pabst’s control falters slightly when he follows them home on leave. The rhythm is somehow jolted and broken, and his touch, so subtle and sure in building up the picture of life in the front line, becomes almost ponderous.37 Pabst is regarded as having been unlucky with the release of Westfront 1918 as it was swamped by Journey’s End and All Quiet on the Western Front. Despite attempts since then to promote the film, it remains a rarely shown classic. Those who have seen it tend to differ on the film’s importance. In Robert Hughes’s 1960s survey of twenty-nine leading film makers, historians and critics on the greatest films covering the issues of war and peace, only two—Richard Griffith and Paul Rotha—named Westfront 1918, as against twelve who listed All Quiet on the Western Front.38 Basil Wright felt it was a’curiously pedestrian job…[which] showed the boredom of war, but …missed both heart and horror’.39 More positively, Jack Spears felt that it was better than All Quiet on the Western Front as it had ‘more sustained realism, less sentimentality and…none of the obvious peace propaganda’.40 William Uricchio has said that Pabst ‘avoids sensationalist pathos and emotionalism, providing…a sober exposé of the consequences of war’.41 Finally, according to Richard Whitehall:

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[It] must still be included amongst the finest war films yet made; thirty years have neither dimmed its quality nor lessened the validity of its thesis. Truth is a rare virtue, and what we seem to get from Westfront is truth, plain and unvarnished. Many films have survived on less.42 Westfront 1918 is important, therefore, though it is not on a par with the classic anti-war films. Despite moments—in particular some of the battlefield scenes—it fails to convey the emotion of, for example, All Quiet on the Western Front. It is slow in parts and, whilst there may be verisimilitude in the combat scenes, one of these is far too long to retain interest. Nevertheless, there remain moments of considerable power. Westfront 1918 conveyed the traditional antiwar messages about the brutality of conflict, the suffering of those at the front and at home, the futility of it all. There are traditional motifs: the queues for meat, the good food enjoyed by the High Command, the masses of wooden crosses and the cathedral as the hospital. War is undoubtedly hell—on the battlefield and off. On the battlefield, death is the only result whether it is from artillery, combat, mechanised warfare or grenade. All the leads die, apart from the Lieutenant, who is driven mad. The scene in the trench where he is hit is one of the most memorable in war films, and his rapid descent into madness one of the most powerful and disturbing. Off the battlefield, Karl finds that his wife has been unfaithful due to his absence and the lack of food in the house. He seems to accept this; he has, after all, been at the front for over eighteen months, and the lack of food is apparent when his mother is forced to queue for hours with no result. His volunteering for the suicide mission, however, is perhaps a realisation that his life is at its end. Karl has lost his loved one. He also loses his friend, the student, who in turn Yvette loses when he is killed. One aspect of the film which almost all commentators mentioned was the use of sound, in particular the noise of battle. The sound film was still in its infancy in 1930 and few directors had managed to come to terms with the new technology. Pabst, however, was aware of the opportunities and ‘spoke out in favor of a realistic use of sound’ according to Hans-Michael Bock.43 He viewed a number of Hollywood sound productions in London in preparation for the project. He was also recognised early by film writers as one of the few directors able to cope with the new technology. C.A.Lejeune said that for Pabst: [sound] illumined suddenly all his old experiments in the light of new meaning; given him a new breadth, a new maturity; enlarged him into a world for which he seems to have been groping from his first tentative shot…. Of all the directors in Germany, Pabst has rallied most quickly from the attack of the dialogue film. It shocked him for a minute, then stimulated him, and while the others were still hesitating and experimenting, feeling for a market with imitative American models, struggling for an international angle, he rushed in with the fiercely national and courageous Westfront 1918.44 The technology of film in the early sound era was not only of importance to Westfront 1918—it was of crucial importance to all war films and to the perception of war. Referring to All Quiet on the Western Front and Westfront 1918, Samuel Hynes said in his A War Imagined, ‘Nothing like them had been, or could have been done before’: That they could be made in 1930 was partly a matter of film technology. Sound had been introduced, and soldiers in war films could now speak. More importantly, the noise of battle could be reproduced…. The volume of noise did more than add to the realism; it altered the balance in war films

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between men and the machinery of war…the personal and the human were subordinated to the vast cacophonous machine.45 Another important component was the sets. Pabst was fortunate in a number of his films in having good set designers. With the problem of new technology, and a German tradition of using sets rather than locations, much of the battlefield (and, later, the mines in Kameradschaft) had to be recreated. They were undoubtedly realistic. It is not enough, though, to stress only the horrors of war. This was a particular problem for Siegfried Kracauer who in 1947 revised his earlier opinion of the film. Whilst Westfront 1918 is pacifist, it is deeply flawed, he said: Its fundamental weakness consists in not transgressing the limits of pacifism itself…. [It] tends to demonstrate that war is intrinsically monstrous and senseless; but this indictment of war is not supported by the slightest hint of its causes, let alone any insight into them.46 This reliance on the horrors, rather than the causes, of war was a common error of those opposed to conflict according to Kracauer as ‘many pacifists …indulge in the belief that the mere sight of such horrors suffices to deter people from war’.47 Whilst Pabst may not have covered the causes of conflict, he at least alluded to possible solutions with a positive message of great hope. He wanted to promote better relations between France and Germany, and his film did this cthrough the love between the student and Yvette. Whilst this was set in 1918, Pabst was addressing the 1930s audience: Yvette’s reluctance to leave as her lover would be unable to find her showed

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11 ‘Moi, camarade…pas enemie, pas enemie’ —bridging nationalism and hatred in Westfront 1918 (1930).

that she saw her future with a German, as Pabst saw his country’s future with France. This is the rationale behind the films end. As the French soldier grasps the hand of the now dead Karl, he says: ‘Moi, camarade… pas enemie, pas enemie’ —‘Me comrade …not enemy, not enemy’. Pabst’s closing message, Ende?! — expressed in huge letters—showed that he feared that his hopes might not be fulfilled, however. This is one of the greatest, most moving endings in all cinema history. As Vera Brittain said, in death there is no nationality.48 It was helped by the effective use of the lighting; as Karl dies the light is slowly toned down until only a grey outline of his face is left. Pabst followed Westfront 1918 with his controversial film of Bertolt Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera, which was censored for a time and eventually banned by the Nazis. During this period he led the Union of German Film Workers, and used his time to oppose censorship and interference. Building on the debate engendered by the release of both All Quiet on the Western Front and Westfront 1918 he said that: the suppression of intellectual work by censorship, by businessmen on one hand and the state on the other, must be combatted and in the end run banished. We need films with political commitment; we need new themes. And especially we directors dare not forget that no sort of isolation should destroy film art’s connection to the masses, because the task of the film director is not an aesthetic, but rather an ethical one.49 A number of projects foundered before he made his second great commentary on the war, Kameradschaft. This offered the political commitment and the new themes he sought as it provided an innovative view of resolving conflict between nations. Although it was praised by the critics, particularly in France (where it had been released in a co-produced version, La Tragédie de la Mine), it found few viewers.

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The simple story of Kameradschaft is a successful attempt by German miners to rescue their French colleagues caught in a disaster on the Franco-German border. In doing so it passed comment on such controversial issues as national barriers, race, the poverty of frontiers and the common purpose of men of similar employment. In its attempts to show the unity of French and German peoples, it was in a sense the sequel to Westfront 1918. Kameradschaft was based on a true story of the mine disaster at Courrières, eight years before the outbreak of the war, though Pabst changed the time to the post-Versailles period and the location to Lorraine. At first there is hostility between the citizens of the two nations: a French and German boy argue over marbles and a French woman refuses to dance with a German man. There is no grudge, however. He joins in the later rescue attempt with the others even though they had been refused jobs in the mine. There is one war scene—a flashback showing fighting—though this is seen as irrelevant; as one of the characters says: ‘the miner has only two enemies—gas and war’. The international message is symbolised with the destruction by the German rescuers of the iron border fence marked ‘Frontière 1919’. John Grierson called it ‘brave and powerful’, ‘superb propaganda for international understanding’, though not ‘a world shaker’: ‘the point about brotherhood [is] emphasized far too much. The frontiers are broken down too much; the contrast of the war is played too much; the symbolic hand-clasp is held for exactly four seconds too long.’50 Pabst was made a member of the Légion d’Honneur by the French government for his promotion of better understanding between the two countries. The film community paid its own tribute when Kameradschaft was voted one of the best films of all time at the Brussels World Exposition of 1958. Kameradschaft, was, perhaps, the epitome of Pabst’s world view—the most socialist of his films. No better piece of cinema has carried as its metaphoric banner the slogan ‘workers of the world unite’; and only La Grande Illusion (see chapter 7) has highlighted the issue of similarity of class and employment across national divisions—or ‘Kumpel ist Kumpel’, workers are the same everywhere, as one of the German speakers in the film puts it. This comradeship was not to last, however. In the film, an epilogue shows the 1919 barrier being reconstructed (though this was cut in later releases); in real life, a Second World War with French and Germans as enemies broke out. Almost simultaneously with the release of Kameradschaft came Niemandsland, directed by Victor Trivas, the story of five enemy soldiers caught in no-man’s-land. The five—a Frenchman, a British officer, a Jewish tailor, a black dancer and a German carpenter—find that, in their enforced captivity, they regain humanity. The film fomented considerable debate. In many ways, Trivas was arguing a similar point to Pabst that, shorn of enmity, people can, when together, rid themselves of the confines of nationhood and race. That said, Niemandsland lacked the eloquence of Kameradschaft. Variety’s Berlin reviewer said it was ‘An idea too big for its pocket book’, with no chance of a decent box office.51 Siegfried Kracauer said later that it was poor, feeling that the peace that results between the men is unnatural— ‘an emergency brotherhood’.52 As the five walk off together at the end, he says, ‘From no-man’s land they move towards never-never land, and the war continues.’53 In Britain—where it was released as War is Hell (the BBFC had rejected the suggested title, Disarmament) —the film was received well. On its original release in 1932, it was described by the Daily Mail as ‘one of the most remarkable films yet made’ and by the Observer as ‘one of the most significant bits of work to come to this country since talkies began’. On its re-release, it was pushed hard by the League of Nations Union. A prologue spoken by its Chairman, Professor Gilbert Murray, was added.54 Trivas left Germany after the Nazis came to power and went to work in Hollywood. Pabst also left Germany (following the production of Kameradschaft), though in his case for France, and he stayed there when Hitler took power. Around this time, he re-stated his position of independence from government. In an

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12 French and Germans meet in peace in Kameradschaft (1931)

interview in Cinema Quarterly he said: There must be freedom to follow a determined line once and for all…. The cinema is the mirror of our epoch in which everything must be reflected and imprinted forever.’55 He continued to insert social comment in his work. His end to his historical study of Don Quichotte (Don Quixote), a Franco-British production of 1933, has a book-burning which mirrored the almost contemporaneous book-burnings of the Nazis.

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Later that year Pabst joined a number of writers and film makers in exile in Hollywood. Amongst émigré Germans he was seen as the most important of anti-Nazi film makers, and he was a director whom the Nazis wished to see return. It was not a place where he found happiness: the studio system was difficult, there were language problems, and most executives knew little of the man and his work. He made A Modern Hero for Warner Brothers in 1934 which failed, and wrote four screenplays, none of which reached production. One of these, War is Declared, was in the tradition of Westfront 1918 and Kameradschaft. Pabst had been commissioned by Paramount to write the screenplay for S.O.S. (the title was changed later) which was to be directed by Liam O’Flaherty and produced by B.P.Schulberg. The film highlighted the splits then beginning to appear in Europe with the accession to power of the Nazis. Peter Lorre was to play the lead rôle of a mad radio operator who informs the passengers on his ship that war has broken out. The passengers split into fascist and democratic supporters, conflict results and the ship sinks. The survivors then realise their errors and agree to work together. There are differing views about why the film failed to be made. The Pabst family believe it was due to objections from the American government and censors, though the MPPDA approved the screenplay in September 1934 (they did, however, object to the film being made in 1937 when the proposal had been put forward again by Schulberg).56 This view is supported by John Russell Taylor who said that as America was turning its back on the world at this stage, the film ‘seemed tactless, to say the least’.57 The actual answer is more simple, as Jan-Christopher Horak has said. In 1934, Schulberg was facing difficulty with Paramount and had left the studio by the end of the year, joining Columbia Pictures in early 1935. Amongst all the confusion, Pabst’s film seemed to fall.58 Pabst returned to France in some misery in 1936 (he criticised Hollywood extensively in a 1937 essay). Germany still wanted to have him back, but he refused. However, he was injured during a visit to his mother who was living in an area controlled by the Nazis (he had by this stage decided to return to America and had gone to say goodbye). As war had broken out he was forced to stay. He made a number of films during this time, working with Leni Riefenstahl amongst others. It is hard not to see him as a collaborator, even though he argued later that his films were nothing more than historical reconstructions. These, and much of his post-war work, were generally poor and ensured an undistinguished and uncomfortable end to a career that had shone bright in the glory days of German cinema. He died in May 1967. The ascendancy of the Nazis meant a different cinema—the cinema of propaganda—leading to the creation of some of the most repellent, clever (and often magnificent) films of Leni Riefenstahl. First, however, there was a score to settle. The Nazis hated the pacifist films, seeing them as a betrayal of the German soldier. One response was to ban them; another was to make films which accepted the brutality of war but at the same time did not condemn Germany. According to Kracauer, the film Stosstrupp 1917 (Shock Troop 1917) was a direct rebuttal of Westfront 1918, with its new objectivity documentary realism and its lack of heroism, culminating at the end of the war with Germany’s survival. In its attitude towards war, German cinema differed little from that in Europe and in the United States. Used as propaganda during the conflict itself, it gradually evolved into outright opposition through the work of Pabst and Trivas. The ascendancy to power of the Nazis meant that no period of consolidation was possible. Nonetheless, the appearance of Westfront 1918 meant that the year 1930 proved to be an annus mirabilis for the anti-war movement in which world cinema seemed to reflect the prevailing view that conflict was no solution and that reconciliation between nations was the way forward.

Chapter 7 The French cinema and the war J’accuse, Verdun, visions d’ histoire, Les Croix de bois and La Grande Illusion

The release, just after the signing of the Armistice, of Abel Gance’s epic J’accuse, could have led many to speculate that a spirit of pacifism and anti-militarism was already present in France. Of all countries involved in the war, this early revulsion was felt most in France where over 1,400,000 men had lost their lives and another million had been permanently injured. It was also the country where the first of the great antiwar novels, Henri Barbusse’s Le Feu (Under Fire), was published in 1916, winning the Prix Goncourt the following year. However, the great success of J’accuse at home and internationally failed to foment a surge of similar films in Europe or Hollywood. Like much of world film production after 1918 it was to be many years before the horrors of the war and the need to prevent further conflict were put forward on the screen. In 1928 Verdun, visions d’ histoire was released, followed in 1932 with the French companion to the Milestone and Pabst classics, Les Croix de bois (Wooden Crosses). Such films, like J’accuse, have great merit but it was the release in 1937 of Jean Renoir’s La Grande Illusion, which provides France’s main contribution to anti-war film making. La Grande Illusion is unique in anti-war cinema; it contains no battle scenes, no fighting and very little killing. Two-thirds of the film is set in prison camps whilst the final third covers the escape from captivity of two of the leads. Through this refusal to fight war with war scenes, Renoir provides considerable insight into the human condition and develops a message of great humanity. In common with much of Europe, the French film industry—one of the leaders on the continent and on a par with America in 1914—collapsed virtually overnight with the declaration of war.1 Although everyone involved expected the war to be a short one, cinemas and theatres were closed, studios lost technicians, directors and actors, and facilities were requisitioned for the effort. The immediate effect was catastrophic; in the long term the industry was never to regain its pre-war predominance. As the optimistic hopes of the departing soldiers were dispelled with the onset of trench stalemate, the government allowed the industry to restart filming and some cinemas and theatres were reopened to maintain domestic morale. Inevitably, such production was limited and tended, in common with that in other combatant countries, to be devoted to propaganda. Film d’Art and Pathé made a number of fictional and historical films with war-related patriotic themes. All four major companies—Gaumont, Pathé, Eclipse and Eclair—contributed cameramen to the Service Photographique et Cinématographique de I’Armée, formed in February 1915. Although restricted to activity behind the lines until the summer of 1916, a newsreel, Annales de la Guerre, was produced weekly. However, audiences tired rapidly of crude propaganda and demands for a return to pre-war-style entertainment were soon satisfied with Hollywood products. The first of Mack Sennett’s Keystone comedies arrived in the summer of 1915, followed quickly by Chaplin (known affectionately as Charlot) and a Pearl White serial. The quality of imported films was higher than the home industry could offer: by 1917 over 50 per cent of cinema programmes in Paris consisted of American productions.2 Two years later

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the position had worsened. In 1919 over 25,000 metres of imported film (most of which was American) was shown weekly in France for every 5,000 metres of indigenous material, according to Cinématographie française.3 The expansion of the American film into France also influenced the organisation of the home industry. In addition to the strictures on production caused by the war, local companies were unable to fulfil the demands placed on them as distributors. This led to a number of American companies establishing their own offices in Paris. At this time Gaumont told its newly acquired director from the theatre, Léon Poirier (later to direct Verdun, visions d’ histoire) that while French factories produced material for the war effort, the Americans ‘made films… [and] conquered the market’.4 Realising that the position was virtually irreversible, Gaumont expanded its import distribution. Their prognosis was straightforward: ‘American technique and French subtitles, that is what must be done now’.5 Indeed, the domination by Hollywood was such that a number of directors and technicians were sent to Los Angeles to study the film industry. Within the midst of this crisis and confusion, and with the war approaching its end, Abel Gance commenced work on J’accuse.6 His was the first pacifist film to enter production in the combatant countries since the intervention of the United States in 1917 and, significantly, it was made with the assistance of the French army. A number of factors inspired Gance in the production. His front-line experience as an army cinematographer (he had been rejected seven times by the enlistment boards) taught him that war was to be avoided at all costs. During this time he filmed the battle of St Mihiel which he used later in the main combat sequence in J’accuse. He was influenced strongly by the deaths of many of his friends (nine out of ten he was later to say) and by Barbusse’s novel. Finally, Gance knew that D.W.Griffith was at work on his own film about the war, Hearts of the World, and, having seen Intolerance in 1917, he wanted to emulate the great master (though there may also have been some professional jealousy involved). When Gance left the army he started work on Ecce Homo but the production was left in abeyance and in debt when Film d’Art ran out of money. A saviour for his career was found in Charles Pathé: Gance wrote to him about the troubles with the film and also told him of future plans; Pathé responded by agreeing to settle the debt and told him to make J’accuse. Although there is some confusion about the film’s exact origins, there seems little doubt that its pacifist themes reflected the director’s personal views. The loss of so many friends and colleagues in the industry had affected him deeply. His diary for 1916 states: How I wish that all those killed in the war would rise up one night and return to their countries, their homes, to see if their sacrifice was worth anything at all. The war would stop of its own accord, horrified by its own awfulness. Until 1914,1 suffered only for myself, but for the last two years I have suffered for everyone else…. Oh, to walk naked between the two trenches and make each side hesitate to fire for fear of killing one of their own. Because what one shoots at in war is not men, but uniforms.7 Later he told Kevin Brownlow that he was against war because it ‘is foolish’: Ten or twenty years afterward, one reflects that millions have died and all for nothing. One has found friends among one’s old enemies, and enemies among one’s friends…. One doesn’t have the right to play with people’s lives. People’s lives are sacred.8

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13 The return of the dead in J’accuse (1919)—Abel Gance’s plea for an end to war.

J‘accuse tells the story of Edith, a French woman, loved by her husband, François (a violent but sympathetic man) and Jean, a poet. Although this makes them enemies, both serve in the same battalion and are reconciled after Jean replaces François on a dangerous mission. When Jean comes home to see his dying mother he finds that Edith has returned from German captivity with a child. François also arrives on leave and a violent fight is stopped only when Edith explains that she was raped while in prison. Both men return to the front where François is killed and Jean is driven mad by shellshock. When Jean returns home he calls up the dead of the war (as Gance’s diary had outlined) and their broken, disabled figures confront the villagers. Jean, embittered, goes home and dies. The film proved to be a great success wherever it was released, even in the full version of nearly three hours: Gance recalled that women fainted during its London run; a Prague newspaper wrote that if the film ‘had been shown in every country and in every town in the world in 1913, then perhaps there would have been no war’9 and, when D.W.Griffith and Lillian Gish saw the film in 1921 in the United States, they were so moved that they were unable to speak for hours. Although some of the military scenes are regarded as unrealistic, the battle sequences resemble newsreel. There are also moments of great poignancy and considerable cinematic invention. The title sequence consists of a mass of soldiers coming together to form the letters of J’accuse. The news that war has started is conveyed simply by a little girl and is followed by a number of scenes summed up by the title ‘ln all the houses in the village, the humble moments of parting were played out in all their touching details.’ This is followed by a series of shots of men, played by real soldiers, all resigned to their fate. Between the closeups of the faces, a series of titles print actual letters written by soldiers (many of them from two of Gance’s friends killed during the war).

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The return of the dead sequence is ‘an allegorical scene of unique and bizarre power’,10 according to Kevin Brownlow. It was described by Jean in Gance’s book of the film published in 1922: I was on sentry duty on the battlefield…. All your dead were there, all your cherished dead. Then a miracle happened; a soldier near me slowly rose to his feet under the moon. I started to run, terrified, but suddenly the dead man spoke. I heard him say, ‘Comrades, we must know if we have been of any use! Let us go and judge whether the people are worthy of us, of our sacrifice! Rise up! Rise up, all of you!’ And the dead obeyed. I ran in front of them to forewarn you. They’re on the march! They’re coming! They will be here soon and you will have to answer for yourselves! They will return to their resting places with joy if their sacrifice has been to some purpose.11 The poignancy is strengthened by what is known of the making of the film. The army provided two thousand soldiers for the sequence, most being on eight days leave after four years of fighting. Gance said: ‘These men had come straight from the Front—from Verdun…. They played the dead knowing that in all probability they’d be dead themselves before long. Within a few weeks of their return, eighty per cent had been killed.’12 Jean’s death provides the culmination of the film. Just before dying he tears up as rubbish Les Pacifiques, the poems praising peace he had written in the belle époque. One poem forms a title: My name is Jean Diaz, but I have changed my Muse! My dulcet name of yesterday has become ‘J’accuse!’ And I accuse you, Sun, Of having given light to this appalling age. Silently, placidly, without reproach, Like a hideous face with tongue cut out, From your heights of blue, sadistically contorted, You watch indifferently to the very end! Even the sun is guilty and, as that dies away, so does Jean. Kevin Brownlow says that the film continues to retain its power: ‘Creativity bursts out of its every scene. The picture bristles with ideas; like the force of a shock-troop assault, it carries you along with its narrative, throws you into its objective, and leaves you at the end shaken and sobered.’13 Roy Armes also praises the film: Grandiose and banal, naïve and impressively baroque, J’accuse is quite the opposite of a sober documentary record. Gance’s approach is resolutely apolitical, but the film constitutes an eloquent denunciation of the horrors of the war which had torn Europe in two, told with some of the most strikingly audacious imagery as yet created in French cinema.14 However, Richard Abel is more critical. Whilst it was a brilliant move to title the picture with the same powerful epigraph as Zola’s defence of Dreyfus, he argues that this was a little presumptuous. It fails also to fulfil its promise of providing a ‘provocative film treatment of the war, completely different from the propagandistic and pacifist films previously seen in such abundance’.15 For Abel it is neither rabble-rousing nor radical:

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in its attempt to expose the horrors of war and to accuse those responsible …[the] film does not avoid a conventional moralizing and a certain chauvinism…. Seemingly critical of a patriotism that blindly ignores the death it causes, J’accuse ends up celebrating the dead’s sacrifice as a form of patriotism.16 It was to be another six years before the war returned to the French screen in any detail. The improved international climate sponsored by the Locarno Treaty, the success of The Big Parade, and the planning for the tenth anniversary of the Armistice prompted a number of productions. Prominent amongst these were two documentaries produced by the association of war veterans using material held by the Archives d’Art et l’Histoire: Pour la paix du monde and Verdun, visions d’ histoire. Of the two French productions, it was Verdun, visions d’ histoire that proved the most important. Léon Poirier, director and co-scenarist, initially received governmental assistance but this was withdrawn. Although no explanation was given, it is likely that financial or political problems intervened. Whatever the reason, this had little impact as Poirier was still allowed to use official footage and was given permission to film on the actual battlefields. Poirier eschewed conventional narrative and chose also to avoid names, using anonymous characters like the French soldier, the German soldier, the boy and the mother to highlight the suffering of all the French people in the war. Albert Préjean—a veteran—was chosen to play the lead rôle of the French soldier, and in his autobiography17 he referred briefly to the film and his bitter memories of the war. When he enlisted, Préjean realised that he was ‘too young to understand the futility of wars’,18 and he headed off enthusiastically for combat where he became a flyer and was injured. He was awarded five medals— including the Croix de Guerre -although he never wore them: ‘We valued them very little at the time, and [now] they make me look older than my age’,19 he said. In the few references to Verdun, visions d’ histoire he recalled one incident which has an important lesson for all who strive for verisimilitude. Poirier ordered him to get his hair cut as, he claimed, no poilu wore much hair under his helmet. Préjean, who knew more than Poirier, said no, then acquiesced, even though his now almost bare head was rarely seen. His only comment on the film was: ‘ln the mud once more, and facing the risk of stepping accidentally on to an unexploded mine, I recaptured, rather sadly, the spirit of ‘14–’18. This time it would be really stupid to get killed or wounded.’20 Préjean also participated in the Second World War and his comments on this are indicative of his feelings about conflict: I’d gone off to the first one to the sound of drums, wearing heavy boots, and with a heart full of ‘Allons, enfants!’ This time the drums and the nailed boots were there, but the heart was missing. A war plus a war does a lot of things…for instance, making an old trooper twice as less enthusiastic.21 Verdun, visions d’ histoire had its première at the Opéra between 10 and 18 November 1928 for the tenth anniversary of the Armistice and was released the following summer (it was re-released in 1932 in sound, as a fully reworked version of the original film). It seemed to suit the mood of the time and proved to be popular. It was also important politically: in 1929 Close Up thought its propaganda value comparable to October and The End of St Petersburg.22 Seen today the film appears confusing, no doubt caused by an incomplete print. Nevertheless, there remain praiseworthy moments and great poignancy: an encounter at night in no-man’s-land is shown in all its horrific detail; a German attack approaches realism and the film culminates with a huge graveyard covered in white crosses (a familiar image in anti-war cinema, its first use being in The Four Horsemen of

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the Apocalypse). Poirier ends by illustrating the rebirth of the country with seeds being sown on the devastated earth. Significantly, Poirier used French veterans and German soldiers to help reenact the battle. One of these summed up the spirit of the enterprise in a letter to the director: ‘Your film will do much to promote peace by bringing together France and Germany because we both need to better understand the spectacle of our common suffering.’23 At the same time as the documentary and reconstruction film was bringing the war back to the French screen, there were tentative moves to reintroduce fictional films about the conflict. An example in the late 1920s was Maurice Tourneur’s L’Equipage, a Franco-American production about air combat. Although the French critics praised the film, it was not liked by audiences. Tourneur faced accusations of cowardice (he had returned to France to make a film about the war but had stayed away during the conflict itself) and the protests were such that he was forced to go to Germany. His cameraman, Lucien Andriot, who had also failed to fight in 1914, was imprisoned on his return to France in the 1930s. The best of the French fictional films about the war prior to La Grande Illusion is also one of the least known: Les Croix de bois24 Directed by Raymond Bernard from Roland Dorgelès’ best-selling novel from 1919, it received a special presentation at the Rialto Theatre in Geneva for the League of Nations in May 1932 and was released to widespread critical acclaim. It proved so impressive, in fact, that Fox purchased the film for release in the United States. Les Croix de bois portrays two main characters, Bréval (a banker) and Demachy (a student). They enlist in the patriotism of the early days of the war only to be disillusioned with the fear, mud and hunger. Whilst at the front the Germans dig a tunnel under their trench ready for mining. They know that so long as they hear the miners they will be safe, but tension increases as the diggers pause for rest. The trench is destroyed five minutes after they have left. Later they face ten days of heavy bombardment and lose a number of their comrades. When it is over the troops’ rest is ruined when the High Command declares the action a victory and demands a parade. The tired and demoralised men are forced to march and sing again, only to discover that leave has been cancelled. Back at the front Bréval is killed; as he dies he worries about the future of his child. Demachy is also wounded on the battlefield but the medics fail to hear his weak cries and he is left to die. The film has rarely been seen in this form. Fox realised quickly that a sub-titled version would have limited appeal and favoured a remake. William Faulkner was assigned to write a new version but it proved a difficult task. Over the next four years he contributed to six different scripts, each one moving further away from the original (in the meantime some of the footage was used in The World Moves On). It was finally released in 1936 as The Road to Glory, directed by Howard Hawks, starring Warner Baxter, Fredric March and Lionel Barrymore and with a joint credit for Faulkner and Joel Sayre for the screenplay (though both Nunnally Johnson—Associate Producer —and Hawks made contributions).25 Although Hawks retained some of the original story, and much of the footage (ironically making one of the leads in the original an extra), this went uncredited and a number of plot lines were added. This does not necessarily make it a bad film and there is much of value in The Road to Glory. It moves away from Bernard’s emphasis on the trials of the poilu to concentrate, like Journey’s End, on the pressures forced on front-line officers by the responsibilities of command. It also shows the war to be unending, despite the deaths and sacrifice. In this it is quite pacifistic but the second part—where the soldiers fight for France and two of the leads sacrifice themselves—is more concerned with patriotism. The mine sequence was expanded considerably, though retaining much of its power, and a sub-plot was introduced with Baxter and March fighting for the love of a French nurse (played by June Lang).

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Hawks introduced a new character with Lionel Barrymore playing Baxter’s father, Papa La Roche (Old Man). A proud, patriotic man, veteran of many a French battle, La Roche enlists even though he is too old and in spite of his son’s objections. Whilst on wiring duty at the front he mistakes an approaching French group for Germans and throws a grenade. He is arrested and only redeems himself when he leads a now blind Baxter on a successful, though suicidal, reconnaissance mission. Reviewers appeared confused by the film, though generally they provided great praise, pronouncing it, according to the Literary Digest, ‘a thumping triumph in objectivity’.26 The Motion Picture Review called it indecisive although ‘no one should come away from seeing it with any sentimental flag-waving emotions…. The horror and uselessness of war are shown.’27 The Film Daily also made this point: ‘There is very little preaching, but the visualisation of the horrors of war is full enough to get across the message.’28 Time treated it with more equanimity. ‘It presents the spectacle of fighting on the Western Front with definitely sadistic relish’, it said. ‘Neither patriotic poppycock nor pacifistic preachment…[it] is sure to enjoy a vast popularity …partly attributable to the fact that it can be mistaken for either.’29 This view was shared by the Monthly Film Bulletin in Britain which said that the realistic and poignant horrors of war are ‘negatived by the introduction of a nationalistic patriotism which does not ring true’.30 Whilst The Road to Glory is ambiguous, Les Croix de bois is more uncompromisingly pacifist, though not in a didactic manner. William Everson regards it as the most powerful and emotionally draining of all antiwar films: ‘Bernard creates a kind of dramatised documentary’, he says, ‘with no political axes to grind, no grandiose speeches about what the war means, and not even any “war is hell” messages since the imagery conveys that beyond the need for any commentary.’31 The viewer is introduced slowly to the horrors of combat. The film opens with the soldiers imagining home and their loved ones and longing for peace. Then war shatters the screen. The effect on the poilu is profound. At one point Demachy prays in church: ‘We accept everything: that we can’t sleep, that we have no bread, only please let us live, just let us live.’ The impressive battle scenes resemble newsreel. One shows a soldier being blown to bits. Another sequence traces ten days of continuous barrage with each day erased unmercifully from the screen. It concludes, like Verdun, visions d’ histoire, with a landscape covered in white crosses. The failure to release Les Croix de bois to a world audience in favour of The Road to Glory ensured that little is known of the film outside France. The next major French work on the war, however, achieved rapid worldwide fame and is now recognised as one of the greatest films made about conflict and one of the foremost pacifist statements. The prevailing international environment did not favour such views: the rise and expansionism of the dictators in central Europe, the Spanish Civil War, and the failure of the League of Nations had led many to see in the rise of Nazism and fascism a danger that needed stopping. This was reflected in world cinema. Pacifism in the early 1930s had proved only a phase and films made about the war between 1936 and 1939 tended to be more ambiguous. The Road to Glory and the remake of The Dawn Patrol (1938) had pacifist elements but the plot lines were confused with the introduction of scenes portraying war as glory and romance. Despite this context, Jean Renoir’s La Grande Illusion proved a great success wherever it was shown unimpeded. Lieutenant Maréchal (Jean Gabin) is ordered to fly the haughty and aloof Captain de Bœldieu (Pierre Fresnay) to check some reconnaissance photographs. Captain von Rauffenstein (Erich von Stroheim) shoots them down but invites them to lunch before being transferred. At Hallbach prison camp they are quartered with an Actor (Julien Carette), a Teacher (Jean Dasté), an Engineer (Gaston Modot) and Rosenthal (Marcel Dalio), a wealthy Jew.

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Each night they dig a tunnel; during the day they plan a revue using costumes sent from Paris. On the eve of the performance the Germans celebrate the capture of Douaumont. However, during the revue Maréchal discovers that the French have retaken the fortress and joins the others in singing the Marseillaise. Maréchal is placed in solitary confinement but is released on the eve of the escape. Unfortunately, the prisoners are transferred that day and Maréchal is unable to pass on information about the tunnel to an English officer who does not speak French. Many months, and several escape attempts later, Bœldieu and Maréchal are transferred to Wintersborn high-security prison. They rejoin Rosenthal and find Rauffenstein in charge, his body shattered by war injury. Bœldieu and Rauffenstein talk about the future of their class after the war. In the meantime, Maréchal and Rosenthal plan an escape. Bœldieu assists them by leading a disturbance of all prisoners which allows them to get away in the confusion. Bœldieu continues the disturbance, independently, during the subsequent roll call, causing Rauffenstein, reluctantly, to wound him fatally. The escape continues but they grow tired and hungry. Rosenthal is injured and they are forced to rest. Hiding in a barn nearby, they are discovered by Elsa (Dita Parlo), a young German woman who has lost her husband and many members of her family in the war. She houses them and tends Rosenthal’s wound. They celebrate Christmas with Lotte, Elsa’s daughter, and that night she and Maréchal realise they are in love. However, as the war has yet to end they have to finish their escape. Elsa is sad that he has to leave but Maréchal promises to return if he is still alive. German frontier guards spot them as they head over the border, but stop shooting when they realise they are in Switzerland. Renoir wrote in 1938 that he made La Grande Illusion because he was a pacifist.32 He was also heavily involved with the Left in the Popular Front and was close to, though not a member of, the Communist Party. The Left was actively involved in film production at this time. The Communist Party made a number of features for electoral campaigns. The first of these was La Vie est à nous, a documentary/fictional production condemning unemployment, poverty and fascism. Renoir directed this because he believed that ‘every honest man owed it to himself to resist Nazism’.33 It was banned by the government. Renoir was also President of the Administrative Council of Ciné-Liberté, a group of mainly trade-union members (though open to all) established in 1934 to oppose censorship and produce alternative films to those presented commercially. It was later to join the leading trade union, the Confédération Générale de Travail, and thousands of individual subscribers to make Renoir’s film of the French Revolution, La Marseillaise (1938). The Socialist Federation of the Seine was also involved in film production though on a much smaller scale. In 1935 it formed the Service Cinématographique to make short films and distribute commercial features. Most of the films dealt with economic and social topics (Vidor’s Our Daily Bread and Renoir’s Le Crime de M.Lange were examples) but also included a number of anti-war and anti-militarist films: All Quiet on the Western Front, Niemandsland and Mädchen in Uniform were all circulated up to the outbreak of the Second World War.34 In making La Grande Illusion, therefore, Renoir seemed just as much influenced by the Left as by his pacifism. Indeed, it could be said that the film tailored with prevailing leftist opinion in the late 1930s. Christopher Faulkner has argued that the right-wing militarists who were opposed to the anti-fascist and pacifist policies of the Popular Front were the descendants of the career officers who engineered the slaughter of the First World War. With an emphasis on class differences rather than national enmities ‘especially the militarism of the one as opposed to the domestic, civilian wants of the other …the film’s perception is ideologically consistent with the position of the Leftin 1937’.35

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There was one further impetus underlying Renoir’s motives. He disliked most films about war (except for All Quiet on the Western Front) because they were cliché-ridden: I had not seen a single film giving a true picture of the men who did the fighting. Either the drama never got out of the mud, which was an exaggeration, or else the war was made into a kind of operetta with cardboard heroes—the gallant grocer, temporarily clad in a uniform he had never asked for, talking a language of crude heroism which was entirely the invention of writers behind the lines. Among the inventions which most aroused the derision of the troops were the entertainments served up to them.36 Renoir based his film on direct knowledge of the conflict. He had started as a cavalry officer and was wounded but, after recovery, joined flying squadron C 64. Although they covered the usual military tasks, his group tended to undertake missions just for the thrill. One day Renoir was summoned to head office to take a staff officer on a highly secret mission. Renoir remembers the man reflected ‘in his whole person that je ne sais quoi which makes cavalry officers a race apart’37 (as Pierre Fresnay was to do in the part of Bœldieu). They were attacked by a Focke Wulf fighter and were only saved by Major Pinsard, one of the best French pilots. The two developed a close friendship which ended after Renoir’s squadron was transferred. They met again in 1934 during the making of Toni when Renoir requested military assistance to quieten the over-zealous activities of some pilots flying over the location. The officer in charge turned out to be Pinsard and, as he recounted his wartime exploits (shot down and escaped successfully seven times), Renoir had the idea for an adventure film. He completed a first draft under the title Les Evasions de Capitaine Maréchal but thought it poor. He collaborated with the leading French screenwriter, Charles Spaak, on a second version. This attracted the interest of Jean Gabin who had been in Renoir’s Les Bas Fonds, which Spaak had co-written with the director. Up to this point Renoir had found little interest amongst financiers, having spent three years trawling the offices of ‘French and foreign producers, orthodox or avant garde’.38 He found that few liked a story where the love interest was so small and the only woman was a German peasant. With Gabin’s participation the situation changed and Albert Pinkevitch—a friend of Renoir—introduced them to Frank Rollmer. Apart from some minor changes (including the substitution of a plate for a silver dinner service to lower costs), a budget of two million francs was agreed with the production company Réalisations d’Art Cinématographique (RAC). There were still problems with the script, however, and many changes proved necessary: even the original ending was ditched.39 Some of these were due to Renoir’s improvisation on the set (he was a great admirer of the commedia dell’ arte). But far more resulted from the casting of Erich von Stroheim as Rauffenstein and the addition of the rôle of Rosenthal. As well as being a director of great genius (even if Holly wood studios were unable to cope with his vast talent and vision) Stroheim also acted. During the war he had been typecast in a number of ‘evil Hun’ rôles and audience antipathy for his character had led him to be dubbed ‘the man you love to hate’. The mid-1930s were a difficult period for him: he had only recently been forced out of Hollywood and his morale was low. La Grande Illusion proved an important turning point as it revitalised his faith in motion pictures. Renoir expanded considerably his originally small part to ensure that he was not overshadowed by the other leads but also to incorporate Stroheim’s improvisations and additions. Stroheim already admired the director but was never to forget his friendship and the enthusiasm with which he

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accepted many of his suggestions: ‘He had given me a pleasure which I had forgotten for some years’, he said later.40 The expansion of the rôle enabled more complex relationships to be explored. This was further made possible with the creation of Rosenthal, the wealthy Jew, who was not in the original scenario. With these additions, Renoir was able to enhance and enlarge the central characters into an exploration of the relationships between Maréchal and Rosenthal and Bœldieu and Rauffenstein. With Rosenthal a race component was added too. The result was a much changed screenplay, so altered from the original, in fact, that Spaak offered to take his name from the film. Renoir refused, and the pair received equal billing. Jacques Becker—Renoir’s assistant and house partner—also made important contributions to the script though he went uncredited. One of the last problems to be settled was the casting of Bœldieu. The rôle was offered first to Louis Jouvet who was not available and was refused by Pierre-Richard Willm.41 It was only then offered to Pierre Fresnay, the noted theatre actor and star of Marcel Pagnol’s Marius Trilogy (1931, 1932 and 1936). Fresnay was the only actor not to participate in improvisation on the set. His experience was in the theatre rather than cinema and Renoir realised he needed a more rigorously prepared script than the others. This did not prevent an excellent performance, however. Renoir also benefited from the quality of his technical staff. Claude Renoir (his nephew) was cameraman and he once again hired his favourite production designer, Eugène Lourié, to do the sets (Lourié was later to write warmly of Renoir and his experiences of making the film42). Karl Koch—an old friend of the director —was brought in to check the authenticity of the German scenes. As filming in Germany was impossible a number of locations were used: Parisian studios; HautKoenigsburg for the castle (Wintersborn prisoner-of-war camp) and the frontier and exterior shots in the disputed region of Alsace. A major problem occurred during the filming of the final part of the escape when it snowed (the production took place over the winter of 1936–7). This sequence was already proving difficult as Gabin—contracted elsewhere —had left the film and doubles were used to run away from the German guards.43 Renoir adapted happily to the snow as he realised it enhanced the film. There was, however, to be further trouble. Stroheim recalls that, ironically, towards the end of filming, the sun returned and melted all the snow. Renoir was forced to bring in artificial material to ensure continuity.44 Another valuable ‘incident’ occurred during filming. Renoir wanted around thirty shots of airfields, airplanes and combat and was furious to discover there was no budget. On reflection, however, he realised that the film was better without them. ‘I often have fortunate accidents like that’, he said.45 La Grande Illusion was released in France in June 1937 and was the top boxoffice earner that year. It was also a success with the critics (unlike a number of other Renoir films). Although a few found it over-long— and one described the love affair between Elsa and Maréchal as useless—many called it realistic, powerful and truthful and praised the actors, technicians and, most of all Renoir, for his direction. The Left journal Mariane said it was a ‘cinematographic masterpiece… ingenious, moving, comic and almost always excellent’;46 Critique Cinématographique called it a magnificent work: ‘nothing is useless, not one single scene, not one single word. The acting is masterly directed and what actors.’47 The reviewer in Ciné à Spectacles said ‘you never feel any…spirit of hatred or exaggerated patriotism’.48 Most reviewers concentrated on the escape story (Renoir ascribed the initial success of the film to this emphasis). Few domestic critics went deeper, unlike in Britain and the United States, and it was to be many years before its full message was appreciated. It was difficult for European films to achieve international success at this time. La Grande Illusion proved to be an exception, though it faced considerable problems in many countries. It was awarded a special International Jury Cup for best artistic ensemble at the 1937 Venice Film Festival. The German

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delegate had proposed it originally for the Grand Prize but it was impossible to award the Mussolini Cup to a pacifist film (it went instead to Un Carnet de Bal). It was banned in Italy in November 1937 although Mussolini kept his own copy and hosted private showings for Italian film makers. It was allowed to be released in July 1938 after a distribution agreement for Italian films in France had been agreed with RAC.49 Goebbels also liked the film even though he called it ‘cinematographic enemy number one’ and banned it in Germany. In his biography of Renoir, Raymond Durgnat said it was Goering who liked it and, after excising the parts portraying a sympathetic Rosenthal, it was passed for release and was widely shown in the country.50 The film was also banned in Belgium, by Paul-Henri Spaak, Foreign Minister and brother of the co-scenarist, and in Japan in April 1938 because it belittled the German army.51 It was being shown in Vienna on the day the Nazis marched into the city and was stopped in mid-reel. The position was better in the United States, no doubt encouraged by President Roosevelt’s remark that ‘all the democracies of the world must see this film’.52 In common with most countries, the scene where it is suggested that Elsa and Maréchal spend the night together was taken out. The MPPDA requested that some obscenities and remarks about Jews were deleted and also warned that the portrayal of Rosenthal could be controversial, though left any changes to the distributor. It was released in New York in September 1938 and ran for twent-six weeks. The National Board of Review voted it best picture of the year and it won a special prize at the 1939 New York exhibition. It was also nominated for a best picture Academy Award in 1938 but lost to Frank Capra’s You Can’t Take It With You. The reviewers were also impressed. Newsweek called it a ‘powerful argument against war’.53 Variety said it was an ‘artistically masterful feature’: the picture breathes the intimate life of warriors on both sides during the World War. It gives a different slant on the inner mental workings of those caught in the maelstrom of warfare yet never deviates from the central thesis.54 And went on: ‘Never pretending to be a preachment against war, it seldom misses an opportunity to accentuate, by means of sly inference, the futility of mankind’s armed conflict.’ The New York Herald Tribune also praised the film calling it ‘a remarkable war picture, a product of rare insight and artistry’.55 However: If it falls somewhat short of being a first-rank motion picture, it is because the subject matter and mood shift violently in the course of an episodic narrative…. The acting is so close to perfect that one might just as well call it that…. Magnificent direction and performing have gone into… [the film] and even if the suspense of the central theme is diffused rather than shaped to a cumulative intensity, it is a film which you should not miss seeing. In Britain Film Weekly called it an ‘[u]nusually distinguished war-prison drama, with a profound philosophy that is never obtruded. Beautiful direction and acting make it well worth seeing, and very moving despite its unhurried development.’56 The Monthly Film Bulletin, however, was more critical calling it episodic in parts. Although the film was realistic generally, the acting good, and the portrayal of the act of enmity on either side ‘an admirable abstract idea’, the reviewer remained unconvinced about the general tone of the film:

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The fact is, surely, that if there were good prison camps there were also bad ones, not all were simply hotels of retirement; while however true it is that the individual is not vicious it is also true that modern wars could not be fought if the majority in a nation were not stirred up, albeit artificially, to venom and hysteria against the enemy.57 The reviewer also complained that it was highly unlikely that in a real situation the German border guards would respect boundaries as they did in La Grande Illusion. The success of the film was halted with the outbreak of the Second World War. It was immediately banned in France at the start of the occupation and all copies were confiscated by the Propaganda Staffel.58 After the war, RAC was given a negative discovered by the US Army Cinematographic Service in Munich (the original was destroyed in the bombing of Paris) and requested permission for a general re-release. However, many of the state councils who had been under occupation objected. Monsieur Xardel of the Syndicat des Directeurs de Cinemas de Rhin et Moselle said that the release of a film with largely sympathetic German characters could lead to public disorder. To overcome these problems Renoir, still in Hollywood at this stage, agreed to some minor cuts, amounting to 174 metres, as long as Charles Spaak controlled the editing. It received a triumphant opening in Paris although Georges Altmann, critic of the communist L’Ecran Français, said that a film with such anti-Semitic remarks should not have been tolerated with memories of the concentration camps still so fresh. He also feared that the chivalry shown by Rauffenstein would give approval to ‘all the vague collaborations, all the concessions, all the desertions’ of the war years.59 It was, perhaps, still too early for its full message to be understood. La Grande Illusion began to gain its rightful place in world cinema in the 1950s. A new, complete, version was released in 1958 put together from a print Renoir found in America the previous year and the Munich negative. Like the previous re-release it had a triumphant première in Paris and received near ecstatic notices, some of which moved away from the escape story and concentrated on its deeper themes. It also received international accolades and was voted one of the best films of all time by the International Jury at the 1958 Brussels Exposition. It was re-released again in 1972 in France. The film has been interpreted in different ways over the years. On release it was heralded by the Left as a defence of pacifism. The illusion, they claimed, was patriotism in war which masked the fundamental differences between the professional officer and the enlisted soldier. The Right, meanwhile, saw it as a defence of patriotism and it was pacifists that had the illusions. Some others saw it as a plea for France and Germany not to fight.60 In recent years it has been seen as a pacifist film advocating an anti-war position but there remains dissent. In his discussion of the film, Pierre Sorlin says that it is ‘neither defeatist, nor pacifist at any price; the most suitable word is no doubt isolationist’.61 Renoir wrote that his main aim was ‘to express the common humanity of men’.62 According to this belief —which he pursued throughout his career (in particular in his subsequent films La Marseillaise and La Règle du Jeu—The Rules of the Game)—the world was separated by horizontal, not vertical frontiers. Thus, it was not nationhood and national barriers that caused differences, but religion, language and, most important of all, class. The solution was a bringing together of people through their professions and common interests. He gave an example of this in his autobiography: If a French farmer should find himself dining at the same table as a French financier, these two Frenchmen would have nothing to say to each other, each being unconcerned with the other’s interests. But if a French farmer meets a Chinese farmer they will find any amount to talk about.63

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He also had a direct example when he hired Karl Koch as technical advisor. In 1936 Koch was a pacifist but during the war he had fought for the German Army as a captain of artillery. When talking of their war experiences, they realised that Koch had actually fired at Renoir’s plane. ‘These things form a bond’, Renoir said: The fact that we had been on opposite sides was the merest detail. Indeed, as I come to think of it, it was even better—a further instance of my theory of the division of the world by horizontal frontiers and not into compartments enclosed in vertical frontiers.64 In the film this theme is primarily explored through the relationships between Rauffenstein and Bœldieu (which Renoir described as a kind of love story) and Maréchal and some of the German soldiers and prison guards. Bœldieu is seen first when he orders a reconnaissance patrol to check some maps. He is immaculately dressed (as he will remain for much of the film), monocled, aloof, haughty and often contemptuous of those around him. Maréchal—who is ordered to fly the Captain—is a mechanic, untidy in dress, who has worked his way up through the ranks. He has been prevented from going to see one of the pilots’ favourite women, Josephine, by the Captain’s orders. After being shot down, and before being taken to prison, they are invited to lunch (once Rauffenstein has established that they are officers). Renoir makes a crucial point here. Rauffenstein is pleased to see Bœldieu but is not interested in Maréchal, even though he is injured and his arm is in a sling. It transpires that Rauffenstein knew Bœldieu’s cousin in Berlin before the war and they discuss riding, one of their mutual interests. Part of this conversation is in English—the lingua franca of the officer class—which recurs throughout the film when the two talk. André Bazin comments that in this case it becomes ‘[n]o longer a national language…[but] a class language, that sets the two aristocrats apart from plebeian society’.65 The lunch is soon curtailed when the prisoners are collected to go to Hallbach prison camp, but lines of demarcation have already been established. These are strengthened in the camp. Bœldieu remains aloof. Although he joins in the lunch generously provided by Rosenthal, he is irritated by the others, particularly the Actor. He finds it difficult to participate in the conversation on life in Paris as the others’ experience is confined to cheap bistros whereas his is of Maxim’s. They realise that Bœldieu is not one of them and, despite his nationality, check with Maréchal that he can be trusted to know of their tunnel. Maréchal says that although he is a bit ‘hoity-toity’ he is safe. Despite their concerns, Bœldieu agrees to help dig, though cynically he says: ‘People have told me that crawling is simply marvellous as exercise.’66 Later, when he disposes of the dirt from the tunnel, he remains aloof, folds his bag carefully and ensures that his gloves remain as clean as possible. ‘If we go on with this odd business,’ he says, ‘we’ll end up with hands like navvies.’ At the point when the others are preparing for the revue, and Bœldieu is watching the new German recruits undergoing their drill, he is given one of the best, and most indicative lines: ‘On one side [the Germans], children playing at soldiers. On the other, soldiers playing at children,’ he says. The show is clearly something he disdains. He doesn’t wish to take part, or even watch, but in a rare moment he appreciates, and even sees merit in, what they are trying to achieve. Whilst the Germans cheer over the capture of Douaumont, Maréchal says that despite their depression they must continue. ‘For once I agree with you,’ Bœldieu remarks. ‘I may not participate in your theatrical ventures, but allow me to congratulate you all the same…. Good show!’ However, outwardly he remains cold. This is highlighted after Maréchal has been placed in solitary confinement for leading the singing of the Marseillaise at the show. Now the tunnel is complete the others

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fear that he will be left behind. Bœldieu also finds this a little saddening but ‘that’s war…. Feelings have nothing to do with it,’ he says. Despite this, he is one of the first to greet him on his return. Bœldieu and Rauffenstein meet again when he and Maréchal are transferred to Wintersborn high-security prison after many escape attempts. Rauffenstein’s body has been shattered and burned in the war and he admits that this post is the only way he can continue to serve his country, his only real function. He takes them on a tour of the castle and talks with Bœldieu of pre-war Maxim’s and of Fifi, a mutual acquaintance. Bœldieu proves more distant in Wintersborn: he sits and eats away from the others, plays solitaire and doesn’t participate directly in the escape plans (at one point he calls their attempts to hide a rope infantile). Despite his previous escape attempts, Rauffenstein trusts him and tries to develop a relationship. At one point he orders Bœldieu’s part of the room to be left out of the usual search. Rauffenstein says: ‘Give me your word of honour that there is nothing inside the room which is against regulations.’ Bœldieu pauses, then replies: ‘I give you my word of honour…. But why …my word of honour rather than any of the others?’ Rauffenstein replies ironically, ‘Hmm! The word of a Rosenthal…or a Maréchal?’ ‘It’s as good as ours,’ replies Bœldieu, to which Rauffenstein ponders, ‘Perhaps.’ Shortly after, Rauffenstein and Bœldieu meet again. During their discussion they highlight an additional point regarding the destruction of their class by the war. In this respect the film is similar to the 1984 British production, The Shooting Party, which, under the guise of a hunting story, showed the aristocratic world which was to be forever destroyed by the war. This was a crucial point for Renoir. In an introduction to the film in releases after the Second World War he said: In 1914, man’s spirit had not yet been falsified by totalitarian religions and racism. In some respects that world war was still a war of respectable people, of well-bred people. I almost dare say, of gentlemen. That does not excuse it. Good manners, even chivalry, do not excuse a massacre.67 This was in contrast to the enlisted man. In his autobiography Renoir wrote that the fighting troops were complete anarchists: They didn’t give a damn for anything, least of all for noble sentiments. The destruction of cathedrals left them cold, and they did not believe that they were fighting a war for liberty. They cared nothing for death either, thinking that their present life was not worth living…. What is strange is that, despite this complete scepticism, they fought magnificently. They were caught in the machinery and had no way of getting out.68 At one point they talk in English about Rauffenstein’s horse riding in England in 1909. Then they switch to French and the following exchange occurs: Rauffenstein: De Bœldieu, I would like to tell you something. Believe me, I feel nothing but distaste for my present job, as much as you do. Bœldieu: You are hard on yourself. Rauffenstein: I was a fighting man and, now, I am a bureaucrat, a policeman. It is the only way left for me to try and serve my country…. Burned all over—that is why I wear these gloves…. My backbone fractured in two places, mended with silver plates. Silver strut in my chin, also a silver kneecap…. I owe all this wealth to the misfortune of war. Bœldieu: May I ask you something? Why do you make an exception for me by inviting me to your quarters?

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Rauffenstein:

Why? Because your name is Bœldieu, career officer in the French army, and my name is Rauffenstein, career officer in the imperial German army. Bœldieu: But…all my friends are officers, too. Rauffenstein (disdainfully): You call Maréchal and Rosenthal…officers? Bœldieu: They are very good soldiers. Rauffenstein (with contempt): Yes!… The charming legacy of the French Revolution. Bœldieu (smiling): I am afraid we can do nothing to turn back the clock. Rauffenstein: I do not know who is going to win this war, but I know one thing: the end of it, whatever it may be, will be the end of the Rauffensteins and the Bœldieus. Bœldieu: But perhaps there is no more need for us. Rauffenstein: And don’t you find that is a pity? Bœldieu: Perhaps! As Maréchal and Rosenthal prepare for their escape they talk of Bœldieu. Although they like him, Maréchal says ‘you can’t let yourself go with him, you can’t feel free…. A different sort of education.’ And then follows: ‘if ever you and I found ourselves in a bad spot, we’d just be a couple of poor down-and-outs, but him, he’d always be Monsieur de Bœldieu.’ However, although Bœldieu has clearly more in common with Rauffenstein than the others, he is a realist and knows his class is doomed. He also knows that he has to help Maréchal and Rosenthal with their escape. The two are grateful, but he doesn’t want thanks and Maréchal still fails to understand him: ‘I’ve been with you every day for eighteen months, and you still say vous [rather than tu] to me.’ Shortly after he realises that everything is different between them even down to their choice of tobacco and gloves. As the escape proceeds, Bœldieu is fatally wounded by Rauffenstein, even though he tried to aim at his legs. Rauffenstein is distraught and, as the Frenchman lies dying in his room, their final exchange represents an elegy for their class destroyed by the war: Bœldieu: Of us two, it isn’t I who should complain the most. I, I’ll be finished soon, but you…haven’t finished…. Rauffenstein: Not finished dragging out a useless existence. Bœldieu: For a man of the people, it’s terrible to die in the war. For you and me, it was a good solution. Rauffenstein: I have missed it. Rauffenstein’s despondency is total; he cuts off the head of the solitary geranium he has been growing so lovingly throughout his time at the camp. The lack of animosity between people of similar backgrounds, class and occupation despite their nationality is expressed also in the relationship between Maréchal and a number of the Germans. Whilst Rauffenstein and Bœldieu are talking during the first lunch, Maréchal finds that he gets on well with the officer sitting next to him who speaks excellent French. Both have worked in Lyons. This is shown also when Maréchal has been arrested for singing the Marseillaise and during the escape. Whilst Maréchal is stuck, distraught, cracking under the strain of solitary confinement, the friendly German guard passes him cigarettes and a mouth organ. After he and Rosenthal have escaped and have been taken in by Elsa, he falls in love, even though she is the enemy. This relationship provides, as Joel Finler says, ‘the final, optimistic touch in this film on Franco-German relations’.69 The period at the farmhouse also highlights that, basically, there is little difference between nations. In an aside Maréchal illustrates the absurdity of enmity when he talks to the cow he is feeding:

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14 Rauffenstein (Erich von Stroheim) comforts Bœldieu (Pierre Fresnay) in La Grande Illusion (1937) —a lament for the end of their class caused by the war.

You’re not scared, and you don’t mind being fed by a Frenchman…. You were born in Wurtemberg and I was born in Paris; well, that doesn’t stop us from being pals, does it? You’re just a poor cow, and I’m just a poor soldier. And we’re both doing our best, aren’t we? The relationship between Rosenthal and Maréchal is as crucial as that between Bœldieu and Rauffenstein, though in a different way. It could, perhaps, have been expected that Rosenthal, as a wealthy man, would be friends with the officers. But being a Jew he is denied access to the aristocracy. Renoir uses this also to make a point about nationality. Earlier in the film, the Actor reacts laughingly to Rosenthal’s wish to escape because he wants to defend his country. He jokes: ‘Why, he was born in Jerusalem!’ Rosenthal replies that he was ‘born in Vienna, capital of Austria. My mother was Danish, my father Polish, both naturalized citizens of France.’ And then goes on: the rest of you, Frenchmen from way back, you don’t own a hundred square metres of your country. Well, the Rosenthals in thirty-five years have managed to get hold of three historic castles with shoots, lakes, fields, orchards, rabbit warrens, fishing rights, pheasants, stud farms…and three picture galleries full of ancestors, every one guaranteed! If you think that isn’t worth escaping for, to go and defend! Bœldieu’s reply is typically condescending: ‘I must say, I had never thought of patriotism from that angle. How odd!’ Rosenthal finds that his soulmates are on the other side of the class divide, although even here he sometimes suffers from anti-Semitic remarks. He proves very generous with the food parcels he receives

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15 Maréchal (Jean Gabin), Elsa (Dita Parlo) and Rosenthal (Marcel Dalio) find their nationality and their religion no hindrance to love and understanding in La Grande Illusion (1937).

from home, and the others ignore his bribes to the prison guards to allow them through. At one point he tells Maréchal that he only gives the others food out of vanity: ‘it was my way of showing you how rich my family is…. People think Jews are mean, but they’re wrong. If anything, we’re often generous, because we suffer from the sin of pride.’ Maréchal knows that he is joking and tells him it’s all rot; all he knows is that Rosenthal is a ‘good pal’. It is Rosenthal who is happiest when Maréchal returns from solitary confinement (he has to turn his head away to hide his tears), and this affection is reciprocated during the escape. Rosenthal’s injury proves so bad that he is forced to rest and he ignores Maréchal’s urging to continue. They are very tired and hungry at this stage and turn on each other. Maréchal tells him that he never could stand Jews and Rosenthal shouts at him to go. As Maréchal walks away he hears Rosenthal singing ‘Un Petit Navire’ (the tune Bœldieu played on the flute during the escape). Maréchal returns and helps him to the barn. Renoir was arguing that it is necessary to transcend all racial, religious and national boundaries to develop a better future. It is a point emphasised throughout the film: all prisoners join in making a noise to facilitate the escape; the Russians attempt to repay Rosenthal’s past kindness by sharing their new hamper from the Tsarina; and Elsa does not reveal the presence of the escaped prisoners to the German soldier who asks for directions. It is the latter example that is, perhaps, the most valid. The relationship between a German woman and a Frenchman—who on the battlefield would have been encouraged to hate—showed the best way forward (as Pabst was attempting to show in Westfront 1918). On Christmas Eve they are joined by Rosenthal and Elsa’s daughter, Lotte, around the small crib the escapees have made out of vegetables. What could have resulted in a mawkish scene turns into one of profound comment. Christopher Faulkner says that it moves

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the viewer ‘because it is hallowed by the unforced religious symbolism of four lives shared across boundaries of class, nationality, language, culture, faith, sex and age’.70 In 1937 the unity of different religions (as well as classes) was essential if fascism was to be defeated. This is why Renoir altered the ending of the film. In the original screenplay the two escapees (Maréchal and Dolette, not Rosenthal—he was still to be added) agree to meet in Maxim’s on Christmas Day and a table is reserved. However, in the midst of hundreds of partygoers, the table remains empty. This was too downbeat an end for a director favouring the Popular Front and a more optimistic conclusion was substituted. Raymond Durgnat has said that the ‘reason for altering the ending is sadly obvious: precisely because French unity did not exist it was necessary to urge it’.71 Another point Renoir wished to stress was that whilst language was a unifier (for Bœldieu and Rauffenstein) it can also create great differences. This is exemplified when Maréchal is unable to pass on details of the tunnel to the arriving English prisoners. Given time—which Elsa and Maréchal had — language barriers can be transcended: despite only speaking a few sentences, they fall in love. Renoir was concerned throughout that the film should appear as realistic as possible, though, like King Vidor in The Big Parade, he was prepared to stretch a point when required. In the early scenes Gabin wears Renoir’s old uniform which he had kept after demobilisation. It was Renoir who suggested also the ‘fanciful touches’72 to Stroheim’s costume which, though authentic, was too flamboyant for a First World War prison commander. The early shots of the two officers’ bars also proved realistic. Originally Renoir placed the German’s cantina in an abandoned château and the French in a temporary prefabricated building on the airfield. However, the financier objected to the cost of this. Eugène Lourié discovered the solution and indirectly contributed an important point. In his research he found that the Germans and French used similar prefabricated buildings. ‘Using this similarity, [and] staging both cantinas in the same prefab…’, he said, ‘could make an interesting statement on the sameness of military establishments.’73 André Bazin said that what Renoir was aiming at was not simple documentary reproduction, but a ‘faculty for invention…. The accuracy of detail in Renoir’s work is as much the result of imagination as of observation. He does not indiscriminately record reality.’74 Bazin says that all the German soldiers, commissioned and non-commissioned, are created with verisimilitude. ‘This realism is not the result of simple copying from life’, he says, but ‘the product of a careful re-creation of character through the use of detail which is not only accurate but meaningful as well, and this is accomplished without recourse to dramatic conventions.’75 He sees the brief scenes with the English officers as evoking ‘an entire civilisation… in a few seconds’.76 The highlight for Bazin was Renoir’s depiction of the revue. ‘Given this brilliant idea’, he said, ‘a clever director could not fail to produce an exciting scene. But Renoir adds the little touches to it which make the scene far more than just a standard treatment; for example, the idea of having the ‘Marseillaise’ led, not by a Frenchman, but by an English officer dressed up as a woman.’77 Although the film’s condemnation of war, and proscription for the future, were mostly dealt with tangentially there are a number of direct anti-war references. Perhaps the most obvious is that, even in times of war, men generally do not hate the enemy. The friendship and empathy shown by the German pilot and guards for Maréchal, and the relationship between the French prisoners and Arthur, the German guard, highlight this. Renoir also comments on the widespread belief during and after the war that it marked the end of all conflicts of this kind. Just before they cross into Switzerland, Maréchal says: ‘We’ve got to finish this bloody war…let’s hope it’s the last’; to which Rosenthal replies ‘That’s all an illusion!’

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The most notable example, however, is the portrayal of the effects of the war on those left at home. One of the characters in the prison—the Teacher —finds out that he has been cuckolded: his being captive has allowed his wife to go with other men and it is clear that the war has done his marriage great harm. This point is emphasised with the character of Elsa who has lost almost everything in battle. The few shots of Lotte sitting alone at the table provide a greater condemnation of war than any words could say. Elsa herself sums up the cause of this loneliness when she points to a photograph of her family: ‘My husband, killed at Verdun. My brothers, killed at Liège, Charleroi and Tannenburg…. Our greatest victories! … Now the table is too large.’ When the two leave she speaks to Maréchal and, even though he cannot know much of what she says, her crying helps him understand: ‘I was alone for such a long time…. I had stopped waiting…. You will never know the joy it gave me to hear your…footsteps in this house.’ Even that love, however, has to be given up as the escapees need to get back to France. Elsa was praised generally by the critics although the Monthly Film Bulletin found it a ‘fundamentally unconvincing rôle’.78 It is quite unbelievable, it continued, ‘that a German woman who had lost her husband and brothers in the War could so readily aid enemy soldiers to escape’. Another condemnation of war is provided in the title. There has been much debate about this over the years. André Bazin said it referred to the original ending. Alexander Sesonske said Renoir chose it because it meant nothing and he wanted it left deliberately vague. Renoir himself indicated in his autobiography that he set no great store by it: ‘Only when the film had been shot, edited and sub-titled did it occur to me to call it La Grande Illusion. The producer was not enthusiastic but accepted this for want of anything better.’79 Renoir may have been influenced by Norman Angell’s book The Great Illusion which argued that the real illusion was the belief that economic advantage accrued from war. Renoir said he knew of it, but the film was different (although it could be argued that the sentiments in each were similar).80 André Bazin discusses the title in some detail. He says that there are a number of illusions scattered throughout the film: sexuality (soldiers in women’s costumes); love (Maréchal and Elsa); liberty (every escape attempt) and the approaching peace. However, he goes on to argue that it is important to give illusion ‘a resolutely positive, even militant, significance’.81 In doing so he returns to the basis of the film: Grand illusions are doubtless the dreams which help men to live, such as a simple obsession with pyrography or translating Pindar, but more than this, the grand illusions are the illusion of hatred, which arbitrarily divides men who in reality are not separated by anything; the illusion of boundaries, with the wars which result from them; the illusion of races, of social classes. The message of the film is thus a demonstration a contrario of the fraternity and equality of men. The war, the product of hatred and division, paradoxically reveals the falseness of all the barriers of prejudice separating man from man.82 Renoir liked Bazin’s study and would have favoured much of what he said. Perhaps the only thing that needs to be added is something he said in 1972 (though not included in his autobiography). When he wrote the film he said he had in mind ‘a word we used to repeat during the war, in the trenches. It was la dere, la dernier, dier, the last of the last. When I finished the picture, I thought that was the meaning of it.’83 The Great War only proved to be the First World War and Renoir accepted that his film had failed, at least in the short term. Along with other film makers, critics and writers he took part in Robert Hughes’s survey of war and peace films in the early 1960s. His response was cynical (though he might have been joking): ‘ln 1936 I made a picture named La Grande Illusion in which I tried to express all my deep feelings for the cause of peace. This film was very successful. Three years later the war broke out. That is the only answer I can find to your very interesting enquiry.’84

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Christopher Faulkner has also criticised Renoir’s beliefs in the film. He said that his ‘confidence in the artificiality of national frontiers was the greatest and most naïve of his illusions’.85 He went on: Intraclass solidarity proved to be vertical, not horizontal, as national interests dominated all other considerations in the European conflagration that followed La Grande Illusion by two-and-one-half years. In retrospect, we may have the greatest emotional sympathy for Renoir’s faith, but we cannot erase from our historical consciousness that knowledge that it was (and is) hopelessly inadequate. Renoir’s film may rise far above the worst of the genre in this or any other period, but it cannot escape the ideological determinations of the moment. Nevertheless, if it seems probable that Renoir—like everyone else—showed more faith than analytical understanding of the complex issues involved, that is not to undermine his degree of commitment to the aspirations of the Popular Front.86 Roy Armes has also been critical. He says that as the film lacks bloodshed ‘and without any hint of atrocities, it presents almost too benign a view of war in view of the holocaust which was about to engulf Europe’.87 It is perhaps unfair to accuse Renoir of some of these criticisms. No one could predict the impact and extent of the Second World War and Renoir himself accepted these limitations. Although he realised that his film had failed he continued to hope that ‘many “great illusions”, many newspaper articles, books and demonstrations, may yet have some effect’.88 Renoir himself tried to influence later generations with his Second World War escape film, Le Caporal Epinglé (The Vanishing Corporal). This contained elements explored in La Grande Illusion: one scene had some of the escapees encountering a French prisoner of war who plans to settle with the German widow who owns the farm he works on. However, it proved not as successful as his earlier contribution. In recent years French cinema has returned to the First World War, making one of the finest films about this period (and one of very few to highlight the immense difficulties of clearing up after conflict). In Bertrand Tavernier’s La Vie et Rien d’Autre (Life and Nothing But) Philippe Noiret plays the leader of a group charged with identifying approximately 350,000 dead and shell-shocked victims of the war. In the midst of such an impossible task he is forced to help identify a suitable victim to be buried under the Arc de Triomphe as the unknown soldier. The corpse is chosen eventually from a set of coffins after the person charged with picking the man has been told to ensure that he is French, and not British or a Hun. The film highlights the exploitation of members of the French colonies who were forced to undertake some of the more unpleasant and dangerous tasks (including African soldiers searching for mines by hand). The film is anti-war in many respects, not least in a scene where belongings are laid out for distraught relatives to identify. Universally praised on release in 1989, it will stand as an important contribution to the cinema of war. France has made five important contributions to anti-war cinema, from providing one of the first epics through to the most recent study of the effects of the conflict on people’s lives and on human mentality. Despite the great merits of J’accuse and the others, however, La Grande Illusion stands out because it refuses to condemn war by relying on battles and bloodshed. Such scenes are crucial when treated well (as in All Quiet on the Western Front and Paths of Glory) but too often brutalise, and sometimes excite, the viewer. Renoir’s concern to engage the spectator spiritually, saying basically that little separates the ordinary soldier on either side in a conflict, promoted more effectively the cause of peace than many a traditional war film. Though he feared later that his contribution had failed, it continues to broadcast a crucial message to the world. For his original contribution, and lasting power, Renoir joins Milestone and Kubrick in providing the towering achievements of anti-war cinema.

Chapter 8 Hollywood and post-war Germany The Man I Killed, The Road Back and Three Comrades

The great domestic success of All Quiet on the Western Front prompted Universal to begin work on a sequel. In September 1929 they had purchased the rights to Remarque’s follow-up book, The Road Back, which dealt with the lives of returning soldiers in post-war Germany. The MPPDA gave a qualified approval to the film in July 1931 and a screenplay was prepared. In July and August 1932 two further scripts were approved by the MPPDA but these, and a third submitted the following year, were not produced. The vicissitudes suffered by the German people in the 1920s and 1930s were potentially a great subject for film makers and writers. D.W.Griffith had already tackled the issue in 1924 with Isn’t Life Wonderful. However, political instability, and the rise of Hitler, made this a difficult environment in which to portray German life on the American screen. Any attempts were sure to face pressure in Hollywood from the Nazis and their allies and films released would, along with others from the same company, find it near impossible to obtain distribution in many European countries. Given the problems facing them already with All Quiet on the Western Front, Universal postponed production and it was to be another four years before The Road Back reached the screen. The subject was not total anathema. The most notable attempt in the early 1930s was Ernst Lubitsch’s The Man I Killed released by Paramount in early 1932. Rarely seen now, this uncompromisingly pacifist film is an attack on the hatred engendered by war. It is undoubtedly a minor masterpiece. Few film makers have matched the sensitivity and care with which Lubitsch brought the emotions of loss, remembrance and contrition to the screen. Edward Wagenknecht has called it ‘one of the most powerful of all antiwar films’1 and John Grierson could not remember a production ‘so beautifully made, so completely fine in its execution’.2 Despite its portrayal of German life in 1919, the film dealt only tangentially with economic and social despair. Other producers were later to address more centrally (though generally not successfully) the unemployment, poverty and political instability resulting from the war. Lubitsch’s theme was more fundamental: the need and search for forgiveness. This is a rare subject in war films. Paul Bäumer, in All Quiet on the Western Front, wanted to apologise for having killed Duval, the Frenchman, but did not live to find his wife and child. Anthony Asquith, in Orders to Kill (1958), told of a British bomber pilot in the Second World War who assassinates a suspected spy in Paris. After he has killed the man he discovers that he was innocent and attempts to help his family. Finally, the lead in the Vietnam War film, Born on the Fourth of July (1989), visits the parents of a soldier he killed under ‘friendly fire’. Although Lubitsch had asked to direct The Man I Killed it was only given to him after Sergei Eisenstein had rejected Paramount’s offer.3 Many commentators expressed surprise when Lubitsch was announced as director as it would be his first serious sound film and came after great success with three musicals: The Love Parade (1929), Monte Carlo (1930) and The Smiling Lieutenant (1931). It has to be said that Paramount were elated when he decided that this would be his only attempt (it was a miserable failure at the

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box office) and the Lubitsch touch went on to inspire such classic film comedies as One Hour With You and Trouble in Paradise in 1932, Ninotchka (1939) and the anti-Nazi classic To Be or Not to Be (1942). He had, however, directed dramatic films during the silent period, particularly in his German homeland. Initially an actor, he became a director during the war and appeared often in his own productions. He made a number of accomplished comedies but achieved his first international success with Carmen in 1918. According to Lubitsch’s biographer, Herman Weinberg, the film put him and its star, Pola Negri, at ‘the top of the motion-picture profession in Europe’.4 The following year Lubitsch made the great Madame Dubarry which, with The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, established UFA as serious participants in world cinema. The bigotry resulting from four years of conflict nearly prevented the making of this sympathetic film about French history. Such antipathy was not confined to Germany. In the United States—where it was released in late 1920 as Passion—First National had agreed to distribute only after other companies, fearing an anti-German boycott, had withdrawn. There was a price, however: Lubitsch and Emil Jannings were removed from the credits and any indications of the film’s origins were taken out. Experience of such intolerance may have influenced Lubitsch in the making of The Man I Killed. It seems he was critical of war. In 1921 he directed a bitter anti-military production, Die Bergkatze (The Mountain Cat). Unlike many of his other recent films this was not a success and there was no distribution in the United States. Lubitsch said later that ‘German audiences [were] in no mood to accept a picture which satirised militarism and war’.5 In 1922 he moved to Los Angeles at the request of Mary Pickford who wanted to work with Europe’s finest film maker. Even here, four years after the Armistice, he encountered hatred and cynicism. According to Herman Weinberg, one journalist wrote during his direction of Rosita (1923): ‘What with Ernst Lubitsch tearing up scenarios and pulling down sets at the Pickford studio and Pola [Negri] wrecking the morale and general properties at Paramount, it looks as though the “German Menace” will ruin Hollywood yet.’6 He also disliked the press for their requests to call him Romanian or Polish and is reported to have threatened: ‘If they won’t accept me as a German, I’ll go back to Germany.’7 This proved to be a false promise: a break would have been difficult as Lubitsch liked Hollywood and regarded it as a director’s paradise. He was influenced greatly by Charlie Chaplin’s A Woman of Paris and made a number of films that became established quickly as classics of the period: The Marriage Circle, Forbidden Paradise (both 1924), Lady Windermere’s Fan (1925)—a great success despite its absence of Wildean epigrams—and, in 1926, So This is Paris. Lubitsch used many of his regular writers and technical staff on The Man I Killed. The screenplay was written by Ernest Vajda and Samson Raphaelson. It was based on Reginald Berkeley’s adaptation of the original French play L’Homme que J’ai Tué by Maurice Rostand which had opened in Paris around January 1930. Vajda had worked on The Love Parade and Monte Carlo previously and Raphaelson (author of The Jazz Singer, the first talking picture) had collaborated with him and Lubitsch on the screenplay for The Smiling Lieutenant. Set designer Hans Dreier and cinematographer Victor Milner had worked with Lubitsch previously and would do so throughout the 1930s. The film opens on an Armistice Day parade a year after the war. A thanksgiving service is in progress. A Priest (Frank Sheridan) addresses pews packed with soldiers. When it is over, one man is left praying alone. A French soldier, Paul Renard (Phillips Holmes), is so distraught at his killing of a young German and fellow musician, Walter Hölderlin, during the war, that he goes in search of his family for forgiveness, despite the assurances of the Priest that he was only doing his duty. In Germany family life for the Hölderlins remains empty. Dr Hölderlin (Lionel Barrymore) hates the French. His wife (Louise Carter) helps comfort another bereaved mother at a graveyard whilst Elsa (Nancy

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Carroll), Walter’s fiancée, is forced to fight off the attentions of Herr Schultz (Lucien Littlefield), a local businessman. At first Paul cannot face the family. However, one day Elsa sees him placing flowers on Walter’s grave and discovers from the grave digger that he is French. Later, Paul speaks with the doctor who comforts him as he cries, despite his initial anger at the presence of a Frenchman in his home. Elsa arrives and finds Walter’s parents talking to Paul. The news that he has visited the grave excites them and, thinking he knew their boy before the war, they ask about him. Paul finds it impossible to reveal the truth and lies that they were together in Paris. The next day he and Elsa walk the village together, ignoring local gossip. Schultz, aggrieved to see her interested in another man, complains to his friends in a bar about the presence of their enemy in the village. He even accuses Paul of being a spy. Dr Hölderlin joins them during their conversation but they refuse his offer of a drink. Hölderlin defends Paul, and condemns the others for the attitude that led to the deaths of members of all their families in the war. After Hölderlin has left, Schultz talks to the Frenchman. Paul realises that he can never tell the truth and decides to leave. When he tells Elsa she admits she loves him and knows that he feels the same way. Paul finally admits the truth. At first she is angry and says he should never have come. But after realising the effect his arrival has had on the family, she says he must stay. She announces this and the two join in a duet of Schumann’s Träumerei. Dr and Mrs Hölderlin, relaxed, holding each other, look on happily. Lubitsch gathered together an excellent cast, although Nancy Carroll was criticised by some reviewers. The crucial lead rôle of the sensitive French soldier was given to Phillips Holmes who had just starred in Paramount’s An American Tragedy. Sadly he was killed during a training flight in the Second World War, a death made more poignant by his appearance in The Man I Killed. The star, however, was Lionel Barrymore. Given his outstanding performance it is a surprise that he was not the first choice for the rôle. According to MPPDA files,8 Emil Jannings (a Lubitsch regular, and great friend of the director) was cast originally, but he was replaced because his English was poor. Paramount was keen to avoid any repetition of the problems All Quiet on the Western Front had faced in Germany, and also feared adverse criticism from Italy and France. Prior to production they sent the original play and synopsis of the film to the MPPDA with a request for help in meeting the demands of the overseas market. The West Coast Studio Relations Office consulted the German Ambassador who felt that there would be no problems so long as the subject was treated sympathetically. The French Commercial Attaché, however, requested that the emphasis on the early scenes where Paul kills Walter be minimised. The MPPDA told Paramount in August 1931 that there were a number of areas, in addition to those identified already, where care needed to be taken. They felt that the French might object to the Armistice Day parade (though the Commercial Attaché had raised no objection) and suggested also that the character of Schultz should not appear too Prussian. They found particular problems with the cathedral sequence, and took advice from their religious consultants. Both found the portrayal of the Priest problematic (one said it was factually inaccurate) and said he should appear more sympathetic. The studio made a number of changes and on release the MPPDA were satisfied with the final production. In a telegram to B.P.Schulberg at Paramount they called it ‘an outstanding picture, which…should do much to bring the nations of the world into closer understanding and amity’. Another staff member, Lamar Trotti, wrote to the Honourable Carl Milliken (Secretary, MPPDA) saying that this ‘would be a good picture to call to the attention of the various peace groups, especially those which have not always believed we are doing very much in this regard’. The assiduous work of the MPPDA enabled The Man I Killed to be released by state censor boards without further eliminations. There remained some problems in overseas markets although the dubbed and

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original version played well in France when it was released in October 1932. Hungary rejected the film outright in April 1933 and it was only allowed in Sweden with cuts to the scene showing Walter’s bloodstained face. Characteristically, Japan made major eliminations prior to release, particularly in the sections (and corresponding sub-titles) espousing anti-war sentiments. There is no information on releases in Germany and Italy; it is likely that Paramount decided that the problems of distribution in such countries were not worth the trouble. The praise lavished on the film by MPPDA staff was mirrored by the critics, though many predicted accurately that such sombre themes would not lead to box-office success. Photoplay called it ‘a gem, a beautiful, living poem’ and ‘a powerful preachment against war’.9 Welford Beaton in the Hollywood Spectator was enthusiastic and found the whole technical team and cast worthy of commendation: It distinctly adds to the status of the screen as an art. Carping critics who ask when the screen is going to grow up, have their answer here. The story goes back to within a year of the close of the World War, a subject that modern screen traditions long since had consigned to oblivion. But Lubitsch brings it to life, breathes vigorous drama, deep human feeling and tender romance into it, and makes of it a picture that exhibitors every where can show with confidence.10 In Britain (where it was released in November 1932) Picturegoer Weekly was more circumspect. Whilst the theme was ‘driven home in an intelligent and illuminating manner’ and the opening scenes of the parade and thanksgiving service were impressive, parts were slow and Nancy Carroll was miscast.11 Kinematograph Weekly also criticised the actress, but called the film a ‘deep, psychological drama, a profound and moving lesson in the futility of hate…brilliantly acted…and intelligently produced’. In common with other reviewers it found Barrymore magnificent, particularly in his ‘stirring and moving’ denunciation of his old friends, and described Phillips Holmes’s portrayal as ‘a sensitive and intelligent study’.12 Despite all the praise, the film failed. Variety described the problem in their review. Whilst it was well made and had cast value, it said, the theme was heavy and there were few relief moments in a depressing screenplay.13 Indeed, reviewers’ comments, poor box office and fears that the public mistook the title for a gangster film, prompted Paramount to retitle it just after release as Broken Lullaby. A third title—The Fifth Commandment—may also have been used when the film was re-released in the United States in 1936.14 The film’s opening sequence, which reviewers found most praiseworthy, represents a considerable tour de force. Richard Griffith says it contains on film all there is to say about war and peace and that nobody has said it better than Lubitsch.15 It commences with bells ringing and soldiers marching in an Armistice Day parade up the Champs-Elysées. Suddenly, in the midst of the ceremony—which, though celebrating peace, is as militaristic as any mobilisation for war—the viewer realises that it has been seen through the space left by a man’s amputated leg. As the parade continues, cannon fire is heard. The camera tracks to a sign reading ‘Silence—Hospital’ and then shots of soldiers marching are interspersed with men lying on hospital beds. As the cannons boom, one of the patients, fearing that another war has broken out, rises from his bed and screams. The action moves to the cathedral. Here Lubitsch contrasts the Te Deum and the Priest’s offscreen speech praising peace, with shots of the shining swords, helmets, guns, holsters and medals worn by the praying soldiers. When the service is over they leave in a brisk, organised fashion. Being military men, they put their helmets on before exiting. The film cuts to a confession box where the Priest is giving absolution to a woman. In between shots of this the camera pans down from the roof to show a lone figure praying. It is clear the man is tortured and

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distraught. He goes to the Priest after the woman has left. His first words illustrate his dilemma: ‘Father! Help me! I can’t get away from his eyes! I killed a man.’16 The Priest thinks Paul has committed murder and invites him to confess. The exchange continues as follows: Paul: Father, I wasn’t born to be a murderer. I was a musician. I played in an orchestra—first violin. Oh, I used to be so happy. My whole life was devoted to music. I wanted to bring beauty to this world, and I brought murder! There’s no music left; nothing in my ears but the sound of a dying man! Priesf: You killed a man. Why did you kill? Paul: Why! Why! I don’t know. For no reason. For no reason at all. And he didn’t even raise a hand to defend himself. He just looked at me—looked at me! At this point a flashback shows Paul killing Walter. As he stands there shocked he sees a book of Beethoven’s music on the ground. When he opens it a letter falls out. It is Walter’s. In part it reads: Whom am I going to kill and for what? For two years I lived in Paris and loved the French. And now I am told to kill them. The noise is getting awful. How much longer will I live…. But they can’t kill everybody. Some of us will be left. Maybe I’ll be lucky. I can’t write any more. The earth is shaking! Auf Wiedersehn…. Paul’s hand finishes signing the letter. Then, back at the confession, he tells the Priest that he found other letters. ‘They were in German,’ he says, ‘I could read them. They make German boys learn French and French boys learn German, and when we grow up, they make us kill each other.’ The Priest attempts to comfort him. He says his agony is unnecessary. As he has done nothing that his duty did not dictate, he is free from crime. This fails to help Paul. Despite the absolution he cries out: ‘Duty! Duty? Duty to kill? Duty to kill?… I came here to find peace, and you haven’t given it to me.’ Finally, Paul says that he will go to the boy’s parents to seek forgiveness and the Priest concurs. The scene closes with a plea: Father, you think I’m mad. Am I? Nine million people got slaughtered, and they’re already talking about another war. And the next time there’ll be ninety million, and the world calls that sane! Well, then I want to be insane! I killed one man, Walter Hölderlin, and I can’t escape. And God knows, I’m not a madman! These powerful few minutes highlight effectively the despair and guilt for having killed in war. Lubitsch’s use of the stump of an amputated leg to frame what is in reality a military parade (what Philip Larkin called ‘solemn-sinister Wreath-rubbish’17) is one of the most apposite comments about conflict ever put on film. It induces a shocking realisation. It reminds the audience that there is more to the day than celebration; that people’s lives have been affected in a fundamental way. There is an equally great condemnation of war in the cathedral scene despite the restrictions placed by the censors. Lubitsch’s shots of weapons of war during the Priest’s sermon eulogising peace provide one attack on militarism. The glib comments of the Priest about duty are an attack on religious complicity in battle when many clergy praised death and acted as chaplains at the front. Siegfried Sassoon had something to say about these men of the cloth in his late 1916 poem ‘They’:

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The Bishop tells us: ‘When the boys come back They will not be the same; for they’ll have fought In a just cause: they lead the last attack On Anti-Christ; their comrades’ blood has bought New right to breed an honourable race, They have challenged Death and dared him face to face.’ ‘We’re none of us the same!’ the boys reply. ‘For George lost both his legs; and Bill’s stone blind; Poor Jim’s shot through the lungs and like to die; And Bert’s gone syphilitic: you’ll not find A chap who’s served that hasn’t found some change.’ And the Bishop said: ‘The ways of God are strange!’ Erich Maria Remarque was also critical of the use made of God in wartime and in dealing with the aftermath. A passage in the original novel of Three Comrades, not included in the film, has the lead character praying in Church. A friendly Priest asks if he can help, but Bobby refuses to say why he is there. The Priest says he will pray anyway as the Heavenly Father will always help. ‘I followed him with my eyes until I heard the door shut behind him. Yes… if it were so simple…’, Bobby thinks: He helps, He always helps—but did He help Bernard Wiese when he lay wounded in the stomach, yelling in Houthoulst Wood? Did He help Katczinsky who fell at Handzaeme, leaving a sick wife and a child he had never seen? Did He help Müller and Leer and Kemmerich? Did He help little Friedmann and Jürgens and Berger and millions more? No, damn it, too much blood has flowed in the world for that sort of belief in a Heavenly Father.18 The Man I Killed then moves from the cathedral to Germany and the family of the man Paul killed. Here the overall theme of the futility of hatred begins to appear, principally through the character of Dr Hölderlin. He is first seen treating a small boy in his surgery who has been injured in a fight with someone who said he was French. The Doctor tells him to save his fists for a real Frenchman. It is only when Paul is able to speak with the Doctor that his enmity begins to lessen. At first his objections are difficult to overcome. He reacts angrily to the audacity of a Frenchman seeking help from his surgery. Paul tells him that he does not understand why he is here but the Doctor replies: ‘Understand! There can be no understanding between you and me. Millions of dead lie between us, a dead world.’ He pushes a picture of Walter towards Paul. ‘The French killed him!’ he says. ‘To me every Frenchman is the murderer of my son!’ The bitterness begins to lessen as Paul starts to cry. Then Elsa arrives and tells the Hölderlins that Paul has been placing flowers on Walter’s grave. They are interested now, and presuming he knew Walter in Paris before the war, they want to hear about their son. He remains unable to tell them of his murder. That night Elsa tells Paul how his arrival has made them all happy. As he leaves her at the door, the Doctor and his wife, relaxed for the first time in years, stand smiling at an upstairs window as they say goodbye. Elsa and Paul walk around the village, despite the incredulity of the neighbours. Gossiping is rife; women rush to pass the news to others, their whispering accompanied by the sound of many ringing doorbells. People come out of shops and homes and watch from windows. One even gets a cushion to rest against.

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16 Dr Hölderlin (Lionel Barrymore) accuses Paul Renard (Phillips Holmes) of murdering his son in the war in The Man I Killed (1932). Copyright © 1932 by Universal Studios, Inc. Courtesy of MCA Publishing Rights, a Division of MCA Inc. All rights reserved.

Such curiosity can be ignored but Paul’s arrival has aroused resentment and suspicion amongst some of the men. Schultz, bitter from Elsa’s rejection, sees them together and rushes to his friends at the bar in a hotel. They are already angry about the French and the occupation of parts of their country, and the news of Paul’s relationship with a woman from their community heightens their animosity. At one point in the conversation Schultz accuses Paul of being a spy as he keeps a locked violin case in his room (one man, sitting alone, says that perhaps it contains just a violin). Their discussion is interrupted by Dr Hölderlin’s arrival. He is jaunty and happier now and says he is pleased to see his friends though, laughing, he exempts Herr Schultz from that description. His offers to buy them all a drink are rebuffed by each in turn and he gets angry when Schultz asks him why he did not bring his friend. He replies that Paul came to place flowers on his son’s grave. ‘He is my guest,’ he says. ‘My wife likes him, Elsa likes him, and I love him.’ Schultz replies that they might as well sing the Marseillaise. Hölderlin, his anger rising, says that he has not sung since his son died. Schultz continues by asking who killed him and is joined by the others asking who killed their sons. Hölderlin’s bitter and emotive, though dignified, response is one of the greatest condemnations of war ever spoken on screen. Variety regarded this as the high point of the film.19 Addressing them all he says: No one here can tell me the meaning of death or the meaning of hatred. I’ve drunk deep of both of ’em. And so, I tell you, have the French. Who sent that young man out to kill Germans?… And who sent my boy, and your boy, and your boy, and your two boys? Who gave them the bullets and gas and

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bayonets? We, the fathers! Here and on the other side. We’re too old to fight, but we’re not too old to hate. We’re responsible. And goes on: When thousands of other men’s sons were killed, we called it victory and celebrated with beer; and when thousands of our sons were killed, they called it victory and celebrated with wine. Fathers drink to the death of sons! Ach! My heart isn’t with you any longer, old men. My heart’s with the young, dead and living, everywhere—anywhere! Depressed by the attitude of his friends, he leaves the bar. As he goes, the man who spoke about the violin stands, picks up his crutches and, after shaking Hölderlin’s hand, follows him out. The man has lost a leg. As they talk outside, Hölderlin tells him that he stood in front of this hotel when Walter left. ‘He was going to his death, and I cheered!’ he says. Hölderlin then stands still and imagines the sound of marching boots. The disabled veteran says that he too went to the war from here. Schultz is still bitter and he accosts Paul as he enters the hotel. He makes fun of his being in Germany and says that there must be plenty of women in Paris. Paul (at this point seeing again in flashback the death of Walter) realises that he has placed Elsa at great risk but when she hears that he wants to leave she is distraught but unrepentant: My conscience is clear. I’m willing to face everybody. I’ll walk up the street with you, arm in arm. Let them open their windows and doors! Let them look. I’ll tell them, ‘Yes, we love each other. Yes! The war is over!’ When she discovers the truth her tone changes. He shouldn’t have come to Germany and should have left before now. However, she knows that his arrival has brought great happiness to Walter’s parents and refuses to allow him to leave. ‘You’re not going to kill Walter again; you must live for them,’ she says. When the Doctor hears that he is going to stay he takes Paul in his arms and calls him ‘My son’. Another issue covered in The Man I Killed is the inability to forget. The New York Times said Paul ‘moves as if dazed, and one appreciates that night after night he sees the figure of the dying German’.20 Walter’s parents find it equally difficult. Just before Paul makes his first visit, the Hölderlins are having dinner. They are more relaxed than previously and their conversation is comparatively lighthearted. They talk about the better food they are eating and the quality of goods in the shops. Elsa says that all these changes make it difficult to imagine there was ever a war. The ensuing silence is broken only by Dr Hölderlin’s mumbling, as once again they are all reminded of their loved one’s death. The film portrays powerfully the sense of loss suffered by Walter’s parents and their attempts to overcome this. Even though he was a soldier in war it was an unexpected death, and it has been worsened by the knowledge that he died in violent circumstances. One scene has Frau Hölderlin visiting the grave of her son. She tries to comfort another bereaved mother. ‘I don’t think they’d like us to be crying all the time…,’ she says. ‘We must learn not to weep, and to love what we have left. There are so many years ahead of us.’ The sense of irreversible loss is also found in Dr Hölderlin. After he has helped fend off Schultz’s advance to Elsa he goes to Walter’s bedroom (where little seems to have been changed since his departure for the front). He tells Elsa that he wants to be alone for a few minutes and sits on the bed. He looks at a clock and uses it to correct his own watch, then picks up a violin case and holds it lovingly.

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This scene is replicated later after he has accepted Paul as his son. Knowing he too is a musician, he goes to the bedroom and brings the violin down for him to play. There still seems remorse and regret as he stands in the room, but his step is lighter than before. The first scene in the bedroom is almost unbearable to watch. The emotion is heightened by Lubitsch’s choosing to do almost the whole sequence in silence, save for the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece. Indeed, dialogue was kept to a minimum throughout. Lubitsch preferred to use the best methods developed during the silent period to induce emotion in the viewer. Considerable space was devoted in the Hollywood Spectator in August 1933 to the techniques used in Broken Lullaby (it had been renamed by this stage).21 ‘Monitor’ argued that for the first time in a talking picture ‘cinema led the sound track…the camera dimmed the stars, and relegated them to their appropriate relationship in terms of the medium’. He liked Lubitsch’s adroit use of what he called ‘essential’ dialogue (‘[that] which advances the action, and not…employed to follow the camera’) and said that all the director needed to establish the character and theme in the early minutes were the five words ‘Father, I killed a man.’ ‘Monitor’ also liked the use of the flashback. This had been ‘probably the most popular and effective device of silent cinema’ but had been used rarely in the early sound years as speech—particularly the editing of conversation— had rendered the technique somewhat moribund. The cutback showing the source of Paul’s despair was essential and the choice of location allowed this to be included. ‘A cathedral contains a confession box’, ‘Monitor’ said, ‘and a confession box is a location in which one does not see the person with whom one converses. Hearing in those circumstances has a distinct visual phase.’ The scene which ‘Monitor’ found most praiseworthy from the technical point of view was Hölderlin’s initial conversation with Paul. When he discovers that there is a Frenchman in his house his anger bursts into hostile rage. This is in close-up. As he continues to shout, the film cuts to a semi-close-up of Paul’s face: Barrymore’s voice raises in pitch; it is dominating the scene completely. The camera is bringing Holmes into detail; it shows his twitching cheeks, his haunted eyes, his clenching fingers, and the pulsing veins at his temples. My God, we’re not seeing Holmes at all—it’s Barrymore we’re seeing! The camera is showing us the inherent instincts of a healer slowly rising to submerge the instilled hate of a German. The camera is showing us Lionel Barrymore subconsciously…observing, classifying, and diagnosing the symptoms of the poor suffering devil of a neurasthenic who is seated across the table from him. And while he is consciously denouncing a hated Frenchman at the top of his voice! Lubitsch’s reversion to silent techniques was praised by Robert Sherwood in the New York Post. ‘It is the best talking picture that has yet been seen and heard’, he said, ‘for it is the closest approach that has been made to the true cinematographic ideal—precisely the same ideal that existed and was so infrequently realised in the old silent days.’22 He added: The moving picture’s principal claim to recognition as an individual art is, as it always has been, its ability to express the eloquence of silence. In placing too much reliance upon words, printed in subtitles or spoken in dialogue, it has neglected its own unique powers…. [Lubitsch emphasised] the fact that the greatest moments in a screen drama are those in which there is nothing to be said. The Man I Killed proved to be the last of the great fictional films about the war in the early 1930s. Its failure at the box office confirmed the view that the subject had run its course. With the country in deep

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depression, lighter and more escapist fare was demanded. Though it was a commercial failure, it nevertheless represented a courageous attempt to portray a difficult story. It deserves a better reputation, and justifies revival. Realising the prospects of making The Road Back had all but disappeared for the present, Universal embarked on a gentler treatment of post-war Germany in their 1934 production Little Man, What Now? based on Hans Fallada’s best-selling novel (which had already been filmed in a successful German version the year before). Carl Laemmle Snr, in an enigmatic foreword designed presumably to offset foreign concerns, said that his film was a plea for Everyman, who, though suffering, can often find salvation through a woman’s love. Frank Borzage was given the director’s rôle. In 1932 he had made the definitive version of Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. This had not been a happy experience. Its frank sexual content had alarmed the MPPDA, it was cut heavily by many state censor boards and foreign governments, and it had been released with two endings (one of which substituted a happier coda for the author’s more downbeat close). The censors continued to attack the film, denying it a re-release in 1935 when Paramount submitted it with Broken Lullaby. By this stage, censorship in the United States had been influenced strongly by the Legion of Decency, and with the agreement of the Production Code in 1934, the MPPDA had been granted greater power by the studios. Just prior to Little Man, What Now? Borzage had directed No Greater Glory for Columbia. This remake of an original German production of 1929 was a symbolic attack on that country’s militarism. In the film young boys learn by playing at war that honour comes to those who die in battle. It was poorly reviewed. Little Man, What Now? received a better critical reception based mainly on the quality of the two leads: Margaret Sullavan (as Lammchen) and Douglass Montgomery (Hans Pinneberg). It followed the trials of the two from the discovery that she is pregnant and their ensuing marriage through to the inability of Pinneberg to secure permanent employment. He is sacked from one job because he is married (he was appointed by the owner only because he wanted to find a husband for his daughter) and the two stay with his stepmother who runs a lightly disguised brothel in decadent Berlin. Ultimately, they are taken in by a kindly furniture manufacturer, and just after the baby is born, a friend he had previously worked with offers him a job. The war is left in the background much of the time, even though it is clear that this is responsible for their plight. The film opens with a political rally addressed, though this is unstated, by a leftist group. Indeed, any political comments steer clear of labels—no communists, Nazis or socialists are identified—and descriptions about the state of the country are left to a starving couple (described by David Shipman as being like a Greek chorus23) who refer to ‘them’ and ‘we’. The few references to the war in the film are oblique. When the receptionist of Lammchen’s doctor asks Pinneberg about his father, he says he is dead. When asked of what, he replies ‘war’. Later he complains about his low rate of pay. His friend tells him the world cannot change in a day. Pinneberg’s reply is that it did one day in 1914 and blood has been in the air ever since. He does not admit he is a pacifist but says he is in favour of peace. Though it is not stated, Pinneberg has been affected greatly by the war. Each time it is mentioned, he falls silent and is deep in thought. It is not a great film and the lack of any real political comment dilutes its message. Nowadays, it presents a view of pre-censorship America: productions that followed would not dare show a pregnant unmarried woman and it was probably the last picture for some time to have a couple share a double bed.24 By the time New Universal made The Road Back the situation had worsened considerably and the delay had only complicated matters further. Nazi pressure had intensified to the extent that if a studio wished to distribute any of its films in Germany, it had to be careful in what it said about the country and its politics.25

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Initially, Universal accepted that there was little they could do to satisfy the German government, particularly as the film was based on a book by the despised Erich Maria Remarque. Nevertheless, careful consideration was given by the studio, the MPPDA, James Whale (as director) and R.C.Sherriff (screenwriter) to minimise political controversy. Despite their best efforts, there was no appeasing the Nazis. During production George Gyssling, the German Consul in Los Angeles, wrote to all the leading cast players, technical staff and Universal executives warning them that if they persisted in their work, all films they appeared in could be banned in his country. Eventually, complaints from the State Department (goaded by protests from the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League and the Screen Actors Guild) led to an apology, but Gyssling continued to influence the production. The film that resulted proved a travesty of the original book and the early scripts. Many anti-war elements were removed prior to release and comic scenes either embellished or added. It opens with the war-weary soldiers in the trenches on 10 November 1918. The experienced, cynical Tjaden (the only remaining member of the company portrayed in All Quiet on the Western Front) tells the younger recruits that the war will never end. Max Weil (Larry Blake) argues that the soldiers have to end it themselves. That night they are ordered to attack an enemy target. Half the company are killed, many are wounded and one is driven insane. The next day the Armistice is signed and the company—happy that war is now over—travel back home. They are greeted by revolutionaries demanding they tear off their military insignia. They refuse and a fight develops which is only stopped when Willy (Andy Devine) threatens them with a mock grenade. It is difficult for them to find peace back home and school means nothing to them now. The streets are filled with revolutionaries and angry groups attack the town hall. Max Weil tries to stop the troops firing at the people but is gunned down on the orders of his old commander, von Hagen (John Emery). Meanwhile, Albert (Maurice Murphy) finds that Lucy, his wife (Barbara Read), has been having an affair with Bartscher (William B.Davidson), a war profiteer. One night Albert shoots Bartscher. Later he is found guilty of murder, despite the efforts of his comrades to defend his action. The original screenplay ends with some of the soldiers walking in a forest after the conviction. There they encounter, to their great disgust, a hideous dwarf in military uniform drilling schoolboys for another war. Facing considerable pressure, and now seemingly wanting to pursue any method to satisfy the Germans (the new management was in debt and any revival of the foreign market would have been welcome), Universal substituted a montage of troops of all nations for this ending and insisted on a further twenty changes to lighten the tone of the film. Whale hated the Nazis and refused to cooperate. He was replaced as director for the additional scenes by Ted Sloman, ironically an English Jew. Charles Kenyon was brought in to make the necessary script alterations and shared the screenwriting credit with Sherriff. Even such an emasculated version failed to satisfy the Germans. Universal offered a pre-release viewing to the Ambassador in New York but he refused to participate. The explanation given later was that as he had no right to intervene or pass judgement on such a matter it would have been inappropriate to attend. Given all these problems it is ironic that the film enjoyed some positive notices, and initially broke boxoffice records. Cue said that James Whale had brought a ‘genuinely moving film’ to the screen which was ‘superb anti-war propaganda’.26 Rob Wagner in his Script said it was better than All Quiet on the Western Front27 and Louella Parsons said it ‘stirs the heart as well as the mind!’28 Some reviewers pointed to the pressure placed on the studio during production and referred to the changes which had resulted. Whilst it regarded it as a magnificent achievement, the Hollywood Spectator said ‘it is a pale shadow of what it could have been if the cutter’s shears had not been wielded so cruelly’.29 The fastidious Frank Nugent in the New York Times pointed to the central problem in the production. ‘It is Universal’s “The Road Back,” not Erich Maria Remarque’s, that they presented last night at the Globe’, he

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17 The banned scene from The Road Back (1937): the young veterans encounter boys being drilled for another war in post-war Germany.

said. ‘It is an approximation of the novel; it is touched occasionally with the author’s bleak spirit. But most of the time, it goes its own Hollywoodeanheaded way, playing up the comedy, melodramatizing rather than dramatizing.’30 Nugent said he had gone back to the original novel and screenplay to better understand the film. Knowing little about the backlot machinations, he felt that Universal had misunderstood the story. The studio ‘has narrowed it and cheapened it and made it pointless’, he concluded. Unsurprisingly, it was reported that Remarque did not like the film. As expected, The Road Back was not distributed in Germany, but it did achieve some success in Britain despite a poor critical reception. Graham Greene called it awful: one big Mother’s Day, celebrated by American youth, plump, adolescent faces with breaking sissy voices. Voices which began to break in the trenches…are still breaking an hour and a quarter later…. We’ve lived through a lot in that time, but not through war, revolution, [and] starvation.31 Film Weekly was equally dismissive: ‘what was originally intended as a powerful sermon on the horrors of the aftermath of war in a defeated country’, it said, ‘has become a sketchy story of one or two personal affairs, punctuated with larger sequences which fail to epitomise community unrest and disillusionment’.32 The Monthly Film Bulletin said that most viewers would be unlikely ‘to be very sympathetic to…[war’s]

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victims, as they are portrayed in this film’. However, their reviewer found parts were humorous and the riot sequence was well shot.33 Most critics accepted the film was mixed and it is true that there remain, after all the problems, some moments which are astounding pieces of cinema. The battle scene on the night of 10 November is filmed with staggering power and highlights all the brutality and waste of war, particularly as the Armistice is signed the next day. Life called these twelve minutes ‘the most cruel war scenes ever filmed by Hollywood’.34 Another brilliant moment takes place after the war is over, when the few remaining members of the battalion line up, and around them form the ghostly figures of the dead. That was reminiscent of Milestone’s ending of All Quiet on the Western Front. The sentiments expressed are similar too, despite being overwhelmed on occasion by the comic antics of Tjaden and Willy. It is emphasised throughout that men who were taught to kill in war find it difficult to adjust to peace. When Albert is on trial for the murder of his wife’s lover, Willy asks: ‘If a man has been forced to shoot men for three years that have never hurt him, why shouldn’t he shoot a man that has ruined his life?’ Ernst (John King) surrenders his Iron Cross to the Judges. You deserve it more than me, he says. He accuses them of being unhelpful on their return compared to how willingly their generation sent them away to fight. The Road Back shared one other similarity with All Quiet on the Western Front. In late 1939 it was rereleased with an anti-Nazi narration, again written by Gordon Kahn and spoken by John Deering. Universal declared in pre-publicity, and in the narration itself, that this was the full, uncensored version. Indeed, they claimed that new scenes that were prevented from being made at the time had been added. Like its more illustrious predecessor, however, it was actually cut further, with the only additions being montage sections placed at the beginning and end, and a brief scene portraying Hitler in a beer cellar addressing his small group of supporters. Ironically, the dictator was played by Larry Blake who, earlier, had epitomised the radical, socialist soldier. The film of the third volume of Remarque’s trilogy about the First World War—Three Comrades—was released by MGM the following year. Although Frank Borzage directed a generally faithful adaptation (replacing the cohabiting couple in the book with a husband and wife) the experience of The Road Back spurred censors and studio executives to again reduce political content to a minimum. Indeed, the MPPDA advised that it might be best not to commence production at all. In January 1938 Joseph Breen, Head of West Coast operations, wrote to Louis B.Mayer arguing that any film of this nature would lead to protests from the Nazis and German-Americans and would almost certainly be banned in Italy. Furthermore, it would place in jeopardy MGM’s business interests in Germany. Breen went on to say that a careful revision of the screenplay might help, but this would be unlikely to lessen the violent resentment that would inevitably result. Finally, he appealed for restraint on the grounds that it would not just be MGM that suffered, but the whole cinema industry. The MPPDA’s entreaties did not stop MGM entering Three Comrades into production. Breen, still concerned, held a meeting with various studio staff and the producer, Joseph Mankiewicz, at which various amendments were made to the screenplay. They all agreed that the film would establish clearly that the story is taking place in the period 1918–20 so that no association could be made with the Nazis. In addition, any dialogue or visual references to democracy, book burnings, emblems and political parties were to be taken out. Finally, the traditional concerns of the censors were not ignored, and suggestions were made regarding likely problems with sexual content and alcohol. It was reported later by the radical journal New Masses that, to offset further problems, Breen had suggested that any agitators pictured could be communists rather than Nazis and that references to uniformed thugs and attacks on Jews be discarded.35 Mankiewicz refused to implement the advice on the communists, earning a hug and a kiss from a much discontented Scott Fitzgerald whose first screenplay for the production had encountered considerable

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criticism. This whole experience proved difficult for Mankiewicz who was not only the producer of the film but a member of MGM’s executive committee. Earlier he had been the studio’s liaison officer for German speakers arriving in the country and was very critical of MGM’s attitude towards the Nazis. He said later that MGM continued to distribute films in Germany after other companies had either been banned or launched their own boycott. ‘Warner Brothers had guts’, he commented: They hated the Nazis more than they cared for the German grosses. MGM did not. It kept on releasing its films in Nazi Germany until Hitler finally threw them out. In fact, one producer was in charge of taking anyone’s name off a picture’s credits if it sounded Jewish.36 Although Mankiewicz ignored Breen’s advice on the communists, other suggested changes were incorporated. In addition, George Gyssling saw an advance copy of the film and suggestions from that viewing—whether they were the MPPDA’s or the Consul’s is not clear—were all accepted. These included the cutting of a shot of drums heading a parade, a shortening of the riot scene and reductions to a fist fight over a car crash. Like The Road Back, Remarque wanted Three Comrades to show the misery and despair faced by returning veterans and the suffering of German citizens caused by the war. In an early section of the book Bobby, the lead character (Erich in the film), contemplates his and his comrades’ lives since 1918. ‘We had meant to wage war against the lies, the selfishness, the greed, the inertia of the heart that was the cause of all that lay behind us’: we had become hard, without trust in anything but in our comrades beside us and in things, the sky, trees, the earth, bread, tobacco, that never played false to any man—and what had come of it? All collapsed, perverted and forgotten. And to those who had not forgotten was left only powerlessness, despair, indifference and schnapps. The day of great dreams for the future of mankind was past. The busybodies, the self-seekers triumphed.37 Shorn of much of its social and political comment, the film turned out to be less depressing and concentrated on the book’s main narrative of a love story between the two leads, Patricia—Pat—Hollmann (played by Margaret Sullavan) and Erich Lohkamp (Robert Taylor). Lohkamp, along with his two army friends, Otto Koster (Franchot Tone) and Gottfried Lenz (Robert Young), returns from the front to find political instability and no work as their garage attracts little business. One day they meet Pat driving in the country, and encouraged by the others, Erich invites her out. The two fall in love and get married. Unfortunately, the tuberculosis she had suffered from previously reasserts itself on their honeymoon and she is ordered to go to a sanatorium for the winter. She is late in going but once there she is advised to have an operation which may cure her for good. Meanwhile, back in the city, Gottfried is shot whilst helping an old comrade to safety after mobs attack his platform. Later, Otto obtains revenge by assassinating the murderer. This news is kept from Pat, but she guesses when Gottfried fails to visit. The operation takes place and she is ordered to rest. Realising that she has placed an intolerable financial and mental burden on Erich and Otto, she sacrifices herself by leaving her bed and walking to the window to see them say goodbye. The film ends with the two men leaving the graves of their comrades as they set off for South America. As they depart, gunfire is heard in the city. Three Comrades is not a bad film overall, though there seems little point to the exercise. Pat’s sacrifice, without knowing the results of the operation, seems foolish (in the book there is no operation as her illness

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is too advanced). Furthermore, whilst South America is seen as a panacea for their troubles, the reason for this is never explained except that one of the characters has worked there before. It is ironic to think that after 1945 the area became notorious for harbouring Nazi war criminals. The major difficulty, particularly for those who knew the book, was the absence of political comment. The one demonstration occurs just prior to Gottfried’s death but the speaker uses general statements that have no political reality whatsoever. An additional problem is that, as the MPPDA insisted the action take place in the two years 1918–20, the film is unable to lay the total blame for Pat’s illness and ultimate death on under-nourishment during the war years, as Remarque saw it. At one point Pat does say that she grew too tall and ate too little during the conflict and was ill for a year, but this is not presented in the direct manner that Remarque uses in the book. Most viewers would have missed the point. Indeed, they could have assumed that her illness emerged from anywhere, possibly even from extravagant living as she is a gregarious woman. Moviegoers were enthusiastic about the film and made it one of the top ten box-office hits of the year. This was helped by the critics, who liked the production and were generous with their praise. They enjoyed particularly Margaret Sullavan who was awarded the New York Critic’s Best Actress Award and the British National Award that year and was nominated also for an Academy Award (she lost to Bette Davis for her stunning portrayal in Jezebel). Frank Nugent described it as ‘a beautiful and memorable film. Faithful to the spirit and, largely, to the letter of the novel, it has been magnificently directed, eloquently written and admirably played…. [O]bviously one of 1938’s best ten, and not one to be missed.’38 Not all critics were so voluble with their praise. Newsweek lamented the removal of many of the social and political aspects: Pat, brought vividly to life by Miss Sullavan, dominates the film and gives it its chief claim to reality…. In the novel Remarque also allows Pat to dominate, but her tragic romance is plotted against a background of hunger, despair, and political turmoil. In attempting to capture a cautious minimum of that unrest for the film, Frank Borzage…succeeds only in confusing a sometimes poignant love story.39 Finally, Variety was also critical, though ultimately wrong in its prediction of the film’s commercial impact: Just what Frank Borzage is trying to prove…is very difficult to fathom from watching the confusing performances of [the leads]…. There must have been some reason for making this picture, but it certainly isn’t in the cause of entertainment. It provides a dull interlude…. Despite all the draught of the star names, it’s in for a sharp nose-dive at the box office…. Borzage is off on the wrong foot this time.40 Nazi attacks on Hollywood continued after 1938. The Great Dictator, Confessions of a Nazi Spy and The Mortal Storm, amongst others, all attracted criticism. By this stage the Second World War had started, and with America officially neutral there was no repeat of the level of pressure exerted earlier. This period of Hollywood history—when business interests and profits prevailed over morality—proved to be a time of shame, though it differed little to most other responses to the growing Nazi menace in Europe. The debacle of All Quiet on the Western Front in Germany proved to be the catalyst. When Universal agreed to cut the film worldwide to satisfy the Nazis they had opened themselves up to future interference. Any attempt to film another Remarque novel (particularly a continuation of the first story) was

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bound to face trouble. Given the problems they had faced already it was incredible both that Universal bothered at all to make The Road Back and, after taking such a decision, should have acquiesced further. The film that was released proved not to be the sequel critics and others had expected. In a sense it was unnecessary. A continuation of the story had appeared already with The Man I Killed. Although it reversed the nationalities of the lead characters, Lubitsch carried over many of the themes (and lives) explored in Milestone’s film, All Quite on the Western Front. If he had survived, Paul Bäumer would have been like Paul Renard: distraught at having killed Gerard Duval, he would have gone in search of his family to seek forgiveness and help them face the future. Even if, like Renard, he was unable to tell the truth, his presence would have brought music and love back into their lives.

Chapter 9 The forgotten man and the lost generation in 1930s Hollywood

During the war, troops of all nationalities feared—whether as victors or losers —that they would be forgotten and their sacrifice made meaningless. In Germany these problems started right after the war with the need to meet war reparations leading to unemployment and poverty. The onset of the great depression saw economic recession become a worldwide problem which, in the late 1920s and early 1930s, affected many veterans, forcing some to live on the road. There was also the problem of returning home to family and friends who knew little of the realities of the conflict. Those who had survived found it difficult to come to terms with, let alone talk about, their wartime experiences. This created a lost generation of often forgotten men. In All Quiet on the Western Front Erich Maria Remarque wrote that not only would veterans— worn out after years of combat—have little to contribute, but that those at home would be indifferent and unable to empathise: Had we returned home in 1916, out of the suffering and the strength of our experiences we might have unleashed a storm. Now if we go back we will be weary, broken, burnt out, rootless, and without hope. We will not be able to find our way any more…. And men will not understand us—for the generation that grew up before us, though it has passed these years with us already had a home and a calling; now it will return to its old occupations, and the war will be forgotten—and the generation that has grown up after us will be strange to us and push us aside. We will be superfluous even to ourselves, we will grow older, a few will adapt themselves, some others will merely submit, and most will be bewildered; —the years will pass by and in the end we shall fall into ruin.1 It was this fear that prompted Siegfried Sassoon, in only his third poem written after the Armistice, ‘Aftermath’, to beg that the events of the past four years not be forgotten: Have you forgotten yet?… For the world’s events have rumbled on since those gagged days, Like traffic checked while at the crossing of city-ways: And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flow Like clouds in the lit heaven of life; and you’re a man reprieved to go, Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy to spare. But the past is just the same—and War’s a bloody game… Have you forgotten yet?… Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you’ll never forget.

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Sassoon was talking to one man, but his was a lesson intended for all. However, not only did the world forget that it had fought a war to end all wars but society forgot those who had fought in the war. Many returning veterans, promised jobs and homes, found neither. By the early 1930s the promise, and profits, of peace had become a bitter, stale joke. The story of the forgotten man was an attractive one for film makers in 1930s Hollywood and led to the creation of some of the most brilliant fictional commentaries on the war. Often tangential to the plot, and with coverage of the impact of conflict sometimes occupying only a small part, the war was held responsible for contemporary economic and social despair. Indeed, some were portrayed as forgotten to the extent that they were forced to turn to crime to live. It was not possible to cover all subjects. Disabled veterans were often the most forgotten of all and— excepting the appearance of soldiers with amputated limbs in some films (such as The Big Parade and The Man I Killed) —it was not until 1971 that Hollywood could film Dalton Trumbo’s classic book, Johnny Got His Gun, the story of a soldier so badly injured that he begs in Morse code for the right to die.2 Moreover, the subject was not confined to Hollywood and the decade preceding the Second World War, nor is it a complaint levelled only by the veterans of the First World War. In Britain, John Baxter made a number of films which portrayed the suffering war veteran, including Lest We Forget (1934) and Hearts of Humanity (1936).3 Similarly The Rake’s Progress (1945) showed how the ambitions and beliefs of the returning soldier were betrayed. The film has an early scene set on Armistice Day, 1918. Here, in response to the boy Rake’s comment that Eton had won the war, a soldier says that it’s the common man—‘forgotten in peacetime…human target in wartime’ —who wins wars and looks forward to the homes promised by Lloyd George. The next scene is set in Oxford in 1931 where a veteran is playing a barrel organ, with a sign saying no pension and no dole. The most important of the films on this subject, however, were those made in Hollywood and the most prominent of these were produced by Warner Brothers. It was a natural subject for Warners—the most socially aware and politically committed of all film companies at the time and one that was prepared to take risks on unpopular subjects. They were also sympathetic to the Democratic cause and supported Roosevelt. Thomas Schatz has written: Warners shunned the high-gloss, well-lit world of MGM and Paramount, opting instead for a bleaker, darker world view. Warners’ Depression-era pictures were fast-paced, fast-talking, socially sensitive (if not downright exploitive) treatments of contemporary stiffs and lowlifes, of society’s losers and victims rather than heroic or well-heeled types. And perhaps most distinctive in Warners1 pictures were the lack of naive optimism and a disdain for romantic love as either a motivating plot device or a means to a narrative resolution.4 But it was also a reflection of the times. In the early 1930s there was considerable suffering with many exsoldiers failing to find work. Some were involved in the creation of ‘Hoovervilles’, the shanty towns named after the then president (ironically, given the fact that many of these were starving, Hoover was the man responsible for food administration during the war and had been appalled by the conflict). Seventeen thousand veterans formed the Bonus Army which marched on Washington in May 1932 demanding early settlement of payments promised to them. Most were forcibly evicted with tear gas and some died. Though their action failed (a Bill passed in Congress was defeated in the Senate), it did contribute to the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt who offered new hope to the now fifteen million unemployed with his New Deal. The desperation of this time was summed up best in the most eloquent of all songs about the forgotten man, ‘Brother, Can You Spare a Dime’, written by Yip Harburg for the show Americana:

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Once in khaki suits, Gee, we looked swell, Full of that Yankee Doodle-de-dum Half a million boots went sloggin’ through Hell, I was the kid with the drum. Say, don’t you remember, they called me Al— It was Al all the time. Say, don’t you remember I’m your pal— Brother, can you spare a dime. Three Warner productions stand out in this period: I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932) Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933), and The Roaring Twenties (1939). It is also worth mentioning The Public Enemy, released in 1931, for its cynical comment about the war. Directed by William Wellman, it pioneered the gangster film even though it was an attack on the hoodlum culture. The war is mentioned obliquely when Tom Powers, the gangster (played by James Cagney), is accused by his Babbitt-like brother of being a murderer. Tom responds by comparing his own murders with his brother’s during the war: you’re not clean, he tells him; you killed and liked it. This view, that there is little difference between legally sanctioned murder and illegal murder, was not common in the anti-war film, but it was nevertheless one that needed to be stated. I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang is justly one of the most famous films from the early sound period.5 A bitter attack on the brutality of the chain-gang system—so strong, in fact, that it was influential in its abolition—it was also one of the first to show the difficulties the veteran had in returning to society and normality. The film, directed by Mervyn LeRoy, was based on the autobiography of Robert E.Burns (called James Allen in the film). It was generally faithful to the original—Burns was an unofficial advisor to Warner Brothers whilst on the run—though some of the early scenes about the war were not as scathing. The film was also able to show more of the underside of American society, helped by the relative lack of censorship at this time. The result was not only a truthful adaptation of a brilliant story, but also great cinema which retains even now the ability to shock. It was welcomed widely by most critics and audiences, belying the fears of some in Warner Brothers (but not the family itself) that such a downbeat picture would not be attractive. It opens with James Allen (Paul Muni), a decorated soldier, returning home after the war to be welcomed back by his family and his old employer. Reluctant to return to the routine of his factory job—and, after his experiences in the American Expeditionary Force, fostering ambitions of becoming an engineer—he leaves. Work is hard to find, however, and he ends up in a flophouse. He is implicated in a failed robbery and is sentenced to ten years hard labour. After a brutal first year he escapes. Eventually he becomes a respected citizen, building the bridges he has long dreamed of constructing. Betrayed by his wife he is arrested but, after assurances that he would receive a pardon, he agrees to return to the chain gang for ninety days. There, the promise is seen as worthless and he escapes again. The rest of his life is lived on the run. Burns said that he had been a ‘sucker’ for enlisting instead of staying at home and getting rich. This feeling became apparent soon after his return from the front in May 1919. His autobiography records: ‘My, how good it was to be alive, to be back in the good old U.S.A.—still whole and young, with life before me!’6 However, he soon realised that he was not so welcome: his girlfriend had left him and his pre-war job

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had been filled; all he had left was low-paid work. It was this that led him to become a hobo. His conclusion was bitter: The promises of the Y.M.C.A. secretaries and all the other ‘fountain-pen soldiers’ who promised us so much in the name of nation and the Government just before we’d go into action turned out to be the bunk. Just a lot of plain applesauce!7 Burns’s angry view of the war—and his condemnation of capitalism—was included in the early screenplays. In an initial draft Burns is seen as a hero, winning the Distinguished Service Cross, and is critical of businessmen who, having got rich during the war, refused to give him back his job. Much of this failed to make the final screenplay, though the scene where Allen tries to pawn his Croix de Guerre, only to find that the pawnbroker already has a cabinet full of war medals, was retained. Given that there is no evidence that he was actually decorated this is ironic, though a crucial point to make. The final version of the film excluded this more critical, though truthful view. Instead of refusing him work, his old employer meets him at the station and promises to give him a new job as a reward for all that he has been through. Any problems following were due more to Burns’s own mentality than society. Also left out in the final screenplay (perhaps mercifully) was his attempt to re-enlist—which failed because of flat feet—and a speech by Burns’s sanctimonious preacher brother: Now that the horrible war is over, we are all back on the field of Peace engaged in the Battle of Life…. Each of us fits into the scheme of things in the army of hundreds of millions. Our work may seem dull…trivial …exacting…but we must carry it over the top—obey our orders —respect our business generals—each a cog in a cosmic platoon that ever advances forward in the name of civilization and progress.8 Even though the film toned down the cynicism of the book—and removed the bitterness of some of the earlier screenplays—it still provided a vivid example of the forgotten veteran. The critical reception was solely devoted to condemning the brutal conditions of the chain gangs; no mention was made of the war. Nevertheless, there was an implicit condemnation of the conditions which led to Allen’s imprisonment. The National Board of Review called it ‘not only the best feature film of the year, but one of the best films ever made in this country’,9 and Louella Parsons in the Los Angeles Examiner said that ‘if this motion picture… can do anything to correct an evil that is a blot on civilization, it will not have been made in vain’.10 Paul Muni, who became Hollywood’s moral conscience in the 1930s with such films as Scarface, The Life of Emile Zola and Juárez, saw immense value in the film: I would be something less than human not to have seized the chance to expose such evil in I Am a Fugitive…the theater has from time to time accomplished wonders for mankind. And the screen with its unlimited appeal, is a vastly more far reaching medium. Hollywood, if it will, can arouse the world against all sorts of evils.11 A year after I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang Warner Brothers released a new film which, in part, looked at the forgotten man. Gold Diggers of 1933 was again directed by Mervyn LeRoy, though unlike his chaingang film, he wanted a more upbeat message. In his autobiography he said:

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In 1933… I could feel the public was surfeited, temporarily at least, with the films of realism that had flooded the market since I opened the gates with Little Caesar. Now, with the depression coming to an end, I felt they wanted something gayer, splashier, more lavish. I know I had the urge to make that kind of movie…. I had my chance with Golddiggers of 193312 It seems inconceivable that in the year when unemployment reached fifteen million LeRoy could be so cavalier. Even now, it seems odd to hear the opening song of the film state boldly: ‘You never see a headline, about the breadline, today.’ Gold Diggers of 1933 tells the classic musical story of putting on a show in the midst of adversity. Having already had one show closed, the producer, Barney Hopkins, tries to start another. He is helped by Brad Roberts (Dick Powell) who provides the funds, writes the songs and, eventually, stars. Linking the musical numbers is a complicated (and long) love story involving mistaken identity and deception, though all comes out well in the end as the show is allowed to go on. The Gold Diggers films offered trite story lines; the pleasure was to be found in the elaborate and spectacular musical numbers. The 1933 version— the third film adaptation of Avery Hopwood’s play The Gold Diggers—had some of the best with the optimistic and fun ‘Pettin’ in the Park’, ‘Torch Song’ and ‘We’re in the Money’. However, the culmination of the film was downbeat: ‘My Forgotten Man’ —a tribute to the soldier who had fought in the war but who is now left to beg for food. Originally, this was planned to be in the middle (it would have ended instead with a reprise of ‘Shadow Waltz’ and ‘We’re in the Money’) where it was known as ‘Carol’s Blues’, and would have used film of the Bonus Army as background. The reason for this change has not been noted. Arthur Hove has suggested that it may have been placed at the end to ‘salve the producers’ consciences or to furnish a footnote to the general social context in which the film was made’.13 The song is introduced early in the film when Brad is playing some of his tunes for Barney. One tune, he says, was inspired by seeing the unemployed in the bread lines in Times Square. He has no words, though as he plays the music Barney jumps in: That’s what this show’s about—the Depression—men marching—marching in the rain—doughnuts and crullers—men marching, marching—jobs, jobs —and in the background Carol—spirit of the Depression—a blue song— no, not a blue song—but a wailing—a wailing—and this gorgeous woman —singing this song that’ll tear their hearts out—the big parade—the big parade of tears. Nothing more is heard of the song until the close when—after all loose ends are settled—the show goes on. Joan Blondell portrays Carol, a streetwalker. She starts by admitting that she doesn’t know if the forgotten man actually deserves her sympathy. A man walks past her and picks up a discarded cigarette which she lights. Then other women are seen: a black woman who sings the chorus, a woman holding a baby and a sad old woman. She then passes a man sleeping on the street. A policeman tries to move him on, but Blondell points to the medal on his jacket and he is left alone. Then rapid montage shots show cheering crowds greeting marching soldiers followed by dejected men dragging their way home in the rain and helping to carry the wounded. Finally, the bread lines are seen. Throughout, the chorus is sung: Remember my forgotten man You put a rifle in his hand You sent him far away

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You shouted ‘Hip Hooray’ But look at him today— Remember my forgotten man You had him cultivate the land He walked behind a plow The sweat fell from his brow But look at him right now— And once he used to love me I was happy then— He used to take care of me Won’t you bring him back again— ‘Cause ever since the world began— A woman’s got to have a man Forgetting him, you see, means You’re forgetting me Like my forgotten man. Blondell couldn’t really sing; but she put this song forward with great verve and power, fulfilling the great subject she was addressing. Gold Diggers of 1933 was praised widely, in particular for the quality of the musical numbers. The ‘Forgotten Man’ sequence was singled out. The New York Times said it was ‘cleverly presented, with striking costumes and impressive staging’.14 Variety called the ‘rah-rah’ finish ‘timely and patriotic’. ‘It’s a plea for the army of the unemployed…’, it continued, a ‘bing-bang build-up that’ll have the American Legion proclaiming paens of endorsement for the flicker.’15 Leslie Halliwell, however, is more cycnical, regarding it as tongue-in-cheek and reducing a serious subject to absurdity: Divorced from its arresting subject it isn’t a very good number at all, despite the insistent throb of its music, and one might think it could have been justified only if collecting boxes had been promptly passed around the theatre in aid of veterans’ relief. Needless to say that never happened: all the profits from the picture went straight into Jack L.Warner’s bank account. 16 Warners followed Gold Diggers of 1933 with another film about the returning veteran, Heroes for Sale. This was a poor production, and is important now only as one of the first of the Roosevelt New Deal films. Richard Barthelmess plays Tom Holmes, a morphine-addicted veteran, whose medal for bravery was given wrongly to his friend, a coward. The only job he can find after the war is in the bank owned by the father of the coward, but he is forced to leave when his addiction is discovered. After a few months convalescence, he moves to Chicago where he finds work in a laundry. A communist friend invents a labour-saving machine which Tom sells to his company where it is a great success (Tom has a 50 per cent share). However, the owner of the laundry dies and is replaced by a less sympathetic employer who fires many of the staff, some of whom invested in the scheme on the advice of Tom. There follows a riot, Tom’s wife is killed and he is sent to jail. On release, he is chased from the town by ‘Red Squads’ and, now poor (all the profits he had made from the scheme he donated to a soup line), he is forced to beg. Though homeless and without money he has great hope for Roosevelt’s new administration.

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18 The culmination of ‘My Forgotten Man’ from Gold Diggers of 1933, one of the best commentaries on the social impact of war. © 1933 Turner Entertainment Co. All Rights Reserved.

Whilst the initial story line is promising, the film fails to deliver. Unsurprisingly, Andrew Bergman said that it was ‘perhaps the most confused film of the 1930s’: Embracing both turmoil and faith, the film turned anticapitalist, anti-communist, pro-individual initiative, antimachine. Watch it today and you sense how mercurial was the state of the nation in the first half of 1933, how receptive it seemed to just about anything, how desperate to get rid, once and for all, of a depression now four years old.17 Far better was Warners’ return to the forgotten man theme six years later in The Roaring Twenties. Two years before, MGM had attempted their own story about the veteran who turned to crime in They Gave Him a Gun, a Spencer Tracy vehicle. The film charts the story of Jimmy, a pusillanimous clerk, played by Franchot Tone, who despises violence but in the trenches changes his personality and after the war becomes a gangster. Like The Public Enemy, this film highlighted the paradox of being allowed —indeed encouraged—to kill in wartime and being punished for killing in peacetime. It received mixed reviews and was not saved by the social comment. Variety said: Stripped of the feeble attempt to suggest a psychological link between the World War and gangsterism in America…[the film] resolves itself into a fairly exciting melodrama with soggy sentimental

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overtones. Regardless of what box-office weight the cast names may carry, it will be doing well if reaching average figure.18 The Roaring Twenties offered some of the realism which the others lacked. Indeed, in its portrayal of the immediate post-war period it told a similar story to that found in Robert Burns’s autobiography. It follows three buddies who meet in the trenches near the end of the war: Eddie Bartlett (James Cagney), George Hally (Humphrey Bogart) and Lloyd Hart (Jeffrey Lynn). Bartlett wants to return to his old garage job after the war, Hart wants to take up the law, whilst Hally plans to get back into the saloon business, even though Prohibition is about to become law. However, Bartlett finds that his old job has been taken and, after being caught delivering liquor for a passenger in his taxi, he becomes a prohibition buster, joining forces with Panama Smith (Gladys George) who lost her lover in the war. Bartlett’s lawyer is Hart. Later their third comrade joins them when Hally becomes Bartlett’s partner. In the meantime, Bartlett’s wartime sweetheart, Jean (Priscilla Lane), has become a singer in Panama’s club and is in love with Hart (they eventually marry). After surviving some of the worst violence of the 1920s, the Wall Street crash destroys Bartlett and he is forced to sell out to Hally who had previously tried to have him killed. Hally is now under investigation by Hart and he threatens to kill Jean and their son. They are rescued by Bartlett who—now an alcoholic—kills Hally, and is then murdered by Hally’s cronies. At the end of the film this most notorious of gangsters is reduced to nothing. A policeman asks Panama who he is. She replies: ‘He used to be a big shot.’ He was not such a big shot in the war. Unlike Hally— whose violence is apparent from the start—Bartlett is sensitive and he is the one let down by the war. He has limited ambitions: he only wants his old job at the garage back. Having made—in the words of the film’s narrator—the world safe for democracy, he finds on returning to America that he has been ‘almost forgotten by all but… [his] relatives and friends’. New York has tired of the victory parades. Getting off the boat in his uniform, he finds that he is a hindrance, in the way of porters, not cheered as other veterans had been earlier in the film. After meeting up with his old buddy, Bartlett goes to the garage to see Fletcher, his boss. The following exchange takes place as Bartlett walks to the main office: First Mechanic: That guy thinks he’s gonna get my job just because he’s got a uniform on. He used to work here. Second Mechanic: Yeah, with luck he’s going to find out what a picnic they had with Uncle Sam’s dough while we stayed home and worked. Bartlett is then greeted by Fletcher: Fletcher: What’re you gonna do? Bartlett: Oh, rest up a couple of days, see a few of the boys and then ready to go to work. Fletcher: Fine. What you gonna do? Where you gonna work? Bartlett: What do you mean, where am I gonna work? I was gonna come back here. Fletcher: I’m sorry Eddie. I haven’t anything for you. Bartlett: What? Now wait a minute. Maybe I’m in the wrong garage. What was that line about my job always waiting for me when I get back? Fletcher: Times have changed, Eddie. That guy over there has been working almost two years. What do you want me to do? Can him just because you came back? Bartlett leaves Fletcher and walks back to the car. As he does so, the two mechanics chant in a marching fashion: ‘Left, left, I had a good job but I left, left…’. Bartlett punches one of them, knocking the other down as well.

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19 Eddie Bartlett (James Cagney) finds the veteran has been forgotten in The Roaring Twenties (1939). © 1939 Turner Entertainment Co. All Rights Reserved.

Bartlett—who wears his uniform throughout his attempt to find work— fails to secure employment. The narrator says: There is a concentrated effort at readjustment to normal peacetime activity, but unemployment coming in the wake of the wartime boom, was beginning to grip the country and the soldiers found that they had come to face on a different front the same old struggle—the struggle to survive.

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It is then that he becomes a taxi driver. The Roaring Twenties was inspired by Mark Hellinger, a journalist who had lived through the period and knew many of the characters. The last of the great gangster pictures, it was an elegy for a film genre that had done much for Warners. The production values were some of the best of all 1930s films, with a beginning (narrated by John Deering) resembling The March of Time. Like those other narrated sequences by Deering in the re-releases of All Quiet on the Western Front and The Road Back (both released just prior to The Roaring Twenties) this was not just to introduce the picture, but could be said to bolster the case for non-intervention in the new World War, though one author has said that the defeat of domestic conflict seen in the film means that America is once again ready to secure democracy throughout the world.19 Anthony Bower, writing in The New Statesman on the British release, recognised this, though like a number of reviewers he was disappointed with the premise that gangsterism came out of the war: It is…disappointing when the film with patent non-interventionist bias, opens with a war sequence, blaming Humphrey Bogart’s subsequent career of violence on his having been given a gun. (Far more Frenchmen handled guns in the last war than Americans, yet Paris never became a Cicero.)…. All very pleasant, but obviously the twenties can yield a more original story than this.20 The connection to the war was clear to Frank Nugent, the unsympathetic reviewer in the New York Times. Here ‘again we find the fighters of 1918–19 back from the war’, he said: discovering they have lost their glory with the armistice, turning to bootlegging and hijacking and murder during the delirium of the speakeasy era, taking a licking in the stock market crash of ‘29, penning their farewell letters to the world in blood spilling from bullet wounds.21 The film received a better reception in Photoplay: The strange phenomena of prohibition…is the central theme; that, and the premise that soldiers returning from the World War had no alternative but to work into crime because no jobs were left for them. Whether or not you will accept this premise, you will be bound to sympathise with the buddies who are mustered out and come to New York as flotsam.22 Perhaps unsurprisingly, during the Cold War the Russians showed the film with the title The Fate of a Soldier in America.23 Although the war provided the framework for the film, it was absent from some early drafts of the screenplay. More material was added as the script evolved (eleven screenwriters were involved in total), though some of the more radical views of war’s impact—including the contemplation of suicide by a veteran —were eventually taken out. Despite this, the film was still banned in parts of Canada.24 In the end, the screenwriters struck the right balance, making The Roaring Twenties one of the best, most entertaining and most popular films about war, gangsterism and crime. Not all films about the forgotten man had the veteran turning to crime. One of the most interesting, but least known, is The Last Flight, another Warners’ picture released in 1931. Directed by William Dieterle from a screenplay by John Monk Saunders, The Last Flight showed the lost generation of men who, though survivors, were killed mentally by the war. Four American airmen, Cary Lockwood (Richard Barthelmess), Bill Talbot (John Mack Brown), Francis (Elliot Nugent) and Shep Lambert (David Manners), decide to go to Paris instead of returning home when

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the war ends. Each has been affected badly by the war, physically as well as emotionally. Cary’s hands are burned; Francis is on drugs and Shep has a facial tic. As their doctor eloquently states, they are spent bullets: ‘They’re like projectiles,’ he says: ‘Shaped for war and hurled at the enemy…. Now they’ve fallen to earth, spent, cooled off, useless.’ The doctor is not sure what will become of them—if, even, they can face life when ‘their whole training was in preparation for death’. The airmen themselves have an easy answer. As Lambert and Lockwood talk in the hospital just as the Armistice takes effect (symbolised marvellously by the propellers of an aircraft stopping at eleven o’clock) they say they will get tight and, following this, ‘stay tight’. At Claridges the four meet Nikki (Helen Chandler), a beautiful, insouciant drifter, whose own lack of purpose mirrors their own. They decide to stay together. She falls in love with Cary, though is forced to fight off the unwelcome attention of a journalist, Frink, who has attached himself to the group. Eventually, they end up in Lisbon where Cary has fled following a misunderstanding with Nikki. Here in a few minutes (perhaps reflecting the cavalier loss of life in the war) Bill is killed in a bullfight, Francis kills Frink and then disappears, and Shep dies from a stray bullet. It is only at the end of the film that Cary realises how much Nikki loves him and they leave together. The war is seen to have destroyed the men. Having survived combat, there is no fight left to live. The prospect of normality is not only irrelevant, it is a surprise to them that normal life still exists (when told that it does, one of the airmen says: ‘Sounds pretty prewar to me’). There was praise from some contemporary reviewers. The New York Times called it ‘an impressive piece of work and although…replete with bizarre ideas, it is always interesting’.25 More recently, Jeffrey Richards has called it almost flawless: ‘As a poignant and profound requiem for “the lost generation”…[it] has never been equalled.’26 An attempt was made in 1957 to tell a similar story in the film of Ernest Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises. It is The Last Flight which has stood the test of time, however. No one knows how many veterans were forced by unemployment and poverty into a life of crime. What is apparent is that there was suffering. In its portrayal of the forgotten man, Hollywood was doing what it does best— commenting on prevailing social conditions imaginatively and entertainingly. Messages were easier to transmit that way—and this one was clear: the war had created great suffering, not just for those dead and injured and their relatives; but also for those who had fought and survived.

Chapter 10 The brutality of military incompetence Paths of Glory and King and Country

Few speak well of the generals in the First World War: popularly seen as spectators rather than fighters, well-fed and luxuriously housed, they demanded the impossible and seemed ready to accept massive losses for minor gain. It is little wonder that such epithets as ‘blimps’ and ‘donkeys’ have been levelled at them. In his classic study of the subject Norman Dixon states: Only the most blinkered could deny that the First World War exemplified every aspect of high-level military incompetence. For sheer lack of imaginative leadership, inept decisions, ignoring of military intelligence, underestimation of the enemy, delusional optimism and monumental wastage of human resources it has surely never had its equal.1 Dixon’s comments could well serve as a summary of Paths of Glory, Stanley Kubrick’s quintessential film about military incompetence and the brutality and slaughter it engenders. Much of the film attacks the opportunism and greed of the French High Command, though by implication it is a condemnation of all military authority. It is also a comment on class conflict as the basis of warfare. Ultimately, however, it is about humanity, illustrating the capacity of some men, even after two years of bitter conflict, to retain a belief in justice as well as a degree of empathy with the enemy. The film opens in 1916. Two years of trench warfare and the lives of hundreds of thousands of men have resulted in stalemate on the Western Front. General Georges Broulard (Adolphe Menjou) visits the opulent château headquarters of the ambitious General Paul Mireau (George Macready) to bring orders to take the key strategic position of the Ant Hill within forty-eight hours. A veiled offer of promotion persuades Mireau to force his already exhausted and devastated men through another assault. Mireau and his sycophantic adjutant, Major Saint-Auban (Richard Anderson), take the orders to Colonel Dax (Kirk Douglas), a battle-hardened cynic respected by his men. Dax objects to the attack and agrees only on threat of being removed for leave. That night a reconnaissance team led by the unstable alcoholic Lieutenant Roget (Wayne Morris), Corporal Phillipe Paris (Ralph Meeker) and Private Lejeune (Ken Dibbs) go into no-man’s-land. Roget sends Lejeune ahead, but becomes scared and throws a grenade. Corporal Paris, upon finding Lejeune’s smouldering body, returns to the trench and accuses Roget of murder. Roget points out the impossibility of making such an accusation against a senior officer. Next morning the attack begins despite unfavourable weather and the lack of additional artillery and reinforcements. Dax leads the assault but hundreds are killed and he returns to the corpse-strewn trench where the second wave remains, Roget amongst them. Watching from behind the lines, a disgusted Mireau —believing his troops are cowards—orders an artillery attack on his own men, but the battery commander refuses.

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20 Colonel Dax (Kirk Douglas) leads his men over the top in the futile attack on the Ant Hill in Paths of Glory (1957).

After the failure, Mireau demands a court martial and insists that ten men from each company be executed for cowardice. He finally settles for three: Paris (picked by Roget to quieten him about the death of Lejeune), Private Pierre Arnaud (by lot) and Private Maurice Ferol (for being a social undesirable). Though Mireau protests, Dax is appointed defence counsel (in civilian life he is a prominent criminal lawyer). Despite previous citations— which Dax is prevented from introducing—and evidence of the men’s brave action during the assault, they are found guilty. That night a Priest (Emile Meyer) visits the men. A bitter Arnaud attacks him but his skull is fractured when he is slammed against a wall by Corporal Paris. Dax orders a reluctant Roget to take command of the firing squad. As Roget leaves, Rousseau (the battery commander) tells Dax of Mireau’s order to fire on the trench. After obtaining further evidence Dax visits Broulard at a ball at General Mireau’s château. Broulard, shaken by Dax’s revelations, orders him to leave. The execution takes place; Roget apologies to Paris. Broulard, Mireau and Dax then meet over breakfast. Broulard reports the accusation, forcing an indignant Mireau to walk out. Broulard offers Dax Mireau’s job which he refuses vehemently. Dax returns to his room, but on the way hears cheering. Some of the men are in a tavern where they are entertained by a young German woman. At first they jeer but, as she sings, they begin to hum and cry. Dax, disgusted with the men’s initial response, is heartened and allows them a few more minutes rest before returning to the front. Alexander Walker has described Paths of Glory as Kubrick’s graduation piece, a similar description given by Eisenstein to Milestone’s All Quiet on the Western Front.2 Prior to this, Kubrick had made three features and two shorts and had enjoyed a distinguished career as a photographer for Look magazine. He was still in his twenties. His first feature Fear and Desire (l953), an anti-war film about four soldiers lost behind

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enemy lines, was an apprentice effort and has disappeared without trace, no doubt encouraged by Kubrick who regards it with embarrassment.3 His second, Killer’s Kiss (1955), a violent thriller about a boxer in love with the wife of a dance-hall boss, received some critical acclaim. His third film, The Killing (1956), the story of a racetrack robbery brilliantly told from the viewpoints of the main characters, won widespread attention. Amongst those impressed was Kirk Douglas who asked Kubrick if he had any other screenplays.4 Kubrick had written a script based on the novel Paths of Glory by Humphrey Cobb which had made a great impact on him when he had read it at the age of fourteen. Douglas loved the script and helped raise the finance. Hitherto no studio had shown any interest, claiming its lack of romance and plans to film in black and white as uncommercial. However, the participation of Douglas and his Bryna Production Company led a previously reluctant United Artists to post the budget of $900,000, of which Douglas received $350,000.5 The problem of the film’s uncommercial nature was not lost on Kubrick who wanted the film to make money. Douglas said that after the film had been approved Kubrick rewrote the script with Jim Thompson, the thriller writer (the two would share the final credit with Calder Willingham). This substituted a happy ending where the general arrives just in time to stop the execution and commutes the men’s sentence to thirty days in jail.6 Douglas rejected this and demanded a return to the original, an action vindicated for him with ‘a truly great film with a truly great theme: the insanity and brutality of war’.7 (It should be noted that Kubrick and Douglas had a stormy relationship on both Paths of Glory and Spartacus. In his autobiography Douglas describes him as a brilliant director but ‘a talented shit’.8) Humphrey Cobb was a veteran of the Great War. He had joined a Canadian regiment in 1916 and was wounded and gassed. His novel was first published in 1935. It had received widespread pre-publication interest and was an immediate bestseller despite some reviewers casting doubt on the veracity of the events portrayed. Cobb had anticipated such criticism and ensured that references to newspaper articles covering such trials for cowardice were included in the book.9 However, having missed the classic pacifist phase in the early 1930s, Paths of Glory was quickly forgotten. The book impressed Hollywood sufficiently to hire Cobb as a screenwriter soon after publication, though little seems to have resulted. In a September 1940 New York Times interview he said that he had spent the last five years working for high rates of pay, or not working at all. He was also bitter about Hollywood politics, and was dismayed to discover that the various anti-fascist groups he had supported were really communist fronts.10 He died in 1943. It took twenty-two years for his novel to reach the screen. Bosley Crowther said it had ‘been a hot potato in Hollywood’11 since its original publication. The New York Times reported in late 1935 that Paramount had struggled for many months to make the picture, but feared offending the French government. They were also reluctant to make an avowedly anti-war film in a climate ‘seething with the spirit of aggressive nationalism’, sensing that even if governments and censorship boards allowed exhibition, audiences would be hostile. A suggestion was made to situate the action in the Czar’s army prior to the 1917 revolution. This compromise would have satisfied most objectors, including the Soviet government. Indeed, the New York Times felt the only opposition was likely to come from ‘such fugitive White Russians as still possess the price of a movie ticket’. The idea was shelved.12 Cobb’s book influenced William Faulkner in his screenplay for The Road to Glory (and also his later allegorical novel, A Fable). A play, written and produced by Sidney Howard, did result, but its inability to translate battle scenes to the stage led to poor reviews and it closed after twenty-three performances on Broadway. One reviewer to buck the trend was Brooks Atkinson who predicted that someday ‘the screen will seize this ghastly tale and make a work of art from it’.13

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Cobb’s anti-militaristic novel is a realistic portrayal of war, sparing few of the gruesome details. It was, as Stephen Tabachnik recognised, written in cinematic terms.14 Indeed, parts of the screenplay were taken verbatim from Cobb’s work. However, there are many differences between the book and the film. In general the novel allows greater character development and, unlike a viewer of the film, the reader learns more about the poilu. A number of characters have either been discarded or combined in the film. The crucial difference is the elevation of Dax to centre stage. In the book he occupies a pivotal, but not central rôle (he appoints another captain—Etienne—to undertake the men’s defence at the court martial). In addition to the many differences, Kubrick added or amended a number of important scenes, particularly following the execution at the end of the novel. First, Dax appoints Roget as captain of the firing squad in revenge for having picked Paris to face it, thus making him indirectly responsible for his death. Second, Broulard turns on Mireau for his order to fire on his own trench and orders a court of inquiry with the implication that Mireau’s career is ruined (in the book, Dax states that he knew of the order, has been arguing the point with the general for some time, but is likely to get demoted for his trouble). Third, there is the coda where the men go from the execution to the tavern. The novel covers in considerable detail the choosing of the men for the court-martial. One divisional commander—not wishing to take part in such injustice—refuses to participate and disappears for the afternoon. Another chooses Ferol for being a social undesirable. The third is chosen by lot, though in a bizarre twist it has to be redrawn as the first choice claims his number could be either 68 or 89. Kubrick’s additional scenes ensure that the central theme of humanity emerges. Dax is seen as a man of honour and his men are shown to move from abuse of and hatred for the enemy to empathy. Even General Broulard has the morality left to order an inquiry into Mireau. The book portrays a more bitter view. All characters are seen to be brutalised by the experience of war: Mireau asks for promotion for his reward for attacking the Pimple (Cobb’s name for the Ant Hill), rather than being offered it; Didier (Paris in the film) tries to shoot Roget whilst on patrol and, after returning, has breakfast before accusing him of Lejeune’s murder. Nowhere is the cynicism more evident than in the order to attack the Pimple. This is made on the basis of a communiqué already issued saying the target has been taken. Even Assolant (Mireau) resents this: ‘You are going to ask me to take with my bayonets what a G. H. Q. ink-slinger has already inadvertently captured at the point of his pen!’15 Paths of Glory opened in New York on Christmas Day, 1957, having already had its world première in Munich on 18 September. In general reviewers were impressed, praising its realism and the high standards achieved by the actors and production. Many were appalled with the story. Variety described it as ‘a starkly realistic recital of French army politics’.16 The Film Daily said it was a ‘Relentlessly powerful drama…. Superbly conceived and executed’.17 In contrast to this praise were the fears of many reviewers that there were limited prospects for the film as it went against prevailing trends in 1950s Hollywood. There was also some criticism that a film about the First World War was out of place in the nuclear age. Time commented: ‘made 20 years ago, [the film] might have found a sympathetic audience in a passionately pacifist period, might even have been greeted as a minor masterpiece. Made today, it leaves the spectator often confused and numb, like a moving speech in a dead language’.18 Hollis Alpert recognised, but rejected, these problems. He found the film’s message of universal relevance: It is a wonder, in this time of unsettled conditions in the film industry, that ‘Paths of Glory’ was made at all. It has none of the elements or gimmicks in it that are supposed to be box-office. It will not be shown on a large screen; it is in black and white; and its subject, an attack on the military command

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mentality, can hardly be expected to have vast popularity at this time. Its war, World War I, seems like primitive combat in these days of ICBMs with hydrogen warheads. But there is never anything untimely about an appeal to the human conscience, and this ‘Paths of Glory’ makes.19 He predicted that the film would ‘take its place, in years to come, as one of the screen’s most extraordinary achievements’.20 As Gavin Lambert commented: ‘The visual contrast of, say, a “Summit” conference and a hydrogen bomb exploding on a city, is only taking Paths of Glory’s contrast of the château and the trenches a stage further.’21 The film could also be seen as a comment on the intolerance then splitting the American film and political community. Although the excesses of McCarthyism had ended by 1957, the blacklist remained in operation. In the same year as Paths of Glory, The Bridge on the River Kwai could only be released with a pseudonym for Michael Wilson the screenwriter. The year before ‘Robert Rich’ had won an Academy Award for his script for The Brave One. It was to be another three years before it was revealed that this was Dalton Trumbo, a member of the Hollywood Ten. Finally, Paths of Glory was released at a time when Europe was more divided than ever with the creation of new economic and military power blocs: the Warsaw Pact on the one side and NATO and the European Community on the other. With this background, and with many countries in Europe under effective military occupation, it is little wonder that the film caused such controversy in many countries outside the United States. There were few problems with domestic censorship, although the MPPDA said that care had to be taken with the portrayal of the Priest, suggested that some profanities were removed and insisted that the woman’s blouse was not cut too low. But even this did not prove enough to stop the film being banned in United States military establishments at home and overseas.22 In Europe the film created a storm of protest, leading to censorship and bans in many cities and countries. It ran into immediate trouble in West Berlin when France threatened to withdraw from the July 1958 Berlin Film Festival were it not removed. It was eventually banned following the protests of General Gaze (who was able to invoke a clause in the four-power occupation treaty) and public disturbances by French soldiers in the British sector. The decision was condemned by German newspaper editors.23 The film’s exhibition in Brussels was also stopped following demonstrations by French veterans, although it was reinstated after students from the Free University of Belgium protested against the ban. It may have been at this stage that discussions took place between the US State Department and the French Foreign Ministry leading to the insertion of a foreword by the distributors, which stated: This episode of the 1914–1918 war tells of the madness of certain men caught in its whirlwind. It constitutes an isolated case in total contrast with the historical gallantry of the vast majority of French soldiers, the champions of the ideal of liberty, which, since always, has been that of the French people.24 However, the film was again stopped in Brussels, this time following student protests at French policy in Algeria. There were also problems in Switzerland. The Ministry of the Interior banned the film as ‘subversive propaganda directed at France [and] highly offensive to that nation’. There followed protests from the Swiss media, particularly when the government refused to screen the picture for journalists. It also ordered United Artists, under threat of confiscation, to export immediately all prints from the country.25 The film was not shown in Switzerland until the late 1970s.

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Paths of Glory faced problems in Israel where the official film censorship board—invoking its policy of preventing exhibition of any film that ridiculed another government—placed a ban as it ‘disparaged the French Army’.26 Finally, the Australian, New Zealand and British censors ordered cuts to the shot of Lejeune’s smouldering body and extensive deletions to the execution scene. The greatest problems for the film, not surprisingly given its subject, were reserved for France.27 The French Government was reluctant to allow films highlighting embarrassing political and historical issues, particularly in the Fifth Republic under General De Gaulle. Jim Harris, Kubrick’s co-producer, had been warned by the MPPDA in January 1957 of the likely objections of the French, though these had been dismissed as both Warner Brothers and MGM (potential production companies at that stage) were willing to take the risk. In addition, there was the possibility of a French partner in the venture. The film—Les Sentiers de la Gloire—was regarded as undesirable by the government board of film censors. According to André Astoux, then director of the Centre National de la Cinématographie, ‘a discrete and effective act of dissuasion’ prevented it from being released, though no total ban was ever announced. By 1972 the situation had improved. After the success of Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange a French arts society decided to ask for approval to show a sub-titled version. However, United Artists, seemingly following Kubrick’s advice, refused to produce the print. The film was finally released in 197528 although Variety reports that it was not seen in Paris for another three years.29 As in Brussels, the major problem for the film—in the early stages at least —seemed to be the war that the French were fighting in Algeria. It may also have been the case that it dredged up nightmares of the Dienbienphu failure in 1954 and the memories of the betrayal by Marshal Pétain in 1940 (another example of High Command incompetence). Both Dienbienphu and Algeria had proved to be major crises for the French Army and politicians. By 1957, Algeria was proving to be a particularly intractable problem: at one point over 500,000 troops were in the country, some of them conscripts. Like Vietnam and the United States later, there was criticism at home about the war. However, there was also discontent in the army leading to fears of a coup d’ état. It is impossible now to think of these officers without comparing them with General Mireau: both seemed out of control, divorced from reality and pursuing only one honour—the glory of France. Whatever its aims and the interpretations placed upon it, Paths of Glory is undeniably a film which opposes war. It is important to state however, as Alexander Walker has emphasised, that Kubrick cannot simply be classified as a pacifist.30 Kubrick himself, in a Playboy interview, said that he was unsure about the meaning of pacifism: on the one hand, he asks, would it have been right to submit to Hitler to prevent the Second World War? Conversely, ‘there have also been tragically senseless wars such as World War One’.31 The opposition to war is evident right from the start. Although no comment is made on the origins and need for the war, the opening narration—spoken over views of the château and following the ironic use of the Marseillaise over the credits—points out that two years of conflict have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of men for very little gain. The film then focuses on three main areas: first, it examines the ambition, incompetence and brutality of the High Command; second, it provides a realistic and horrific portrayal of war; and, third, it presents an argument on the class basis of conflict. Dramatic contrasts are used to demarcate the characters of the High Command represented principally by General Mireau, as well as General Broulard. The motivations, rationale and actions of these two officers differ markedly from Colonel Dax who, though always a soldier and dedicated ultimately to orders, is on the side of his men and only accepts Mireau’s decision to prevent being instructed to rest. In a superb performance, George Macready as Mireau is duplicitous, utterly contemptible, selfaggrandising with an almost psychopathic hatred for the men under his command. At the start of the film he

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is sympathetic, concerned that, with all that they have suffered hitherto, his men will be unable to take the Ant Hill. It does not take much for Broulard to change his mind and, even though there is no promise of artillery support and reinforcements, the mention of promotion to the Twelfth Corps and an extra star for his uniform persuades him to attack. Mireau’s tour of the trenches highlights how distant he is from the men and from the reality of battle. Although he dislikes armchair officers (Major Saint-Auban, his sycophantic adjutant, says that he ‘can hardly get the general behind a desk long enough to sign an order’32) it is clear that Mireau prefers to stay away from the front line. He is more animated than the others when shells burst near to the trench and his ‘bonhomie’ with the troops, and his denial of the existence of shellshock, shows how far removed he has been from the action. Siegfried Sassoon knew this type of general and wrote about him in his poem ‘The General’, about the Battle of Arras: ‘Good-morning, good-morning!’ the General said When we met him last week on our way to the line. Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of ’em dead, And we’re cursing his staff for incompetent swine. ‘He’s a cheery old card,’ grunted Harry to Jack As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack. … But he did for them both by his plan of attack. Mireau’s inability (or refusal) to identify the problems his soldiers will face is highlighted when he views the Ant Hill through binoculars. At this level it seems near and achievable, a view belied when Dax is in noman’s-land and sees the target as far away as ever. This failure of perception of the High Command is neatly summarised by Dax in the novel: ‘Rarely does a soldier see with naked eyes. He is nearly always looking through lenses, lenses which are made of the insignia of his rank.’33 Alexander Walker also praises Kubrick’s use of binoculars: ‘Each time it allows the military command to look on what are (or will be) the horrifying consequences of their orders without suffering the moral responsibility of physical involvement.’34 Despite his early concern, Mireau has a cavalier attitude to his men, willing to sacrifice whatever is necessary to take the Ant Hill. He tells Dax of the likely casualties: Hmm—say five per cent killed by their own barrage—that’s a very generous allowance. Ten per cent more in getting through no-man’s-land, and twenty per cent more getting through the wire. That leaves sixty-five per cent with the worst part of the job over. Let’s say another twenty-five per cent in actually taking the Ant Hill, we’re still left with a force more than adequate to hold it. Dax is incredulous—over half his men will be killed—and although Mireau agrees it is a terrible price to pay, he must have the Ant Hill. The change from Mireau’s concern for the men to contempt is exacerbated when the attack is about to fail. The order to bomb his own troops highlights his inability to understand the war he is fighting and the men under his control. The soldiers are now ‘miserable cowards’; when the attack fails he threatens: ‘If those little sweethearts won’t face German bullets, they’ll face French ones.’ From this point Mireau hates the men who have cost him his promotion. He demands ten from each company—a hundred in all—to be tried

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for execution for cowardice: ‘They’ve skimmed milk in their veins instead of blood’, he says. Despite Dax’s protest (his trenches are so full of blood, it’s the reddest milk he’s seen) Mireau continues: They were ordered to attack. It was their duty to obey that order. We can’t leave it up to the men to decide when an order is possible or not. If it was impossible the only proof of that would be their dead bodies lying on the bottom of the trenches. They’re scum, Colonel. The whole rotten regiment is a pack of sneaky, whining tail dragging curs. However, Dax does persuade Broulard to reduce the numbers—even offering himself as a sacrifice—and Mireau agrees to three men, one from each company in the first wave. Mireau now has someone to blame, and sits smugly at the court martial. He only receives his come-uppance after the execution when Broulard confronts him with Dax’s charge and tells him of the court inquiry. Mireau’s response is characteristic: ‘So that’s it. You are making me the goat. The only completely innocent man in this whole affair. I have only one last thing to say to you, George. The man you’ve stabbed in the back is a soldier.’ The portrayal of General Broulard is also an attack on the High Command, though in different ways. It was an apt choice to cast Adolphe Menjou in the rôle: First World War veteran, debonair actor, enthusiast for right-wing causes (invaluable in his interpretation of the rôle according to Kubrick35). Broulard is shrewd, calculating and well-versed in the realities of war. He gets all he needs from the attack and its aftermath, whilst avoiding any of the blame. By ordering the attack—which he later admits to Dax was probably impossible to implement—he deflects newspaper and political pressure at home. When it fails, he is able to place the blame firmly on the men though he is not so strident in his criticism as Mireau. He is also careful to be absent from the court martial (perhaps realising the problems it could cause in the future) by telling his general it is best he handles it alone. Following Dax’s revelations he realises Mireau is a liability and ensures his dismissal, and probable suicide. He is unable to stop the executions, however, as that would be a sign of weakness. As indicated earlier, he even offers Dax Mireau’s post which Dax rejects, to Broulard’s surprise. Indeed, neither general can understand Dax’s position throughout. Just after he has refused his offer, Broulard says: Colonel Dax, you’re a disappointment to me. You have spoiled the keenness of your mind by wallowing in sentimentality. You really did want to save those men, and you weren’t angling for Mireau’s command. You’re an idealist, and I pity you as I would the village idiot. Broulard is also portrayed as having little sympathy for the men, although he recognises, from the numbers of dead, that there must have been a considerable effort to take the Ant Hill. He sees great value in the executions in helping the troops, morale pour encourager les autres: ‘these executions will be a perfect tonic for the entire Division,’ he says. ‘There are few things more fundamentally encouraging and stimulating than seeing someone else die.’ Colonel Dax is the only senior officer to emerge with any credit. In a marvellously underplayed performance (which, despite his own reservations, is one of the best in a distinguished career36), Kirk Douglas plays a man cynical of the High Command who dislikes patriotism and respects, even loves, his men. At one point he quotes Samuel Johnson’s comments that ‘patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel’ though the point is lost on Mireau. A prominent criminal lawyer, he is appalled by the court martial, not only by its summary injustice, but because the indictment is read only after protest and he is refused permission to introduce key evidence and

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testimony to his men’s previous bravery. He sums up: ‘Gentlemen of the court. There are times when I am ashamed to be a member of the human race…this is one such occasion.’ And continues: The attack yesterday morning was no stain on the honor of France, and certainly no disgrace to the fighting men of this nation—but this court martial is such a stain and such a disgrace. The case made against these men is a mockery of all human justice. Gentlemen of the court, to find these men guilty will be a crime to haunt each of you to the day you die. Despite the praise lavished by reviewers, some commentators have criticised Dax’s rôle. Robert Hughes claimed that: ‘spectators leave the film with the impression that if only guys like Kirk Douglas could lead us, we could kill each other in good conscience’.37 This is a view shared by the film director, Richard Lester.38 Kubrick himself seemed to want a degree of ambiguity in the character. In a note for distributors regarding the synchronisation of the film in foreign-language release he stated: The voice should be cultured and educated but not to the point of being snobbish. However it should also be strong and manly. Be careful not to let… Dax ever wear his heart on his sleeve. Despite the conflict with his commanding officers he is always a soldier; and never let him indulge in self-pity, or, for that matter, never let him break his heart over the injustice being done to his men. His actions express his sympathy for his men fully enough. It would be disastrous to over-emphasize his indignation or his pity.39 Despite the differences in interpretation of Dax’s rôle there is no doubt that he rediscovers his belief in humanity at the end. Up to then his faith had been totally shattered and, as he listens to the jeers of his men in the tavern, a look of utter disgust covers his face. But the disgust wears off as the jeers fade away and the men hum, sing and cry with the German woman. As the reviewer in the Motion Picture Herald said: ‘Threaded through…is the idealism of one man and the hope that it holds for mankind [is] epitomised by the final scene…in which Douglas, embittered and defeated, sees in a single flash the understanding compassion of man.’40 Like Dick Williams, reviewer in the Mirror News, we know that the ‘barbarities of war have not permanently captured men’s souls’.41 In contrast to the officers, and unlike the novel, the poilu are not portrayed in any detail, Kubrick preferring to use them as symbols of the common suffering of the ordinary soldier in the war. This has led one commentator to criticise the film as: a stacked deck of liberal idealism which is never convincing…. We know these hapless soldiers will be executed and we, like Kubrick, couldn’t care less. They exist, not as characters, but as targets. Kubrick loves the generals who…have the best lines and give the best performances. Kubrick is enthralled by their control and their authority, for they demonstrate his themes of universal and inherited evil.42 This is a point also recognised in Dilys Powell’s contemporary review: The film invites compassion for the herd of soldiers, helpless, wavering between callousness and selfpitying sentimentality. But the invitation is made intellectually, from the outside. And except for a moment or two in the performance of Timothy Carey as a pathetic, bemused prisoner the characters are characters from a novel, not from life.43

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The fate of the doomed men is of great interest; few viewers could fail to be moved by the miscarriage of justice and the execution. The rationale behind the order to attack, the assault, the court martial and the actions of Mireau all highlight the brutality of military incompetence. This is confirmed with the execution. As if their suffering were not enough, the three men are brought to their deaths in front of the remains of the regiment, press and invited dignitaries. Paris walks upright, resigned to his fate but able to avoid the blindfold so that he can condemn Roget and the bureaucracy; Ferol, distraught, is helped to his death by the Priest; Arnaud—who earlier in the film said that he was more afraid of pain than of being killed—is carried, barely alive, on a stretcher and his cheek is pinched so he can at least be awake at his death. ‘The men died magnificently’, Mireau tells Broulard over breakfast. No other film about war has been able to convey in a single scene how needlessly men died to satisfy and hide the whims, ambitions, arrogance and mistakes of the High Command. The Hollywood Reporter found it praiseworthy: ‘The final big scene is a long and grotesque one, horribly impressive, in which the glory that is France is summoned up to execute the three wretched individuals and thus redress French military honor.’44 The reassertion of humanity is also present in the final scene, with the men in the tavern. Up to now, the troops, battle-weary and fatalistic, have made no comment on the trial and the execution, glad they were spared, given the arbitrary nature of the decision-making. As they sit, a frightened German woman is brought onto the stage—the first manifestation of the enemy yet seen—and her singing provides a cathartic release for their loss, fears and memories of loved ones back home. Clearly moved, Hollis Alpert commented ‘we know that Colonel Dax and his soldiers have made their odyssey and arrived home safely’.45 The anti-war nature of the film is also contained in the realistic portrayal of the horrors of war. Kubrick, an assiduous researcher and planner, was keen to attain verisimilitude in his picturing of the trenches and noman’s-land. Impossible to make in France, the picture was filmed in and around Munich, the interiors at the Bavarian Geiselgasteig Studios and the court martial in Schleissheim Castle. For a battlefield, the company hired 5,000 square yards of land from a local farmer and dug it to create credible backgrounds. This re-creation of reality proved a great achievement; many reviewers praised the battle scenes for their resemblance to war newsreels and photographs. As the reconnaissance patrol sets out it clambers over dead bodies, barbed wire, shellholes, mud and water; the battle scenes (with extras provided by the West German police force) are perfectly achieved and highlight the brutal noise, death and suffering—what an enthusiastic recruit in the novel calls ‘The Orchestration of the Western Front’46—of full-frontal assaults on heavily fortified enemies. Winston Churchill, who knew more than most about the results of military incompetence, praised the film’s authenticity.47 There is a third element in the film. The stark contrast between the officers in the château and the men in the trenches epitomises class struggle, and is resonant of von Clausewitz’s dictum that war is the continuation of politics by other means. The film is making a similar point to La Grande Illusion, where the differences between people are not those of nation and language, but of class. Mireau and Broulard represent the upper class, rulers, those in control, who are able to abuse those under them as weapons and pawns in their power games. At one point during their conversation prior to the attack Dax, Mireau and Saint-Auban discuss the casualties incurred earlier in the morning. Mireau says: ‘Utterly inexcusable. Stupid! All swarmed together like a bunch of flies—just waiting for someone to swat ’em.’ Major SaintAuban adds: ‘Haha—they never learn, it seems. They get in a tight spot under heavy fire—gang up every time. Herd instinct, I suppose. Kind of a loweranimal sort of thing.’ But Dax replies: ‘A kind of human sort of thing, it seems to me. Or don’t you make any distinction between the two, Major?’

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21 Colonel Dax (Kirk Douglas) talks with the sycophantic Major Saint-Auban (Richard Anderson) and the ambitious, duplicitous General Paul Mireau (George Macready) in Paths of Glory (1957).

Dax’s defence of the troops against this cynicism is characteristic and he is the only military man to straddle the officer/soldier divide. But it is clear which side he is on. Alexander Walker has also recognised the point of class struggle. The film, he writes: takes its stand on human injustice. It shows one group of men being exploited by another group. It explores the social stratification of war. No man’s land is not really the great dividing barrier between the two sides …the ‘two sides’ actually wear the same uniform, serve the same flag, and hold the same battle line, though in vastly differing degrees of comfort. The actual division, the deeper conflict, is that between the leaders and the led. It exists whether there is a war or not, but a war situation widens the division fatally. Only by implication is Paths of Glory a protest against war as such; it is much more pertinently an illustration of war as the continuation of class struggle. The paths of glory in the title are not the ones that lie across the battlefield; they are the avenues to selfadvancement taken by the generals in command, with the utmost indifference to the fate of the men in the trenches.48 Kubrick’s attack on military incompetence, the slaughter that results and the humanity which can remain, makes it one of the great anti-militarist statements. It came at an important time for public perceptions of conflict resolution. In the mid-1950s the world was torn apart by the Cold War, which could have resulted in near-total destruction. Paths of Glory said—at a time that needed prophets—that war was not a method for resolving disputes. Few films have matched its message and its power.

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One film which shared a similar theme and came close—at least in parts — to the power of Paths of Glory was King and Country, a British film directed by Joseph Losey in 1964. Based on Hamp, a stage and television play by John Wilson (who had adapted it from the book and radio script by James Lansdale Hodson), it was an attack on military injustice and a condemnation of the use of executions to maintain morale. Execution for desertion was a controversial issue during the war: around 25,000 British soldiers were courtmartialled for being absent without leave (20,000 for drunkenness and 4,000 for insubordination and disobedience). At least 3,000 soldiers were sentenced to death for cowardice, desertion or for simply being asleep on duty, with around 346 actually executed.49 An accusation of cowardice—or actual execution—led to shame at home, though after protests by Sylvia Pankhurst, at least relatives were spared the true news (instead of a telegram informing them of the sentence and execution, they were told that the soldier had ‘died of wounds’50). Hamp was based on one of these executions. It was written by the defence lawyer in the actual court martial. According to Losey, the original play was no more than ‘a kind of remembered transcript of the trial’, but it was also infused with a passion to right a great wrong as the writer had been troubled ‘all his life that he wasn’t able to get the boy off’.51 This was an ideal film for Losey. He was a committed director who had attacked racism, capital punishment, prison and injustice in his films The Boy With Green Hair, The Criminal, The Damned and The Lawless. This had caused problems for him in Hollywood where he was blacklisted and may have led to his later refusal to accept that his films were social comment. He told Michel Ciment: ‘I am not particularly interested by social reforms, and above all I don’t believe in “message films’”. What he was interested in was ‘making pictures of provocation’.52 He especially liked King and Country. He wanted to make the film when he realised ‘how many millions of people had died in…[the Great] war …[when] several hundred thousand men simply disappeared into the mud…and all they knew was “King and Country”, the particular shibboleth of the moment’.53 He had a limited budget (£86,000) and only three weeks shooting time. This was an advantage. ‘I was very limited as to what I could do’, he said: so I concentrated as much as I could on the acting, on lines, and on getting a feeling of claustrophobia, getting a real sense and smell of a war without any guns being fired excepting the guns of the execution at the end, and the distant guns that are heard.54 He was helped by Dirk Bogarde, one of the leads, who contributed material to the screenplay. Bogarde was interested in the period and had been an officer in the Second World War so he knew some of the military background. More importantly, his father had served on the Somme and at Passchendaele and had been affected badly by the experience. It is 1917 in Passchendaele. Private Hamp (Tom Courtenay) is in prison awaiting court martial for being absent without leave. He is defended by Captain Hargreaves (Dirk Bogarde) who, like Hamp, has been at the front for three years. Hamp is married with one child. He volunteered right at the start, having been dared to by his mother and wife (who has since left him for his best friend). After three years of trench warfare he found he could take no more and decided to walk home. Though Hargreaves defends him well, the court martial finds him guilty but decides to ask for mercy. This is ignored by General Headquarters who want him shot, a decision which affects Hargreaves badly. Hamp is executed after a drunken night with the other tommies. The execution squad fail to kill him outright and it is left for Hargreaves to deliver the final shot.

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The film’s opening is a magnificent piece of cinema which attacks right from the start the glory of war and the military machine (the film was originally to be called Glory Hole). Originally, Losey wanted to start the film with the end of All Quiet on the Western Front. However, Lewis Milestone told him that only Universal could give permission to use the famous butterfly sequence; in any case, he said that it would provide an easy target for criticism.55 Losey started the film instead with a lengthy sequence going from a shot of the monument to the Royal Artillery in Hyde Park (inscribed ‘The Royal Fellowship of Death’) back to 1917 with a rain-soaked trench, an explosion, a dead horse and a battle-scarred field. This is followed with a grotesque still of a rotting soldier which dissolves into Hamp lying on his bed. In the background to most of this is the music of a harmonica, and Hamp’s recitation of A.E.Housman’s war poem ‘Here Dead We Lie’ (for some reason this was misquoted): Here dead lie we because we did not choose To live and shame the land from which we sprung. Life, after all, is nothing much to lose; Though young men think it is, and we were young.56 The use of the monument at the start of the film was an important point for Losey: I took buses in those days and I used to ride by Hyde Park Corner every day and see this horrendous heroic monument which is such a joke in the light of what one knows about the war…. I wanted to get some impression of what had been done. How the war was brought about is all in the title. The people were sold that war on the basis of king and country. And…now, there is still the pomp of these red-coated, helmeted, Queen’s Guards and the idiocy of this sentimental monument to people who just died the most miserable dog’s deaths.57 Losey’s realistic portrayal of the trenches was different to many other British war films. Unlike Journey’s End, he chose to stay within the confines of the trench (though, no doubt, budget restrictions played their part in the decision). By doing so, he shows some of the claustrophobia of the trench and the dugout. He also shows some of the horrors—horrors which are exacerbated as the viewer knows that the men are actually resting at this stage: the trenches are like sewers, rats are everywhere (one bites the ear of one of the soldiers) and a severed arm holds up one of the walls. And by not having enemies on show, Losey shows that the real enemy is war and the class system. This is shown most clearly in the relationship between Hargreaves and Hamp. It is clear right from the start that Hargreaves is an officer and is superior—his bearing, tone, even his little moustache, highlight this. He does not relish the job he has been given: it is pointless and he will lose. ‘If a dog breaks its back, you shoot it,’ he says early in the film. Despite this, Hargreaves is decent and has sympathy for Hamp and the men, creating ‘a common humanity across the barriers of class and rank’, as David Caute, Losey’s biographer, states.58 As they talk, Hargreaves becomes more sympathetic. He cannot get too close, however. War is a duty, and he admonishes Hamp for not doing his duty which would have avoided the trial. Even Hargreaves, though, is shocked by the decision and he collapses in the mud on the way back to the dugout. Like Hamp, Hargreaves is destroyed by the execution. Losey said: [the film is really] a class conversation in which the officer is educated by the boy’s simplicity. So that when that pistol, that coup de grâce, has to be fired at the end, in a sense Hargreaves is ending his

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22 Captain Hargreaves (Dirk Bogarde) reluctantly, though honourably, ends the life of Private Hamp (Tom Courtenay) who has been executed for walking away from the war in King and Country (1964).

own life as well as the boy’s. Like the man who wrote Hamp, he will never be able to get that out of his system.59 As in Paths of Glory, the court martial is at the heart of the film. Hamp genuinely does not know why he set out from the trench that day. The only time he comes close to a reason is when he talks about the comrades he has lost. All those who joined up with him have now been killed, the most recent at Passchendaele when his friend was blown to bits. When arrested he gave himself up without a fight; unlike others, he chose not to disable himself. He is just an ordinary soldier, with a blank record—neither good nor bad as the prosecuting officer points out. Throughout all this Hamp believes in justice and that he will be found to be innocent. Lieutenant Webb defends him by calling him a good soldier and someone who makes excellent tea. However, there can be no consideration of shellshock, which Hargreaves tries to introduce. The Medical Officer (Leo McKern) refuses to even consider the condition and prefers to prescribe laxatives for mental illness. And the Colonel chairing the court martial will have nothing said about such problems. There is no justice. As Captain Midgley, the prosecuting officer, tells Hargreaves: ‘A proper court is concerned with law. It’s a bit amateur to plead for justice.’ The High Command even ignore the plea for mercy. They want an execution to encourage the others who will be in the next attack, though the commanding officer does question whether this will have the desired effect. Losey’s commentary on the trial is provided by a Greek chorus of tommies. Throughout the film these are cynical of the war: they are sardonic about the trial (they know he will die); they are brutal (they torture

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rats) and oblivious to convention as they steal food and rum from the officers. They hold their own mock trial of a rat which mirrors Hamp’s own. After he has been sentenced, they spend a drunken night with him at his farewell party. Here the cynicism and the brutality are complete as they blindfold him and subject him to a mock execution. He only escapes all this with the arrival of morphine. The ending of the film is similar to that of Paths of Glory. There is a visit by a padre, though Hamp vomits the Communion bread and wine. The execution itself is brutal: Hamp is carried out in a chair, blindfolded. The firing squad shoot to miss, though a few shots injure him. Webb—who didn’t want his men to be in the firing squad—cannot bring himself to finish Hamp’s life, forcing Hargreaves to take over. As he cradles Hamp’s head he says: ‘lsn’t it finished yet?’ Hamp’s reply, ‘No sir. I’m sorry’, is followed by Hargreaves’ shot and Hamp is left dead in the mud. King and Country was acclaimed critically in Britain and in the United States. Variety said that Losey had ‘attacked the subject with confidence and vigor’, with the result being ‘a highly sensitive and emotional drama’.60 Despite the praise—and an award for Courtenay’s acting—the film failed at the box office in both countries and in France where it was released as Pour l’ example. King and Country was an important British film. Ultimately, however, it is too bleak. There are, undoubtedly, some powerful moments, not least at the end. But it is difficult to engage fully and Hamp is too simple and naïve to attract affection and sympathy. Finally, there are no uplifting moments: Paths of Glory ends on a message of hope, King and Country with an old general in his car. The condemnation of war is just as strong, but the humanity is absent.

Conclusion

King and Country was the last of the great films to be made about the First World War. Only Richard Attenborough’s burlesque attack on military incompetence, Oh What a Lovely War (not covered in this book), and Tavernier’s La Vie et Rien d’Autre have come close since then to portraying the reality of the worst conflict of the twentieth century, and the bloodiest in human history. From Bertha von Suttner to Joseph Losey, this survey of the cinema of the war has identified key themes which have characterised the anti-war film: the waste and brutality of conflict, the suffering at home and at the front, the comradeship of enemies, the failures of the High Command and the veteran as the forgotten man. Using such themes, three classic films have been made: All Quiet on the Western Front, La Grande Illusion and Paths of Glory. No pro-war film, about the First World War, about any war, can match the passion and emotion, the verisimilitude of these three. Indeed, they have few peers in cinema history. Of the remaining films in this study, some are minor masterpieces—such as The Big Parade, The Man I Killed and The Road to Glory. Others discussed here, whilst not classics, were influential in their time, remain historically important and deserve wider exhibition. Inevitably, interest in the First World War in cinema lessened after 1945 and fewer films have been released, though Paths of Glory attracted considerable debate and controversy in 1957 and in subsequent years. It is unlikely, however, that any new films would have the impact of earlier productions. All Quiet on the Western Front (as book and film) represented, unquestionably, a sea change in attitude, one which condemned the use of conflict to the utmost scrutiny, debate and, in terms of the First World War, utter repudiation. Anything new, however, will still be anti-war. For the First World War at least no films could now be produced which favour the conflict. In their reflection of the rejection of conflict, the great Hollywood, German and French productions of the 1930s set this view in stone and, with their exhibition capacity, cinemas transmitted it worldwide. Whilst cinema is sometimes crass and banal—and most of the films made about the war can be characterised as such—in its reflection of the anti-war viewpoint there has been this crucial outcome: the belief that war is rarely just and peace must be maintained. It was not the only one of the arts to put this position forward, nor was it the first. But it was the one which reached the widest audience. Though cinema is mostly about entertainment, and about making money, it also has a rôle in translating prevailing views to audiences in ways that do not preach or become over-didactic. The classic films about the war showed that cinema could transform the views of its audience without putting in jeopardy the provision of entertainment. The films discussed in this book can be judged on cinematic merit solely—most of them are that good; but it is this legacy of historical and political importance which gives them their significance in film and, indeed, world history.

Notes

INTRODUCTION 1 B.W.Tuchman, The Guns of August, New York, Bantam, 1976, p. 489.

1 THE FIRST PACIFIST FILM OF THE WAR: NED MED VAABNENE/LAY DOWN YOUR ARMS 1 Lay Down Your Arms has been used as the English title of the film and the book in this chapter. Other titles that have been used for the film include Surrender Arms and Down With Weapons. 2 I.Abrams, ‘Suttner’, in H.Josephson (ed.), Biographical Dictionary of Modern Peace Leaders, Westport, Conn., and London, Greenwood Press, 1985, p. 921. See also Abrams’s paper ‘Bertha von Suttner and the Nobel Peace Prize’, Journal of Central European Affairs, vol. 27, October 1962, pp. 286–307. 3 B.Suttner, ‘How I Wrote “Lay Down Your Arms”’, The Independent, 1 February 1906. 4 B.Suttner, Lay Down Your Arms: the autobiography of Martha von Tilling, London, Longmans, Green, 1894, pp. 153–4. 5 Letter from Leo Tolstoy quoted in B.Kempf, Suffragette for Peace: the life of Bertha von Suttner, London, Oswald Wolff, 1972, p. 27. Suttner has been served poorly by biographers. A more recent study—B.Hamman, Bertha von Suttner: ein leben für den frieden, Munich and Zurich, Piper, 1986—is better. The best critical writing on Suttner is by Abrams (see note 2). 6 Kempf, op. cit. 7 ibid., p. 125. 8 ibid., p. 28. She is mistaken, however. The film actually starts with Suttner sitting at her desk, not with still photographs of her. 9 From a letter Suttner sent to Alfred Fried dated 21 January 1913, in Hamman, op. cit., p. 510. 10 See E.Neergaard, The Story of Danish Film, The Danish Institute, n. d., and J. Somlo, ‘The First Generation of the Cinema’, The Penguin Film Review, London, Penguin Books, September 1948, pp. 55–60. 11 I.Monty, ‘Holger-Madsen’, in C.Lyon (ed.), The International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, vol. II: Directors/Filmmakers, London, Macmillan, 1984, pp. 263–4. For more detailed information on Olsen see Neergaard, op. cit., and B.Bergsten, The Great Dane and the Great Northern Film Company, Locare Research Group, California, 1973. 12 For further information see D.Bordwell, The Films of Carl-Theodor Dreyer, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1981, p. 36. 13 The considerable literature published on science fiction has meant that this film has received more coverage than other work by Olsen and Holger-Madsen. Its reputation is not good. A representative example of comments is J.Baxter, Science Fiction in the Cinema, London, Tantivy Press, 1970, pp. 18–20, where he calls it ‘a faintly ridiculous romance’ and goes on to say: ‘As in many early science fantasies, a plea for international peace and

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NOTES

14

15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

26 27

28 29 30 31 32 33 34

understanding led to a loss of intensity and imagination.’ Its importance as a pacifist film made in the midst of the war should not, however, be under-estimated. The film discussed is the print held in the Danish Film Museum. It consists of three reels and runs for approximately sixty minutes. This 35mm print was made in 1957 from the original 35mm nitrate negative kept at the Nordisk Film Company. It is almost certainly the only print in existence. Although regarded as a complete copy of the original, there are two crucial differences between this version and the one released in the United States. The first is that reviews of the film referred to it as a four-reeler, rather than three reels (this change almost certainly occurred during the transfer of the film to safety stock in 1957); second, an additional scene, not included in the Danish print, is included. See p. 11. M.Engberg, Dansk Stumfilm—de store år, Copenhagen, Rhodos, 1977, p. 505. Socialdemokraten, 19 September 1915. Folkets avis, 21 September 1915. Politiken, 10 September 1915. Nationaltidende, 20 September 1915. Lay Down Your Arms: in four parts, USA, Great Northern Film Company, n. d. Morning Telegraph, quoted ibid. Motion Picture News, 22 August 1914, p. 57. Variety, 4 September 1914. Moving Picture World, 22 August 1914. Moving Picture World, 27 March 1915, quoted in R.Mottram, The Danish Cinema 1896–1917, Ph.D thesis, p. 308. Mottram’s work has been published in The Danish Cinema before Dreyer, Metuchen, N.J., and London, The Scarecrow Press, 1988. Engberg, op. cit. Kevin Brownlow has suggested to me that the film’s makers included this scene because of the influence of Mexican films in Europe at this time (with European railway tunnels it would have been utter folly to place people on the top of trains!). Engberg, op. cit., p. 504. Variety, op. cit. K.Brownlow, The War, the West and the Wilderness, London, Secker & Warburg, 1979, p. 213. M.T.Isenberg, War on Film: the American cinema and World War I, 1914–1941, London and Toronto, Associated University Presses, 1981, p. 191. Quoted ibid., p. 192. J.Spears, Hollywood: the golden era, New York, Castle Books, 1971, p. 23. For further information see S.E.Cooper, ‘Women’s Participation in European Peace Movements: the struggle to prevent World War I’, in R.R.Pierson (ed.), Women and Peace: theoretical, historical and practical perspectives’, London, Croom Helm, 1989, pp. 51–75.

2 THE UNITED STATES AND ANTI-WAR CINEMA, 1914–16: CIVILIZATION AND INTOLERANCE 1 2 3 4

L.Jacobs, The Rise of the American Film: a critical history, New York, Teachers College Press, 1967, p. 248. Quoted in H.Brogan, Longman History of the United States of America, London, Longman, 1985, p. 491. Quoted ibid. J.Spears, ‘The Movies of World War I’, in his Hollywood: the golden era, New York, Castle Books, 1971, pp. 11–76. 5 L.Denig, in Motion Picture World, 27 February 1915, quoted in C.W.Campbell, Reel America and World War I, Jefferson, N.C., and London, McFarland, 1985, p. 32. Campbell’s book remains the best overall survey of the American cinema and the war.

NOTES

145

6 L.Marston, ‘Fake War Pictures Stir the East Side’, New York Times, 6 September 1914, quoted ibid., p. 28. 7 Quoted in P.A.Soderbergh, ‘Aux Armes!: The Rise of the Hollywood War Film, 1916–1930’, South Atlantic Quarterly, 65, 1964, p. 512. 8 Variety, 4 December 1914. 9 Motion Picture World, 19 December 1914, quoted in Campbell, op. cit., p. 31. 10 M.MacDonald, in Motion Picture World, 5 February 1916, quoted in Campbell, op. cit., p. 34. 11 From a lecture Blackton gave to the University of Southern California, 20 February 1919, quoted in Jacobs, op. cit., p. 251. 12 Campbell, op. cit., p. 43. 13 Motion Picture Magazine, February 1916, quoted in Jacobs, op. cit., p. 253. 14 From Hart’s autobiography, quoted in P.O’Dell, Griffith and the Rise of Hollywood, London, Zwemmer, 1970, p. 102. 15 General information on Ince is taken from the chapter on the director in O’Dell, op. cit., and from ‘Thomas H.Ince’, in A.Slide, Early American Cinema, Metuchen, N.J., and London, The Scarecrow Press, rev. edn, 1994, pp. 77–93. 16 T.Ramsaye, A Million and One Nights: a history of the motion picture, London, Frank Cass, 1964, p. 728. 17 C.Peet, ‘Hollywood at War 1915–1918’, Esquire, September 1936, p. 60. 18 Spears, op. cit., p. 14. 19 K.Brownlow, The War, the West and the Wilderness, London, Secker & Warburg, 1979, pp. 72 and 74–5. 20 ibid., p. 72. 21 Slide, op. cit., p. 78. 22 See interview with Willatt in Brownlow, op. cit., pp. 73–4. 23 Quoted in O’Dell, op. cit., p. 109. 24 New York Times, 3 June 1916. 25 Motion Picture News, 6 May 1916, quoted in Campbell, op. cit., p. 44. 26 Variety, 9 June 1916. 27 Quoted in Brownlow, op. cit., p. 76. 28 The Bioscope, 8 February 1917, quoted ibid., p. 77. 29 See section on Civilization in J.C.Robertson, The Hidden Cinema: British film censorship in action, 1913–1972, London, Routledge, 1989, pp. 10–12. The information on the British censorship of the film is taken from this book. 30 L.Gish, The Movies, Mr Griffith and Me, London, Columbus Books, 1988, p. 182. 31 R.Schickel, D.W.Griffith, London, Pavilion, 1984, p. 334. 32 See ibid., pp. 309–11. 33 Griffith interview in F.Silva (ed.), Focus on ‘The Birth of a Nation’, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice Hall, 1971, p. 98, quoted in W.Drew, D.W.Griffith’s ‘Intolerance’: its genesis and its vision, Jefferson, N.C., and London, McFarland, 1986, p. 125. 34 Quoted in Schickel, op. cit., p. 344. 35 For further information on Hearts of the World see ibid., chapter 12, and R. Merritt, ‘D.W.Griffith Directs the Great War: the making of Hearts of the World’, Quarterly Review of Film Studies, vol. 6, 1981, pp. 45–65. 36 Quoted in Schickel, op. cit., p. 354. 37 Quoted in Gish, op. cit., p. 193. 38 Quoted in Drew, op. cit., p. 126. 39 See Gish, op. cit., p. 201. 40 Quoted in J.R.Mock, Censorship 1917, New York, Da Capo Press, rev. edn, 1972, p. 175. 41 See J.C.Robertson, The British Board of Film Censors: film censorship in Britain, 1896–1950, Beckenham, Kent, Croom Helm, 1985, p. 17. 42 Quoted in Jacobs, op. cit, p. 253.

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NOTES

43 This sorry tale is recounted in full by Goldstein himself in A.Slide (ed.), Robert Goldstein and ‘The Spirit of ’ 76’, Metuchen, N.J., and London, The Scarecrow Press, 1993. 44 Ramsaye, op. cit., p. 786. 45 Quoted in Soderbergh, op. cit., p. 514. 46 L.Parsons, in Photoplay, September 1918, quoted in Jacobs, op. cit., pp. 262–3. 47 Quoted in K.Brownlow, Hollywood: the pioneers, London, Collins, 1979, p. 80.

3 THE GREAT WAR SEVEN YEARS ON: THE BIG PARADE 1 The full advertisement of the Creed and Pledge is contained in R.Durgnat and S.Simmon, King Vidor, American, Berkeley and London, University of California Press, 1988, p. 31. 2 Quoted in J.Greenberg, ‘War, Wheat & Steel: King Vidor interviewed by Joel Greenberg’, Sight and Sound, vol. 37, 1968, p. 193. 3 See the interview by N.Dowd and D.Shepard, King Vidor: a Directors’ Guild of America oral history project, Metuchen, N.J., and London, Directors’ Guild of America and The Scarecrow Press, 1988, pp. 57–8. 4 Greenberg, op. cit. 5 M.T.Isenberg, ‘The Great War Viewed from the Twenties: The Big Parade (1925)’, in J.E.O’Connor and M.A.Jackson (eds), American History/American Film: interpreting the Hollywood image, New York, Frederick Ungar, 1979, p. 22. 6 K.Vidor, A Tree is A Tree, London and New York, Longmans, Green, 1954, pp. 74–5. 7 J.Gilbert, in Photoplay, September 1928, p. 41, quoted in K.Brownlow, The War, the West and the Wilderness, London, Secker & Warburg, 1979, p. 191. 8 Vidor, op. cit. In actual fact the phrase came from one of the Stern brothers, not from Vidor, according to Kevin Brownlow. 9 ibid., p. 76. 10 ibid., p. 77. 11 Dowd and Shepard, op. cit., p. 70. 12 A.Woollcott, in New York World, quoted in ‘Watching the War from an Orchestra Chair’, Literary Digest, 6 March 1926. 13 Variety, 11 November 1925. 14 R.Sherwood, ‘The Silent Drama’, Life, vol. 86, 10 December 1925, pp. 24–5. 15 ibid. 16 ‘An Unreal Film of the War’, Evening News, 22 May 1926. 17 ‘How America “Won the War”’, Daily Express, 22 May 1926. 18 ‘Inside History of “The Big Parade”’, Daily Express, 21 May 1926. 19 The Bioscope, 27 May 1926. 20 The Star, 5 June 1926. 21 ‘G.B.S Admires a “Pacifist” Film’, Sunday Express, 23 May 1926. 22 I.Barry, ‘The Cinema’, The Spectator, vol. 136, 5 June 1926, pp. 946–7. 23 E.Epardaud, ‘La Grande Parade’, Cinéa-Ciné Pour Tour, 76, 1 January 1927, p. 21. 24 ‘Retour a la guerre’, Mon Ciné, 259, 3 February 1927. 25 Vidor interview in ‘World War Pictured Through Veteran’s Eyes’, New York Times, 8 November 1925, quoted in Durgnat and Simmon, op. cit., p. 65. 26 J.Baxter, King Vidor, New York, 1976, quoted in Isenberg, op. cit., p. 30. 27 Isenberg, op. cit., p. 28. 28 Durgnat and Simmon, op. cit., p. 65. 29 P.Rotha (with R.Griffith), The Film Till Now: a survey of world cinema, London, Spring Books, 1967, p. 192. 30 Dowd and Shepard, op. cit., p. 67.

NOTES

31 32 33 34 35

147

Woollcott, op. cit. Sherwood, op. cit. I.Butler, Silent Magic: rediscovering the silent film era, London, Columbus Books, 1987, p. 99. Dowd and Shepard, op. cit., p. 69. F.Madox Ford, Parade’s End, London, Penguin Books, 1982, pp. 306–7.

4 THE MEASURE FOR ALL ANTI-WAR CINEMA: ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT 1 A.Eggebrecht, ‘Gespräch mit Remarque’, Die literarische Welt, 14 June 1929, p. 1, quoted in C.R.Barker and R.W.Last, Erich Maria Remarque, London, Oswald Woolf, 1979, p. 33. See also J.Gilbert, Opposite Attraction: the lives of Erich Maria Remarque and Paulette Goddard, New York, Pantheon Books, 1995. 2 J.Cutts, ‘Great Films of the Century: All Quiet on the Western Front’, Films and Filming, vol. 9, April 1963, p. 58. 3 See J.Drinkwater, The Life and Adventures of Carl Laemmle, London, William Heinemann, 1931. This is not a critical study! 4 E.Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front, London, Mayflower-Dell, 1963, p. 192. A new translation of the novel is available: All Quiet on the Western Front, trans. B.Murdoch, London, Jonathan Cape, 1994. In this chapter I have used the original translation as it is this which provided the basis for the film. 5 A copy of an early version of the screenplay is contained in S.Thomas (ed.), Best American Screenplays: first series, New York, Crown, 1986, pp. 13–72. 6 Variety, 7 May 1930. 7 New York Times, 30 April 1930. 8 The Nation, 11 June 1930. 9 Photoplay, June 1930, p. 57. 10 From MPPDA files. All information from the MPPDA is taken from research in the Margaret Herrick Library in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles. 11 S.W.Carroll, in Sunday Times, 22 June 1930, quoted in M.Eksteins, ‘War, Memory, and Politics: the fate of the film All Quiet on the Western Front’, Central European History, vol. 13, 1980, p. 362. 12 See his review of the film reprinted in J.Agate, Around Cinemas, Home & Van Thal, 1946, pp. 68–71. 13 Reynolds News, 8 June 1930. 14 The Bioscope, 11 June 1930. 15 Kinematograph Weekly, 12 June 1930. 16 Details here are taken from information supplied by A.W.Everard, Chief Censor of Films, Auckland, to Jim Sheehan, 19 August 1987. 17 From an advertisement for the film, New Zealand Herald, 7 August 1930. 18 Details of the Australian release are taken from information supplied by David Haines, Acting Chief Censor, Attorney-General’s Department, Sydney, to Jim Sheehan, 10 June 1987, and from the advertisement for the film in Everyones, 25 June 1930, p. 14. 19 See Everyones, op. cit. 20 Variety, 24 December 1930. 21 Ciné-Miroir, 17 October 1930, p. 659. 22 The information on the German release of the film is taken from three sources: Eksteins, op. cit.; ‘Tormented Celluloid: the fate of the cinema classic “All Quiet on the Western Front”’, Film Forum, ZDF Television, 25 November 1984, 22.50; and J.Simmons, ‘Film and International Politics: the banning of All Quiet on the Western Front in Germany and Austria, 1930–1931’, Historian, vol. 52, 1989, pp. 40–60. 23 Der Angriff, 6 December 1930, p. 1, quoted in Simmons, op. cit., p. 46. 24 ibid., 12 December 1930, quoted in Simmons, op. cit., p. 51. 25 All quotations from the film have been taken from the screenplay held in the New York State Archives, Albany.

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NOTES

26 Remarque, op. cit., p. 128. 27 From All Quiet on the Western Front: Universal’s continuity and dialogue, revised version as of March 1st 1934. 28 For further details on the 1939 release see A.Kelly, ‘All Quiet on the Western Front: “brutal cutting, stupid censors and bigoted politicos” (1930–1984)’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, vol. 9, 1989, pp. 135–50. 29 See letter from Lewis Milestone to Jim Sheehan, dated 6 April 1964. 30 New York Times, 9 October 1939. 31 Milestone, op. cit.

5 BLOODY SLAUGHTER, HONOURABLE DEATH AND UTOPIAN VISION—THE BRITISH CINEMA AND THE WAR: JOURNEY’S END, TELL ENGLAND AND THINGS TO COME 1 M.Seton, ‘The British Cinema 1914’, Sight and Sound, Autumn 1937, pp. 126–8. 2 R.Low, The History of the British Film 1914–1918, London, George Allen & Unwin, 1950, p. 182. 3 J.C.Robertson, The British Board of Film Censors: film censorship in Britain, 1896–1950, Beckenham, Kent, Croom Helm, 1985, p. 9. 4 M.Balcon, Michael Balcon Presents… A Lifetime of Films, London, Hutchinson, 1969, pp. 12–13. 5 R.Armes, A Critical History of British Cinema, London, Secker & Warburg, 1978, p. 2. 6 See N.Reeves, Official British Film Propaganda during the First World War, Beckenham, Kent, Croom Helm, 1986, p. 49. See also his article ‘The Power of Film Propaganda—Myth or Reality?’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, vol. 13, 1993, pp. 181–201. 7 A.Brunel, Nice Work, London, Forbes Robertson, 1949. 8 ibid., p. 40. 9 ibid. 10 ibid., pp. 40–1. 11 Reeves, Official British Film Propaganda, op. cit., p. 160. For information on fakes in The Battle of the Somme see R.Smither, ‘“A Wonderful Idea of the Fighting”: the question of fakes in The Battle of the Somme’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, vol. 13, 1993, pp. 149–68. 12 L.Warren (ed.), How I Filmed the War by G.H.Malins OBE, London, 1920, quoted in Reeves, Official British Film Propaganda, op. cit., p. 158. 13 See Reeves, Official British Film Propaganda, op. cit., pp. 204–5. 14 P.Rotha, Celluloid: the film to-day, London, Longmans, Green, 1933, p. 170. 15 R.Low, The History of the British Film 1918–1929, London, George Allen & Unwin, 1971, p. 292. 16 Close Up, July 1927, quoted ibid., p. 293. 17 ibid. 18 Robertson, op. cit., p. 25. This section relies to a great extent on the research outlined in his book. 19 Brunel, op. cit., p. 126. 20 ibid., p. 127. 21 See the entry on the film in J.Walker (ed.), Halliwell’s Film Guide, London, Grafton, rev. edn, 1992, p. 128. 22 Armes, op. cit., pp. 71–2. 23 J.C.Robertson, ‘Dawn (1928): Edith Cavell and Anglo-German relations’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, vol. 4, 1984, pp. 15–28. 24 ibid., p. 24. 25 J.Richards, The Age of the Dream Palace: cinema and society in Britain 1930–1939, London, Routledge, 1984, p. 100. 26 A.Neagle, There’s Always Tomorrow: an autobiography, London, Futura, 1974, p. 107. 27 A.J.P.Taylor, English History 1914–1945, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1965, pp. 379–81. 28 Richards, op. cit., p. 289.

NOTES

149

29 ibid., p. 131. 30 ibid., p. 132. 31 Much of the information about James Whale and the production history of the play and film of Journey’s End relies on James Curtis’s work. See his James Whale, Metuchen, N.J., and London, The Scarecrow Press, 1982. James Curtis is currently preparing a revised and much extended version of this book which will be the definitive biography of Whale. Other sources include: F.Sherie, ‘The Man who Wrote “Journey’s End”’, Strand Magazine, 1930, pp. 157–63, and G. Pearson, Flashback: an autobiography of a British film maker, London, George Allen & Unwin, 1957. 32 A.Holden, Olivier, London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988, p. 49. 33 H.Swaffer, in Daily Express, quoted in Curtis, op. cit., p. 22. 34 J.Agate, quoted in Curtis, op. cit., p. 24. For further details of Agate’s view of the play—and of his belief that he had made it the success it proved to be—see his reviews of the film, ‘A Tootle on the Trumpet’, Around Cinemas, Home & Van Thal, 1946, pp. 62–4, and “‘Journey’s End” Again’, ibid., pp. 65–7. 35 Pearson, op. cit., p. 162. 36 ibid., p. 165. 37 Quoted ibid., p. 173. 38 Photoplay, June 1930, p. 56. 39 Mordaunt Hall, New York Times, 9 April 1930. 40 Variety, 30 April 1930. 41 Reynolds News, 20 April 1930. 42 R.Sherriff, quoted in Pearson, op. cit., p. 174. 43 J.Richards, op. cit., p. 289. 44 Armes, op. cit., p. 81. 45 B.Wright, The Long View: a personal perspective on world cinema, London, Secker & Warburg, 1974, p. 163. 46 Balcon, op. cit., p. 41. 47 R.C.Sherriff, No Leading Lady: autobiography, London, Gollancz, 1968, p. 73. 48 See the 1968 epigraph to the reprint of his book, H.Williamson, The Patriot’s Progress, London, Cardinal, 1991, p. 196. 49 See R.Graves, Goodbye to All That, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1977, p. 157. 50 Richards, op. cit., p. 291. 51 Sherriff, op. cit., p. 72. 52 Richards, op. cit., p. 291. 53 All quotations from the film have been taken from the screenplay held in the New York State Archives, Albany. 54 Graves, op. cit., p. 54. 55 R.C.Sherriff and V.Bartlett, Journey’s End: a novel, London, Gollancz, 1930, p. 219. 56 Graves, op. cit., p. 144. 57 S.Sassoon, Memoirs of an Infantry Officer, London, Faber & Faber, 1978, p. 218. For an imaginative reworking of the Sassoon story—as well as a major contribution to the literature of the First World War—see P.Barker’s Regeneration trilogy: Regeneration, London, Viking, 1991; The Eye in the Door, London, Viking, 1993; and The Ghost Road, London, Viking, 1995. 58 See A.P.Herbert, The Secret Battle, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1982. 59 See the section on Tell England in F.Hardy (ed. and comp.), Grierson on Documentary, London, Faber & Faber, 1966, p. 77. 60 J.Richards, Visions of Yesterday, London, Routledge, 1973, p. 154. See also the chapter on Tell England in his more recent book, Happiest Days: the public schools in English fiction, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1988, pp. 217–29. 61 Picturegoer, 7 November 1931, p. 22. 62 Variety, 8 December 1931.

150

NOTES

63 Evening News, quoted in R.J.Minney, Puffin Asquith: the biography of the Honourable Anthony Asquith, aristocrat, aesthete, prime minister’s son and brilliant film maker, London, Leslie Frewin, 1973, p. 64. 64 Rotha, op. cit., p. 174. 65 This section relies particularly on the work of Rachael Low. See chapter 6, ‘Political Propaganda’, in her The History of the British Film 1929–1939: films of comment and persuasion of the 1930s, London, Allen & Unwin, 1979, pp. 166–96. 66 Sight and Sound, Winter 1935, p. 119, quoted ibid., p. 178. 67 Low, op. cit., p. 178. 68 ibid. 69 ibid., pp. 181–2. 70 From the final screenplay reprinted in L.Stover, The Prophetic Soul: a reading of H.G.Wells’s ‘Things to Come’, Jefferson, N.C., and London, McFarland, 1987, pp. 296–7. See also C.Frayling, Things to Come, London, British Film Institute, 1995. 71 C.A.Lejeune, in Observer, 23 February 1936, quoted in Frayling, op. cit., p. 71. 72 S.Carroll, in Sunday Times, 23 February 1936, quoted in Richards, The Age of the Dream Palace, op. cit., p. 280.

6 FROM THE DEFEATED: WESTFRONT 1918, KAMERADSCHAFT AND NIEMANDSLAND—THE GERMAN CINEMA AND THE WAR 1 A.Gill, A Dance Between Flames: Berlin between the wars, London, Abacus, 1995, p. 3. 2 S.Kracauer, From Caligari to Hitler: a psychological history of the German film, Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press, 1947, p. 236. Kracauer’s book, though old, remains one of the best studies of the German cinema. Substantial parts of this chapter rely on his work. See also P.Monaco, Cinema and Society: France and Germany during the twenties, New York and Oxford, Elsevier, 1976, and L. H.Eisner, The Haunted Screen: Expressionism in the German cinema and the influence of Max Reinhardt, London, Secker & Warburg, 1973. 3 H.H.Wollenberg, Fifty Years of German Films, London, The Falcon Press, 1948, p. 11, quoted in G.A.Huaco, The Sociology of Film Art, New York and London, Basic Books, 1965, p. 27. 4 See A.G.Marquis, ‘Words as Weapons: propaganda in Britain and Germany during the First World War’, Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 13, 1978, p. 493. See also P.M.Taylor, Munitions of the Mind: war propaganda from the ancient world to the nuclear age, Wellingborough, Patrick Stephens, 1990, pp. 163–79; and R.Curry, ‘How Early German Film Stars Helped Sell the War(es)’, in K.Dibbets and B.Hogenkamp (eds), Film and the First World War, Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 1995, pp. 139–48. 5 Kracauer, op. cit., p. 23. 6 Figures from D.Welch, ‘The Proletarian Cinema and the Weimar Republic’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, vol. 1, 1981, pp. 3–18. 7 Quoted ibid., p. 4. 8 For further information on the peace movement in Germany in the war see J.D. Shand, ‘Doves Among the Eagles: German pacifists and their government during World War I’, Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 10, 1975, pp. 95–108. 9 This is based on material in Kracauer, op. cit., pp. 61–5 which, itself, was based on an unpublished manuscript prepared by one of the writers. 10 ibid., pp. 66–7. 11 Quoted in Gill, op. cit., p. 96. 12 See the section on the film in A.Muller, ‘Aus der Chronik des Antikriegsfilms’, in D.Harth, D.Schubert and R.M.Schmidt (eds), Pazifismus: zwischen den Weltkriegen, Heidelberg, HVA, 1985, pp. 230–1. 13 The book was reprinted again in the 1980s. See E.Friedrich, War Against War!, London, The Journeyman Press, 1987. 14 Variety, 2 May 1928.

NOTES

151

15 Variety, 5 December 1928. 16 See E.Cozarinsky, ‘G.W.Pabst’, in R.Roud (ed.), Cinema—A Critical Dictionary: the major film-makers, vol. 2, New York, The Viking Press, p. 759. 17 C.A.Lejeune, Cinema, London, Alexander Maclehose, 1931, p. 138. 18 Kracauer, op. cit., notes that the film was released in 1924. 19 For further information see chapter 6 of P.Gay, Weimar Culture: the outsider as insider, London, Penguin, 1992, pp. 125–52. 20 E.Johannsen, Four Infantrymen on the Western Front, 1918, London, Methuen, 1930. 21 ibid., p. 41. 22 ibid., p. 181. 23 L.Atwell, G.W.Pabst, Boston, Twayne, 1977, p. 80. 24 E.Szatmari, ‘Westfront 1918’, Berliner Tageblatt, 25 May 1930, quoted in M. Geisler, ‘The Battleground of Modernity: Westfront 1918 (1930)’, in E.Rentschler (ed.), The Films of G.W.Pabst: an extraterritorial cinema, New Brunswick and London, Rutgers University Press, 1990, p. 95. 25 E.Blass, ‘Neue Filme’, Die literarische Welt, 6 June 1930, quoted ibid. 26 S.Kracauer, ‘Westfront 1918’, Frankfurter Zeitung, 27 May 1930, quoted ibid. 27 Variety, 7 January 1931. 28 ibid. 29 New York Times, 20 February 1931. 30 New York Times, 22 June 1930. 31 Time, 2 March 1931. 32 Variety, 25 February 1931. 33 ibid. 34 New Yorker, 28 February 1931, quoted in Geisler, op. cit., p. 96. 35 R.Whitehall, ‘Great Films of the Century—No. 5, Westfront 1918’, Films and Filming, September 1960, p. 34. 36 Bryher, ‘Westfront 1918’, Close Up, August 1930, quoted ibid. 37 Times, 17 August 1932, quoted in Whitehall, op. cit., p. 34. 38 R.Hughes (ed.), Film: Book 2—Films of Peace and War, New York, Grove Press, 1962, pp. 154–94. 39 B.Wright, The Long View: a personal perspective on world cinema, London, Secker & Warburg, 1974, p. 161. 40 J.Spears, Hollywood: the golden era, New York, Castle Books, 1971, p. 70. 41 W.Uricchio, ‘Westfront 1918’, in F.N.Magill (ed.), Magill’s Survey of Cinema, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Salem, 1985, p. 3350, quoted in Rentschler, op. cit., p. 250. 42 Whitehall, op. cit., p. 34. 43 See H.-M.Bock, ‘Georg Wilhelm Pabst: documenting a life and a career’, in E. Rentschler, op. cit., p. 225. 44 Lejeune, op. cit., p. 137. 45 S.Hynes, A War Imagined: the First World War and English culture, London, Pimlico, 1990, p. 448. 46 Kracauer, From Caligari to Hitler, op. cit., p. 234. 47 ibid., p. 235. 48 See P.Berry and M.Bostridge, Vera Brittain: a life, London, Chatto & Windus, 1995, p. 62. 49 G.W.Pabst, in Film-Kurier, 21 August 1930, quoted in Bock, op. cit., p. 226. 50 J.Grierson in F.Hardy (ed. and comp.), Grierson on Documentary, London, Faber & Faber, 1966, p. 66. 51 Variety, 29 December 1931. 52 Kracauer, From Caligari to Hitler, op. cit., p. 236. 53 ibid. 54 Information taken from undated publicity sheet in the file on the film in the library of the British Film Institute. 55 G.W.Pabst, in Cinema Quarterly, vol. 1, Summer 1933, quoted in P.Rotha (with R.Griffith), The Film Till Now: a survey of world cinema, London, Spring Books, 1967, p. 583. 56 See information in J.-C.Horak, ‘Pabst in Hollywood: A Modern Hero’, in E. Rentschler, op. cit., p. 160.

152

NOTES

57 J.Russell Taylor, Strangers in Paradise: the Hollywood emigrés 1933–1950, London, Faber & Faber, 1983, p. 65. 58 Horak, op. cit.

7 THE FRENCH CINEMA AND THE WAR: J’ACCUSE, VERDUN, VISIONS D’HISTOIRE, LES CROIX DE BOIS AND LA GRANDE ILLUSION 1 Much of this discussion relies on the relevant sections of Richard Abel’s massive, seminal study: French Cinema: the first wave 1915–1929, Princeton, N.J., and Guildford, Princeton University Press, 1984. 2 G.Sadoul, Histoire générale du cinema, vol. 4: Le cinema devient un art, Paris, Denoël, 1974, quoted ibid., p. 11. 3 Cinématographie française, 3 May 1919, p. 4, quoted in Abel, op. cit., p. 11. 4 L.Poirier, Vingt-quatre images a la seconde, Paris, Mame, 1953, p. 40, quoted in Abel, op. cit., p. 13. 5 Poirier, op. cit., p. 42, quoted in Abel, op. cit. 6 Much of this section relies on K.Brownlow’s books: The Parade’s Gone By, London, Columbus, 1989, and Napoleon: Abel Gance’s classic film, London, Cape, 1983. 7 A.Gance, Prisme, Paris, Gallimard, 1932, quoted in Brownlow, Napoleon, op. cit., p. 28. 8 Quoted in Brownlow, The Parade’s Gone By, op. cit., p. 533. 9 details from ibid. 10 ibid., p. 536. 11 ibid. 12 ibid., p. 533. 13 ibid., p. 534. 14 R.Armes, French Cinema, New York, Oxford University Press, 1985, p. 47. 15 Abel, op. cit., p. 296. 16 ibid., p. 302. 17 A.Préjean, The Sky and the Stars, London, The Harvill Press, 1956. 18 ibid., p. 21. 19 ibid., p. 41. 20 ibid., p. 97. 21 ibid., p. 206. 22 Information from Abel, op. cit., p. 204. 23 Quoted ibid., p. 203. 24 Much of the information for this film has been taken from W.K.Everson, ‘Rediscovery’, Films in Review, March 1985, pp. 172–5. See also L.Borger, ‘Les Croix de bois de Raymond Bernard’, Cinématographe, July-August 1983, pp. 31–5. 25 One early version of the screenplay has been published. See The Road to Glory: a screenplay, Carbondale and Edwardsville, Southern Illinois University Press, 1981. This contains an interesting afterword by George Garrett. 26 Literary Digest, 11 July 1935, p. 20. 27 Motion Picture Review, June 1936. 28 Film Daily, 2 June 1936, p. 29. 29 Time, 17 August 1936, p. 46. 30 Monthly Film Bulletin, October 1936, p. 176. 31 Everson, op. cit., p. 174. 32 A.Sesonske, Jean Renoir: the French films 1924–1939, Cambridge, Mass., and London, Harvard University Press, 1980, p. 287. 33 J.Renoir, My Life and My Films, London, Collins, 1974, p. 125. 34 For further details of the French Left’s involvement in film production in this period see E.G.Strebel, ‘French Social Cinema and the Popular Front’, Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 12, 1977, pp. 499–519.

NOTES

153

35 C.Faulkner, The Social Cinema of Jean Renoir, Princeton, N.J., and Guildford, Princeton University Press, 1986, p. 97. 36 Renoir, op. cit., p. 145. 37 ibid., p. 151. 38 ibid., p. 142. 39 See details of the original screenplay in A.Bazin, Jean Renoir, New York, Simon & Schuster, 1986, pp. 172–82. 40 E.von Stroheim, ‘My First Meeting with Jean Renoir’, in Masterworks of the French Cinema, London, Faber & Faber, 1988, p. 334. 41 L.Braudy, Jean Renoir: the world of his films, London, Robson, 1977, p. 206. 42 E.Lourié, ‘Grand Illusions’, American Film, vol. 10, January-February 1985, pp. 29–34. 43 ibid., p. 34. 44 Stroheim, op. cit. 45 Quoted in Sesonske, op. cit., p. 285. 46 Mariane, 16 June 1937. 47 Critique Cinématographique, 30 June 1937. 48 Ciné a Spectacles, 16 July 1937. 49 From MPPDA files. All information from the MPPDA is taken from research in the Margaret Herrick Library in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles. 50 R.Durgnat, Jean Renoir, Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1974, p. 157. 51 MPPDA, op. cit. 52 Quoted in Faulkner, op. cit., p.86. 53 Newsweek, 26 September 1938, p. 23. 54 Variety, 14 September 1938, p. 23. 55 New York Herald Tribune, 13 September 1938, p. 16. 56 Film Weekly, 22 January 1938, p. 13. 57 Monthly Film Bulletin, January 1938, p. 21. 58 I have relied in this section on information from the Service des Archives du Film, Centre National de la Cinématographie. 59 Georges Altmann, quoted in Durgnat, op. cit., p. 156. 60 See comments in D.Shipman, The Story of Cinema, vol. 1, London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1982, pp. 384–5. 61 P.Sorlin, The Film in History: restaging the past, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1980, p. 158. 62 Renoir, op. cit., p. 148. 63 ibid., p. 280. 64 ibid., p. 161. 65 Bazin, op. cit., p. 62. 66 All extracts from the film have been taken from the English-language version of the screenplay published in Masterworks of the French Cinema, op. cit., pp. 72–150. 67 Quoted in Sesonske, op. cit., p. 282. 68 Renoir, op. cit., p. 147. 69 J.Finler, ‘Grand Illusion’, in Masterworks of the French Cinema, op. cit., p. 341. 70 Faulkner, op. cit., p. 90. 71 Durgnat, op. cit., p. 156. 72 Renoir, op. cit., p.160. 73 Lourié, op. cit., p. 31. 74 Bazin, op. cit., p. 63. 75 ibid. 76 ibid. 77 ibid. 78 Monthly Film Bulletin, op. cit.

154

NOTES

79 Renoir, op. cit., p. 145. 80 Norman Angell’s book was first published in 1909 and appeared in a number of editions through to 1939. Renoir’s comments on the book come from his interview with D.Diehl, ‘Directors Go to Their Movies: Jean Renoir’, Action, vol. 7, May-June 1972, p. 8. 81 Bazin, op. cit., pp. 64–5. 82 ibid., p. 165. 83 Diehl, op. cit. 84 R.Hughes (ed.), Film: Book 2—Films of Peace and War, New York, Grove Press, 1962, p. 183. 85 Faulkner, op. cit., p. 99. 86 ibid. 87 Armes, op. cit., p. 106. 88 Renoir, op. cit., p. 125.

8 HOLLYWOOD AND POST-WAR GERMANY: THE MAN I KILLED, THE ROAD BACK AND THREE COMRADES 1 E.Wagenknecht, The Movies in the Age of Innocence, Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1962, p. 205. 2 See F.Hardy (ed. and comp.), Grierson on Documentary, London, Faber & Faber, 1966, p. 69. It would be fair to point out that not all recent criticism has been so favourable. Pauline Kael does not like the film at all. She said that whilst it was beautifully crafted, Lubitsch ‘mistook drab, sentimental hokum for ironic, poetic tragedy’, Nancy Carroll was miscast and Phillips Holmes was ‘unspeakably handsome but an even more unspeakable actor’. See her entry on the film in 5001 Nights at the Movies, London, Arena, 1987, pp. 81–2. 3 Information on Eisenstein from M.Seton, Sergei M.Eisenstein—A Biography, London, Dennis Dobson, 1978, p. 185. Basil Wright says that Lubitsch specifically requested that he direct the film: see his The Long View: a personal perspective on world cinema, London, Secker & Warburg, 1974, p. 74. 4 H.Weinberg, The Lubitsch Touch: a critical study, New York, Dover, 1977, p. 324. 5 Quoted ibid., p. 286. 6 ibid., pp. 51–2. 7 ibid., p. 52. 8 From MPPDA files. All information from the MPPDA is taken from research in the Margaret Herrick Library in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles. 9 Photoplay, March 1932, p. 49. 10 Hollywood Spectator, February 1932, p. 3. 11 Picturegoer Weekly, 5 November 1932, p. 18. 12 Kinematograph Weekly, 5 December 1932. 13 Variety, 26 January 1932. 14 This is referred to in R.Carringer and B.Sabath, Ernst Lubitsch: a guide to references and resources, London, George Prior, n. d., p. 112. 15 See Griffith’s contribution in R.Hughes (ed.), Film: Book 2—Films of Peace and War, New York, Grove Press, 1962, p. 168. 16 All quotations from the film have been taken from the screenplay held in the New York State Archives, Albany. 17 P.Larkin, ‘Naturally the Foundation will Bear Your Expenses’, in his Collected Poems, London, The Marvell Press/Faber & Faber, 1988, p. 134. 18 E.Maria Remarque, Three Comrades, London, The Book Club, 1938, pp. 304–5. 19 Variety, op. cit. 20 New York Times, 20 January 1932.

NOTES

155

21 See ‘Dialogue and the Camera by Monitor’, Hollywood Spectator, 5 and 19 August 1933. All quotes in this section are taken from these two articles. Another detailed study of the film is J.Bourget, ‘Muted Strings: Ernst Lubitsch’s Broken Lullaby’, Monogram, 5, 1974, pp. 24–6. 22 R.Sherwood, quoted in Weinberg, op. cit., p. 136. 23 See entry in D.Shipman, The Story of Cinema, vol. 1, London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1982, pp. 274–5. 24 ibid. 25 MPPDA, op. cit. For additional information—including a detailed production history—on The Road Back see J.Curtis, James Whale, Metuchen, N.J., and London, The Scarecrow Press, 1982. 26 Cue, 19 June 1937, p. 34. 27 Script, 31 July 1937, p. 12. 28 L.Parsons, quoted in Universal publicity in Motion Picture Daily, 25 June 1937. 29 Hollywood Spectator, 3 July 1937, p. 5. 30 F.Nugent, in New York Times, 16 June 1937, p. 25. 31 J.Russell Taylor (ed.), The Pleasure Dome: Graham Greene—the collected film criticism 1935–1940, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1980, pp. 172–3. 32 Film Weekly, 9 October 1937, p. 32. 33 Monthly Film Bulletin, 31 August 1937, p. 175. 34 Life, June 1937. 35 New Masses, undated, quoted in MPPDA, op. cit. 36 Quoted in K.Geist, Pictures Will Talk: the life and films of Joseph L.Mankiewicz, New York, Da Capo Press, 1978, p. 91. This book contains much useful information on the making of this film as does the introduction and afterword to the Fitzgerald version of the screenplay in M.Bruccoli (ed.), Three Comrades, Carbondale and Edwardsville, Southern Illinois University Press, 1978. Other information in this section has been taken from MPPDA, op. cit. 37 Remarque, op. cit., p. 58. 38 New York Times, 3 June 1938, p. 17. 39 Newsweek, 6 June 1938, p. 23. 40 Variety, 25 May 1938, p. 12.

9 THE FORGOTTEN MAN AND THE LOST GENERATION IN 1930s HOLLYWOOD 1 E.Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front, London, Mayflower-Dell, 1963, p. 190. 2 Trumbo’s novel has recently been reprinted. See D.Trumbo, Johnny Got His Gun, London, Touchstone, 1994. 3 For further information see G.Brown with T.Aldgate, The Common Touch: the films of John Baxter, London, National Film Theatre, n. d., pp. 38–40 and 55–8. 4 T.Schatz, The Genius of the System: Hollywood filmmaking in the studio era, London, Simon & Schuster, 1989, p. 136. 5 Much of this section relies on J.E.O’Connor (ed. and intro.), I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, Wisconsin and London, University of Wisconsin Press, 1981. 6 R.E.Burns, I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang!, New York, Vanguard, 1932, p. 38, quoted ibid., p. 13. 7 R.E.Burns, op. cit., quoted in O’Connor, op. cit., p. 14. 8 O’Connor, op. cit., p. 29. 9 National Board of Review, quoted in Schatz, op. cit., p. 148. 10 L.Parsons, Los Angeles Examiner, quoted in O’Connor, op. cit., p. 42. 11 ‘Champion of the Underdog’, Silver Screen, December 1932, quoted in O’Connor, op. cit., p. 41. 12 M.LeRoy, Take One: an autobiography, London, W.H.Allen, 1974, p. 119. 13 A.Hove, (ed. and intro.), Gold Diggers of 1933, Madison, Wisconsin, and London, University of Wisconsin Press, 1980, p. 29. Some of the information in this section has been taken from Hove’s book.

156

NOTES

14 New York Times, 8 June 1933. 15 Variety, 13 June 1933. 16 L.Halliwell, ‘They’re in the Money: Gold Diggers of 1933’, Halliwell’s Harvest: a further choice of entertainment movies from the golden age, London, Grafton, 1986, p. 68. 17 A.Bergman, We’re in the Money: depression America and its films, Chicago, Elephant Paperbacks, 1992, pp. 97– 8. 18 Variety, 19 May 1937. 19 N.Roddick, A New Deal in Entertainment: Warner Brothers in the 1930s, London, British Film Institute, 1983, p. 103. 20 New Statesman, 24 February 1940. 21 New York Times, 11 November 1939. 22 Photoplay, December 1939, p. 63. 23 See D.J.Leab, ‘Viewing the War with the Brothers Warner’, in K.Dibbets and B.Hogenkamp (eds), Film and the First World War, Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 1995, p. 225. 24 ibid. 25 New York Times, 20 August 1931. 26 J.Richards, The Last Flight’, Focus on Film, vol. 21, Summer 1975, p. 60.

10 THE BRUTALITY OF MILITARY INCOMPETENCE: PATHS OF GLORY AND KING AND COUNTRY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

8 9 10 11 12 13 14

15 16 17 18 19 20

N.F.Dixon, On the Psychology of Military Incompetence, London, Futura, 1979, p. 80. A.Walker, Stanley Kubrick Directs, London, Abacus, 1973, p. 82. See J.Burgess, ‘The “Anti-Militarism” of Stanley Kubrick’, Film Quarterly, vol. 18, 1964, pp. 4–11. Much of the information on Kirk Douglas and Paths of Glory is taken from his autobiography, K.Douglas, The Ragman’s Son, London, Simon & Schuster, 1988. See Walker, op. cit., p. 23. Kirk Douglas says that the cost was substantially higher. Douglas, op. cit., p. 274. ibid., p. 282. Kubrick’s co-producer, James Harris, was also reluctant to promote the film as having a message. In an undated United Artists production note circulated to the press he is quoted as saying: ‘It is a serious film, but first of all it is fine entertainment…. If it makes some people think a little, that is only incidental. We’re not here to preach, we’re here to entertain.’ Douglas, op. cit., p. 333. H.Cobb, Paths of Glory, New York, Viking Press, 1935, p. 265. R.van Gelder, ‘A Talk With the Author of “Paths of Glory”’, New York Times, 22 September 1940. B.Crowther, New York Times, 26 December 1957. A.Sennwald, ‘The Paths of Glory’, New York Times, 27 October 1935. New York Times, 27 September 1935, quoted in H.Alpert, ‘War and Justice’, Saturday Review, 21 December 1957, pp. 31–2. See S.E.Tabachnick’s afterword to the reprint of Paths of Glory, Athens and London, University of Georgia Press, 1987, pp. 267–304. For further discussion on the book and the film see J.Bier, ‘Cobb and Kubrick: author and auteur (Paths of Glory as novel and film)’, Virginia Quarterly Review, Summer 1985, pp. 453–71. Cobb, op. cit., p. 21. Variety, 20 November 1957. Film Daily, 19 November 1957. Time, 9 December 1957. Alpert, op. cit., p. 31. ibid.

NOTES

157

21 G.Lambert, ‘Paths of Glory’, in D.Wilson (ed.), Sight and Sound: a fiftieth anniversary selection, London, Faber & Faber/British Film Institute, 1982, p. 126. 22 From MPPDA files. All information from the MPPDA is taken from research in the Margaret Herrick Library in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles. 23 ‘France Veto Keeps UA’s “Glory” out of West Berlin’, Variety, 2 July 1958. 24 Quoted in ‘Disputed Film on Again’, New York Times, 12 March 1958. 25 ‘Swiss Press Outraged by Arbitrary Government Action Vs. “Paths of Glory”’, Variety, 31 December 1958. 26 S.King, ‘Israel Softens Curbs on Films’, New York Times, 26 October 1958. 27 Much of the information on the French release was provided by the Centre National de la Cinématographie. 28 ‘French Ease Censorship on Historical Films’, Box Office, 5 May 1975. 29 ‘“Paths of Glory”, Kubrick ‘58 Anti-War Film May Finally Win Paris Dates’, Variety, 19 July 1978. 30 Walker, op. cit., p. 35. 31 The interview is reprinted in J.Agel (ed.), The Making of Kubrick’s 2001, New York, Signet, 1970, p. 350. 32 All quotations from the film have been taken from the screenplay held in the New York State Archives, Albany. 33 Cobb, op. cit., p. 103. 34 Walker, op. cit., p. 108. 35 ibid., p. 24. 36 ibid. 37 R.Hughes, ‘Murder: a “big problem”’, in his Film: Book 2—Films of Peace and War, New York, Grove Press, 1962, p. 8. 38 N.Sinyard, The Films of Richard Lester, Beckenham, Kent, Croom Helm, 1985, p. 51. 39 An insert contained in the screenplay (see note 32 above). 40 Motion Picture Herald, 23 November 1957, p. 617. 41 Mirror News, 21 December 1957. 42 A.Turner, Guardian, 23 December 1988. 43 D.Powell, December 1957 review in G.Perry (ed.), Dilys Powell—The Golden Screen: fifty years of films, London, Headline, 1989, p. 146. 44 J.Powers, ‘“Paths of Glory” Is Strong War Story with Big Impact’, Hollywood Reporter, 18 November 1957, p. 3. 45 Alpert, op. cit., p. 32. 46 Cobb, op. cit., p. 75. 47 Walker, op. cit., p. 23. 48 ibid., p. 84. 49 Figures from J.M.Browne, Britain and the Great War, 1914–1918, London, Arnold, 1989, quoted in J.Palmer and M.Riley, The Films of Joseph Losey, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1993. 50 See P.Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1977, p. 176. 51 M.Ciment, Conversations with Losey, London and New York, Methuen, 1985, p. 244. 52 Ciment interview, quoted in D.Caute, Joseph Losey: a revenge on life, London, Faber & Faber, 1994, p. 281. 53 Quoted in J.Leahy, The Cinema of Joseph Losey, London, Zwemmer, 1967, p. 134. 54 Ciment, op. cit. 55 ibid., p. 245. 56 The official version is as follows:

Here dead we lie because we did not choose To live and shame the land from which we sprung. Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose; But young men think it is, and we were young. 57 Ciment, op. cit., p. 244. 58 Caute, op. cit., p. 498. 59 Ciment, op. cit., p. 245.

158

NOTES

60 Variety, 16 September 1964.

Select bibliography

This bibliography contains most of the material used in the preparation of this book. It therefore includes information on books and articles not listed in the notes. The dates of publication are those of editions used in this book. They are not necessarily the date of first publication. UNPUBLISHED DOCUMENTS BFI microfiches, British Film Institute Library, London. Censor office files in France, Germany, New Zealand and Australia. Lewis Milestone papers, Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Los Angeles. MPPDA (Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America) files, Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Los Angeles. Screenplays held in the New York State Archives, Albany, New York. JOURNALS AND NEWSPAPERS Action American Film Der Angriff Berliner Tageblatt The Bioscope Box Office Centennial Review Cinéa-Ciné Pour Tour Ciné a Spectacles Cinema Quarterly Cinématographe Cinématographie française Ciné-Miroir Close Up Critique Cinématographique Cue Daily Express Esquire Evening News Everyones (Australia) Film and History Film Comment Film Daily

160

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Film-Kurier Film Quarterly Films and Filming Films in Review Film Weekly Focus on Film Folkets avis Frankfurter Zeitung Guardian Historian Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television The Hollywood Reporter Hollywood Spectator The Independent Journal of Central European Affairs Journal of Contemporary History Journal of Popular Culture Journal of Popular Films Kinematograph Weekly Life Die literarische Welt Literary Digest Los Angeles Examiner Mariane Mirror News Mon Ciné Monogram Monthly Film Bulletin The Morning Telegraph Motion Picture Daily Motion Picture Herald Motion Picture Magazine Motion Picture News Motion Picture Review Motion Picture World Moving Picture World The Nation Nationaltidende New Masses New Statesman Newsweek New Yorker New York Herald Tribune New York Times New Zealand Herald

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

161

Observer The Penguin Film Review Photoplay Picturegoer Weekly Politiken Quarterly Review of Film Studies Reynolds News Saturday Review Script Sight and Sound Silver Screen Socialdemokraten The South Atlantic Quarterly The Spectator The Star Strand Magazine Sunday Express Sunday Times Time The Times Variety The Virginia Quarterly Review BOOKS AND SCRIPTS Abel, R., French Cinema: the first wave 1915–1929, Princeton, N.J., and Guildford, Princeton University Press, 1984. Agate, J., Around Cinemas, Home & Van Thal, 1946. Agel, J. (ed.), The Making of Kubrick’s 2001, New York, Signet, 1970. Armes, R., A Critical History of British Cinema, London, Secker & Warburg, 1978. —— French Cinema, New York, Oxford University Press, 1985. Atwell, L., G.W.Pabst, Boston, Twayne, 1977. Balcon, M., Michael Balcon Presents… A Lifetime of Films, London, Hutchinson, 1969. Barker, C.R. and Last, R.W., Erich Maria Remarque, London, Oswald Woolf, 1979. Barker, P, Regeneration, London, Viking, 1991. ——The Eye in the Door, London, Viking, 1993. ——The Ghost Road, London, Viking, 1995. Baxter, J., Science Fiction in the Cinema, London, Tantivy Press, 1970. —— king Vidor, New York, 1976. Bazin, A., Jean Renoir, New York, Simon & Schuster, 1986. Bergman, A., We’re in the Money: depression America and its films, Chicago, Elephant Paperbacks, 1992. Bergonzi, B., Heroes’ Twilight: a study of the literature of the great war, London, Macmillan, rev. edn, 1980. Bergsten, B., The Great Dane and the Great Northern Film Company, Locare Research Group, California, 1973. Berry, P. and Bostridge, M., Vera Brittain: a life, London, Chatto & Windus, 1995. Bordwell, D., The Films of Carl-Theodor Dreyer, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1981. Braudy, L., Jean Renoir: the world of his films, London, Robson, 1977. Brock, P., Twentieth-Century Pacifism, New York, Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1970.

162

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Brogan, H., Longman History of the United States of America, London, Longman, 1985. Brown, G. with Aldgate, T., The Common Touch: the films of John Baxter, London, National Film Theatre, n. d. Browne, J.M., Britain and the Great War, 1914–1918, London, Arnold, 1989. Brownlow, K., Hollywood: the pioneers, London, Collins, 1979. —— The War, the West and the Wilderness, London, Secker & Warburg, 1979. —— Napoleon: Abel Gance’s classic film, London, Cape, 1983. —— The Parade’s Gone By, London, Columbus, 1989. Bruccoli, M. (ed.), Three Comrades, Carbondale and Edwardsville, Southern Illinois University Press, 1978. Brunel, A., Nice Work, London, Forbes Robertson, 1949. Burns, R.E., I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang!, New York, Vanguard, 1932. Butler, I., Silent Magic: rediscovering the silent film era, London, Columbus Books, 1987. Campbell, C.W., Reel America and World War I, Jefferson, N.C., and London, McFarland, 1985. Carringer, R. and Sabath, B., Ernst Lubitsch: a guide to references and resources, London, George Prior, n.d. Caute, D., Joseph Losey: a revenge on life, London, Faber & Faber, 1994. Ceplair, L. and Englund, S., The Inquisition in Hollywood: politics in the film community, 1930–1960, Berkeley, California, and London, University of California Press, 1979. Ciment, M., Conversations with Losey, London and New York, Methuen, 1985. Cobb, H., Paths of Glory, New York, Viking Press, 1935. Curtis, J., James Whale, Metuchen, N.J., and London, The Scarecrow Press, 1982. Dibbets, K. and Hogenkamp, B. (eds), Film and the First World War, Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 1995. Dixon, N.F., On the Psychology of Military Incompetence, London, Futura, 1979. Douglas, K., The Ragman’s Son, London, Simon & Schuster, 1988. Dowd, N. and Shepard, D., King Vidor: a Directors’ Guild of America oral history project, Metuchen, N.J., and London, Directors’ Guild of America and The Scarecrow Press, 1988. Drew, W., D.W.Griffith’s ‘Intolerance’: its genesis and its vision, Jefferson, N.C., and London, McFarland, 1986. Drinkwater, J., The Life and Adventures of Carl Laemmle, London, William Heinemann, 1931. Durgnat, R., Jean Renoir, Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1974. —— and Simmon, S., King Vidor, American, Berkeley and London, University of California Press, 1988. Eisner, L.H., The Haunted Screen: Expressionism in the German cinema and the influence of Max Reinhardt, London, Secker & Warburg, 1973. Engberg, M., Dansk Stumfilm—de store år, Copenhagen, Rhodos, 1977. Everson, W.K., American Silent Film, New York, Oxford University Press, 1978. Faulkner, C., The Social Cinema of Jean Renoir, Princeton, N.J., and Guildford, Princeton University Press, 1986. Ferro, M, The Great War 1914–1918, London and New York, Ark, 1973. Frayling, C., Things to Come, London, British Film Institute, 1995. Friedrich, E., War Against War!, London, The Journeyman Press, 1987. Fuegi, J., The Life and Lies of Bertolt Brecht, London, Flamingo, 1995. Fussell, P., The Great War and Modern Memory, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1977. Gabler, N., An Empire of Their Own: how the Jews invented Hollywood, New York and London, Anchor Books, 1989. Gance, A., Prisme, Paris, Gallimard, 1932. Gay, P., Weimar Culture: the outsider as insider, London, Penguin, 1992. Geist, K., Pictures Will Talk: the life and films of Joseph L.Mankiewicz, New York, Da Capo Press, 1978. Gilbert, J., Opposite Attraction: the lives of Erich Maria Remarque and Paulette Goddard, New York, Pantheon Books, 1995. Gilbert, M., First World War, London, HarperCollins, 1995. Gill, A., A Dance Between Flames: Berlin between the wars, London, Abacus, 1995. Gish, L., The Movies, Mr Griffith and Me, London, Columbus Books, 1988. Glover, J. and Silkin, J. (ed. and intro.), The Penguin Book of First World War Prose, London, Viking, 1989. Graves, R., Goodbye to All That, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1977.

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163

Griffith, D.W., The Rise and Fall of Free Speech in America, Los Angeles, California, Larry Edmunds, n. d. Halliwell, L., Halliwell’s Harvest: a further choice of entertainment movies from the golden age, London, Grafton, 1986. Hamman, B., Bertha von Suttner: ein leben für den frieden, Munich and Zurich, Piper, 1986. Hampton, B.B., History of the American Film Industry: from its beginnings to 1931, New York, Dover, 1970. Hardy, F. (ed. and comp.), Grierson on Documentary, London, Faber & Faber, 1966. Harth, D., Schubert, D. and Schmidt, R.M. (eds), Pazifismus: zwischen den Weltkriegen, Heidelberg, HVA, 1985. Herbert, A.P., The Secret Battle, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1982. Hibberd, D. (ed. and intro.), Wilfred Owen: war poems and others, London, Chatto & Windus, 1976. Hogenkamp, B., Deadly Parallels: film and the Left in Britain 1929–39, London, Lawrence & Wishart, 1986. Holden, A., Olivier, London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988. Hove, A. (ed. and intro.), Gold Diggers of 1933, Madison, Wisconsin, and London, University of Wisconsin Press, 1980. Huaco, G.A., The Sociology of Film Art, New York and London, Basic Books, 1965. Hughes, R. (ed.), Film: Book 2—Films of Peace and War, New York, Grove Press, 1962. Hynes, S., A War Imagined: the First World War and English culture, London, Pimlico, 1990. Isenberg, M.T., War on Film: the American cinema and World War I, 1914–1941, London and Toronto, Associated University Presses, 1981. Jacobs, L., The Rise of the American Film: a critical history, New York, Teachers College Press, 1967. Johannsen, E., Four Infantrymen on the Western Front, 1918, London, Methuen, 1930. Josephson, H. (ed.), Biographical Dictionary of Modern Peace Leaders, Westport, Conn., and London, Greenwood Press, 1985. Jowett, G., Film—The Democratic Art: a social history of American film, London, Focal Press, 1976. Kael, P., 5001 Nights at the Movies, London, Arena, 1987. Kempf, B., Suffragette for Peace: the life of Bertha von Suttner, London, Oswald Wolff, 1972. Kracauer, S., From Caligari to Hitler: a psychological history of the German film, Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press, 1947. Larkin, P., Collected Poems, London, The Marvell Press/Faber & Faber, 1988. Lawrence, J., Actor: the life and times of Paul Muni, London: W.H.Allen, 1975. Leahy, J., The Cinema of Joseph Losey, London, Zwemmer, 1967. Leff, L.J. and Simmons, J.L., The Dame in the Kimono: Hollywood, censorship and the Production Code from the 1920s to the 1960s, London, Grove Weidenfeld, 1990. Lejeune, C.A., Cinema, London, Alexander Maclehose, 1931. LeRoy, M., Take One: an autobiography, London, W.H.Allen, 1974. Low, R., The History of the British Film 1914–1918, London, George Allen & Unwin, 1950. —— The History of the British Film 1918–1929, London, George Allen & Unwin, 1971. —— The History of the British Film 1929–1939: films of comment and persuasion of the 1930s, London, Allen & Unwin, 1979. Lyon, C.(ed.),The International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, vol. II: Directors/Filmmakers, London, Macmillan, 1984. McFarlane, B., Australian Cinema 1970–1985, London, Secker & Warburg, 1987. Madox Ford, F., Parade’s End, London, Penguin Books, 1982. Magill, F.N. (ed.), Magill’s Survey of Cinema, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Salem, 1985. Masterworks of the French Cinema, London, Faber & Faber, 1988. May, L., Screening out the Past: the birth of mass culture and the motion picture industry, Chicago and London, University of Chicago Press, 1983. Minney, R.J., Puffin Asquith: the biography of the Honourable Anthony Asquith, aristocrat, aesthete, prime minister’s son and brilliant film maker, London, Leslie Frewin, 1973. Mock, J.R., Censorship 1917, New York, Da Capo Press, rev. edn, 1972.

164

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Monaco, P., Cinema and Society: France and Germany during the twenties, New York and Oxford, Elsevier, 1976. Mottram, R., The Danish Cinema before Dreyer, Metuchen, N.J., and London, The Scarecrow Press, 1988. Murdoch, B., Fighting Songs and Warring Words: popular lyrics of two world wars, London, Routledge, 1990. Neagle, A., There’s Always Tomorrow: an autobiography, London, Futura, 1974. Neergaard, E., The Story of Danish Film, The Danish Institute, n. d. O’Connor, J.E., and Jackson, M.A. (eds), American History/American Film: interpreting the Hollywood image, New York, Frederick Ungar, 1979. O’Connor, J.E. (ed. and intro.), I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, Madison, Wisconsin, London, University of Wisconsin Press, 1981. O’Dell, P., Griffith and the Rise of Holly wood, London, Zwemmer, 1970. Palmer, J. and Riley, M., The Films of Joseph Losey, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1993. Pearson, G., Flashback: an autobiography of a British film maker, London, George Allen & Unwin, 1957. Peary, G. (ed.), Little Caesar, Madison, Wisconsin, and London, University of Wisconsin Press, 1980. Perry, G. (ed.), Dilys Powell—The Golden Screen: fifty years of films, London, Headline, 1989. Pierson, R.R. (ed.), Women and Peace: theoretical, historical and practical perspectives, London, Croom Helm, 1989. Poirier, L., Vingt-quatre images à la seconde, Paris, Mame, 1953. Préjean, A., The Sky and the Stars, London, The Harvill Press, 1956. Ramsaye, T., A Million and One Nights: a history of the motion picture, London, Frank Cass, 1964. Reeves, N., Official British Film Propaganda during the First World War, Beckenham, Kent, Croom Helm, 1986. Remarque, E.Maria, Three Comrades, London, The Book Club, 1938. —— All Quiet on the Western Front, London, Mayflower-Dell, 1963. (Trans. B. Murdoch, London, Jonathan Cape, 1994.) —— The Road Back, London, Mayflower, 1979. Renoir, J., My Life and My Films, London, Collins, 1974. Rentschler, E. (ed.), The Films of G.W.Pabst: an extraterritorial cinema, New Brunswick and London, Rutgers University Press, 1990. Richards, J., Visions of Yesterday, London, Routledge, 1973. —— The Age of the Dream Palace: cinema and society in Britain 1930–1939, London, Routledge, 1984. —— Happiest Days: the public schools in English fiction, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1988. The Road to Glory: a screenplay, Carbondale and Edwardsville, Southern Illinois University Press, 1981. Robertson, J.C., The British Board of Film Censors: film censorship in Britain, 1896–1950, Beckenham, Kent, Croom Helm, 1985. —— The Hidden Cinema: British film censorship in action, 1913–1972, London, Routledge, 1989. Roddick, N., A New Deal in Entertainment: Warner Brothers in the 1930s, London, British Film Institute, 1983. Rotha, P., Celluloid: the film to-day, London, Longmans, Green, 1933. ——(with R.Griffith), The Film Till Now: a survey of world cinema, London, Spring Books, 1967. Roud, R. (ed.), Cinema—A Critical Dictionary: the major film-makers, vol. 2, New York, The Viking Press, 1980. Russell Taylor, J. (ed.), The Pleasure Dome: Graham Greene—the collected film criticism 1935–1940, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1980. —— Strangers in Paradise: the Hollywood emigrés 1933–1950, London, Faber & Faber, 1983. Sadoul, G., Histoire générale du cinéma, vol. 4: Le cinema devient un art, Paris, Denoël, 1974. Sassoon, S., Memoirs of an Infantry Officer, London, Faber & Faber, 1978. —— The War Poems, London, Faber & Faber, 1983. Schatz, T., The Genius of the System: Hollywood filmmaking in the studio era, London, Simon & Schuster, 1989. Schickel, R., D.W.Griffith, London, Pavilion, 1984. Sesonske, A., Jean Renoir: the French films 1924–1939, Cambridge, Mass., and London, Harvard University Press, 1980. Seton, M., Sergei M.Eisenstein—A Biography, London, Dennis Dobson, 1978. Sherriff, R.C., No Leading Lady: autobiography, London, Gollancz, 1968.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

165

—— and Bartlett, V., Journey’s End: a novel, London, Gollancz, 1930. Shipman, D., The Story of Cinema, vol. 1, London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1982. Silkin, J., Out of Battle: the poetry of the great war, London and New York, Ark, 1987. Silva, F. (ed.), Focus on ‘The Birth of a Nation’, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice Hall, 1971. Sinyard, N., The Films of Richard Lester, Beckenham, Kent, Croom Helm, 1985. Sklar, R., Movie-Made America: a cultural history of American movies, London, Elm Tree/Chappell, 1978. Slide, A. (ed.), Robert Goldstein and ‘The Spirit of ‘76’, Metuchen, N.J., and London, The Scarecrow Press, 1993. —— Early American Cinema, Metuchen, N.J., and London, The Scarecrow Press, rev. edn, 1994. Sorlin, P., The Film in History: restaging the past, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1980. European Cinemas, European Societies 1939–1990, London, Routledge, 1991. Spears, J., Hollywood: the golden era, New York, Castle Books, 1971. Stallworthy, J., Wilfred Owen, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1988. Stover, L., The Prophetic Soul: a reading of H.G.Wells’s ‘Things to Come’, Jefferson, N.C., and London, McFarland, 1987. Suttner, B., Lay Down Your Arms: the autobiography of Martha von Tilling, London, Longmans, Green, 1894. Taylor, A.J.P., English History 1914–1945, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1965. Taylor, P.M., Munitions of the Mind: war propaganda from the ancient world to the nuclear age, Wellingborough, Patrick Stephens, 1990. Thomas, S. (ed.), Best American Screenplays: first series, New York, Crown, 1986. Trumbo, D., Johnny Got His Gun, London, Touchstone, 1994. Tuchman, B.W., The Guns of August, New York, Bantam, 1976. Vidor, K., A Tree is A Tree, London and New York, Longmans, Green, 1954. Wagenknecht, E., The Movies in the Age of Innocence, Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1962. Walker, A., Stanley Kubrick Directs, London, Abacus, 1973. Walker, J. (ed.), Halliwell’s Film Guide, London, Grafton, rev. edn, 1992. —— Halliwell’s Filmgoer’s Companion, London, HarperCollins, 1993. Warren, L. (ed.), How I Filmed the War by G.H.Malins OBE, London, 1920. Weber, E., The Hollow Years: France in the 1930s, London, Sinclair-Stevenson, 1995. Weinberg, H., The Lubitsch Touch: a critical study, New York, Dover, 1977. Williamson, H., The Patriot’s Progress, London, Cardinal, 1991. Wilson, D. (ed.), Sight and Sound: a fiftieth anniversary selection, London, Faber & Faber/British Film Institute, 1982. Wollenberg, H.H., Fifty Years of German Films, London, The Falcon Press, 1948. Wright, B., The Long View: a personal perspective on world cinema, London, Secker & Warburg, 1974.

ARTICLES Abrams, I., ‘Bertha von Suttner and the Nobel Peace Prize’, Journal of Central European Affairs, vol. 27, October 1962, pp. 286–307. Badsey, S.D., ‘Battle of the Somme: British war-propaganda’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, vol. 3, 1983, pp. 99–115. Bier, J., ‘Cobb and Kubrick: author and auteur (Paths of Glory as novel and film)’, Virginia Quarterly Review, Summer 1985, pp. 453–71. Borger, L., ‘Les Croix de bois de Raymond Bernard’, Cinématographe, July– August 1983, pp. 31–5. Bourget, J., ‘Muted Strings: Ernst Lubitsch’s Broken Lullaby’, Monogram, 5, 1974, pp. 24–6. Burgess, J., ‘The “Anti-Militarism” of Stanley Kubrick’, Film Quarterly, vol. 18, 1964, pp. 4–11. Cutts, J., ‘Great Films of the Century: All Quiet on the Western Front’, Films and Filming, vol. 9, April 1963, pp. 55–8. Diehl, D., ‘Directors Go to Their Movies: Jean Renoir’, Action, vol. 7, May-June 1972, pp. 2–5, 8.

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Eksteins, M., ‘War, Memory, and Politics: the fate of the film All Quiet on the Western Front’, Central European History, vol. 13, 1980, pp. 345–66. Everson, W.K., ‘Rediscovery’, Films in Review, March 1985, pp. 172–5. Finler, J., ‘Grand Illusion’, inMasterworks of the French Cinema, London, Faber & Faber, 1988, pp. 335–41. Greenberg, J., ‘War, Wheat & Steel: King Vidor interviewed by Joel Greenberg’, Sight and Sound, vol. 37, 1968, pp. 192–7. Isenberg, M.T., ‘An Ambiguous Pacifism: a retrospective on World War I films, 1930–1938’, Journal of Popular Film, vol. IV, 1975, pp. 98–115. ‘The Mirror of Democracy: reflections of the war films of World War I, 1917–1919’, Journal of Popular Culture, vol. 9, 1976, pp. 878–85. ‘The Great War Viewed from the Twenties: The Big Parade (1925)’, in J. E.O’Connor and M.A.Jackson (eds), American History/American Film: interpreting the Hollywood image, New York, Frederick Ungar, 1979. Kelly, A., ‘All Quiet on the Western Front: “brutal cutting, stupid censors and bigoted politicos” (1930–1984)’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, vol. 9, 1989, pp. 135–50. ‘The Brutality of Military Incompetence: Paths of Glory (1957)’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, vol. 13, 1993, pp. 215–27. Lourié, E., ‘Grand Illusions’, American Film, vol. 10, January-February 1985, pp. 29–34. Lyons, T.J., ‘Hollywood and World War I, 1914–1918’, Journal of Popular Film, vol. 1, 1972, pp. 15–30. Marquis, A.G., ‘Words as Weapons: propaganda in Britain and Germany during the First World War’, Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 13, 1978, pp. 467–98. Merritt, R., ‘D.W.Griffith Directs the Great War: the making of Hearts of the World’, Quarterly Review of Film Studies, vol. 6, 1981, pp. 45–65. Peet, C., ‘Hollywood at War 1915–1918’, Esquire, September 1936, pp. 60, 109. Reeves, N., ‘The Power of Film Propaganda—Myth or Reality?’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, vol. 13, 1993, pp. 181–201. Richards, J., ‘The Last Flight’, Focus on Film, vol. 21, Summer 1975, pp. 59–60. —— ‘The British Board of Film Censors and Content Control in the 1930s: images of Britain’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, vol. 1, 1981, pp. 95–116. —— ‘The British Board of Film Censors and Content Control in the 1930s: foreign affairs’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, vol. 2, 1982, pp. 39–48. Robertson, J.C., ‘British Film Censorship Goes to War’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, vol. 2, 1982, pp. 49–64. —— ‘Dawn (1928): Edith Cavell and Anglo-German relations’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, vol. 4, 1984, pp. 15–28. Robinson, D., ‘The Old Lie’, Sight and Sound, Autumn 1962, pp. 201–4. Seton, M., ‘The British Cinema 1914’, Sight and Sound, Autumn 1937, pp. 126–8. Shand, J.D., ‘Doves Among the Eagles: German pacifists and their government during World War I’, Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 10, 1975, pp. 95–108. Sherie, F., ‘The Man who Wrote “Journey’s End”’, Strand Magazine, 1930, pp.157–63. Simmons, J., ‘Film and International Politics: the banning of All Quiet on the Western Front in Germany and Austria, 1930–1931’, Historian, vol. 52, 1989, pp. 40–60. Smither, R., ‘“A Wonderful Idea of the Fighting”: the question of fakes in The Battle of the Somme’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, vol. 13, 1993, pp. 149–68. Soderbergh, P.A., ‘Aux Armes!: The Rise of the Hollywood War Film, 1916–1930’, South Atlantic Quarterly, 65, 1964. —— ‘On War and the Movies: a reappraisal’, Centennial Review, vol. 11, 1976, pp.405–18. Somlo, J., ‘The First Generation of the Cinema’, The Penguin Film Review, London, Penguin Books, September 1948, pp. 55–60. Strebel, E.G., ‘French Social Cinema and the Popular Front’, Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 12, 1977, pp. 499–519.

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Suttner, B., ‘How I Wrote “Lay Down Your Arms”’, The Independent, 1 February 1906. Welch, D., ‘The Proletarian Cinema and the Weimar Republic’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, vol.l, 1981, pp. 3–18. Whitehall, R., ‘Great Films of the Century—No. 5, Westfront 1918’, Films and Filming, September 1960, pp. 12–14, 34. —— ‘One… Two… Three? A Study of the War Film’, Films and Filming, August 1964, pp. 7–12.

General index

Abbot, G. 47 Abel, R. 105–6 Adams, C. 31 Adorée, R. 30, 32 Agate, J. 50, 66–7 Aldington, R. 43 Alexander, R. 46 All Quiet on the Western Front (book) 43–4, 148 Altmann, G. 115 American Defense League 27 American Expeditionary Force 33; and The Big Parade 33 American Peace Society 15 Anderson, M. 31, 47 Anderson, R. 162 Angell, N. 124–5 Armes, R. 59, 63, 70, 105, 126 Asquith, A. 75, 129 Astaire, F. 12 Astoux, A. 168 Attenborough, R. 181 ‘atrocity’ films 13 Atwell, L. 90 Ayres, L. 44, 48; and his pacifism 48; see also All Quiet on the Western Front

Bazin, A. 123, 124, 125 Beck, P. 7 Becker, J. 112 Behn, H. 32 Bergman, A. 156 Bergman, I. 11 Berkeley, R. 130 Bern, P. 48 Bernard, R. 107 Bernhardt, K. 86 Bevan, B. 65 Bild- und Filmamt (BUFA) 83 Bioscope, The 23, 35, 50 Blackton, J.S.12, 14; and The Battle Cry of Peace, 12, 14, 18; and suing Henry Ford 14 Blad, A. 7 Blake, L. 141; and playing Hitler 144; see also The Road Back Bliss, A. 81 Blondell, J. 153 Blunden, E. 43 Blütecher, A. 7 Bogarde, D. 177 Bogart, H. 156 Borzage, F. 139–40, 144 Bosworth, H. 29, 33; and Behind the Door 33 Breen, J. 144, 145 Brecht, B. 84, 96 Brenon, H. 11, 60; and All Quiet on the Western Front 46; and The National Film 26; and War Brides 11, 26 O’Brien, T. 30, 32 British Board of Film Censors (BBFC) 64, 65;

Balcon, M. 59, 67, 70 Bakewell, W. 46, 47 Baldwin, S. 64 Barbusse, H. 101, 102 Barkas, G. 61, 75 Barker, P. 3 Bartlett, V. 67, 79 Basevi, J. 33 Barrymore, L. 130, 131 Barthelmess, R. 26, 155, 160 168

GENERAL INDEX

and Dawn 64; and The Peace Film 79; and 1930s censorship 65; and The Unknown Soldier 62 British Broadcasting Corporation 67, 75 British cinema and the war 58–81; and post-war reaction 61, 62; and War Office 60 British Instructional Films 61 British Movietone 78 Brittain, V. 64, 67 Brooke, R. 76 Browne, M. 66, 67, 69 Browne Rogers, W. 46 Brownlow, K. 103, 104, 105; and views on Barbed Wire 11; and views on Civilization 21–2, 24 Bruce, T. 75 Bruce Woolfe, H. 75 Brunel, A. 59–60, 63 Bryan, W.J. 16, 19 Bryher 61–2, 92 Bryna Production Company 164; see also Paths of Glory Bushell, A. 65 Butler, I. 40 Cagney, J. 156 Caine, Sir H. 11 Campbell, C. 19 Carette, J. 110 Carnegie, A. 15 Carnegie Peace Endowment 33 Carnegie Peace Foundation 26 Carroll, M. 63; and I Was a Spy 12; and pacifism 12; and Peace or War 78; and The World Moves On 12 Carroll, N. 130 Carroll, S. 81 Carter, L. 130 Caute, D. 178 Cavell, E. 16 Chandler, H. 160 Chicago Tribune 18 Churchill, W. 67 Ciment, M. 176 Ciné a Spectacles 113

Ciné-Liberté 110 Cinematograph Films Act 61 Clausen, C. 88 Clive, C. 65, 67, 68, 69, 73 Close Up 62, 92 Cnockaert, M. 12 Cobb, H. 164; and biography 165; see also Paths of Glory Confédération Générale de Travail 111 court martials and executions in British forces 176 Creel Committee on Public Information 15 Critique Cinématographique 113 Cry Havoc 64 Cukor, G. 47 Cue 142 Daily Express 25 Daily Mail 98 Dalio, M. 110 Dane, K. 30, 32; and My Four Years in Germany 32; and To Hell with the Kaiser 32; see also The Big Parade Dasté, J. 110 Daughters of the American Revolution 27 Davidson, W.B. 141 Day-Lewis, C. 75 Dean, B. 66 Deering, J. 144, 159 DeMille, C.B. 12–13; and Joan the Woman 13; and The Little American 13 Der Angriff 51 Deutsche Lichtspiel-Gesellschaft (Deulig) 83 Devine, A. 141 Dibbs, K. 162 Diess, G. 88 Dieterle, W. 160 Dix, O. 84 Dixon, N. 162 Dixon, T. 19 Dorgelès, R. 107 The Doughboys 31 Douglas, K. 162–76, 164; and relationship with Stanley Kubrick 165; and views on war 164–5; see also Paths of Glory Dreier, H. 130

169

170

GENERAL INDEX

Dreyer, C. 7, 11 Drinkwater, J. 44 Durgnat, R. 37 Eastman, M. 26 Eclair 102 Eclipse 102 L’Ecran Français 115 Edeson, A. 47, 49 Eisenstein, S. 129, 164 Elvey, M. 58, 79 Emery, J. 141 Engberg, M. 8, 10 Evening News 35, 76 Everson, W. 109 Fable, A 165 Fallada, H. 139 Fairbanks Jnr, D. 47 Farnham, J. 33 Faulkner, C. 111, 122, 125–6 Faulkner, W. 108, 165 Faulks, S. 3 Fejos, P. 46 Film Weekly 114, 143 First National 129 First World War, The (book) 31; see also Stallings, L. Fønss, O. 8 Ford, H. 14, 19, 44; and peace ship 14, 16; sued by J.Stuart Blackton 14 Ford, J. 11; and Four Sons 11–12; and Pilgrimage 12; and What Price Glory? 31; and The World Moves On 12 French cinema and the war 100–27; in wartime 101–2 Fresnay, P. 109, 111, 113 Freund, K. 48 Friedrich, E. 86 Fritz-Petersen, J. 8 Gabin, J. 109, 112, 113; see also La Grande Illusion Gainsborough Pictures 67 Gallipoli see Tell England’, and casualties 7

Gance, A. 101; and J’Accuse 102–4 Gardner Sullivan, C. 47 Geisler, M. 90 George, G. 156 German cinema and the war 82–100 Germany and the war 82–3; and pacifist movement 86; and war memoirs 89 Gerrard, C. 65 Gilbert, J. 29, 32; and praise for The Big Pamde 32 Gill, A. 82 Gish, L. 103; and Intolerance 24 Goebbels, J. 51, 57 Goldstein, R. 27 Graves, R. 70, 72, 74 Great Illusion, The (book) 124–5 Great War: war dead 1; and American war dead 28 Greene, G. 143 Grierson, J. 75, 98, 128 Griffith, D.W. 2, 59, 102, 103; and Intolerance 24–6; and The Rise and Fall of Free Speech in America 24; and views on war 19, 25–6; see also Intolerance Griffith, R. 93, 133 Griffiths, R. 46 Grosz, G. 84 Gundrey, V.G. 67, 68 Gyssling, G. 141, 145 Hall, M. 91 Halliwell, L. 63 Hamman, B. 7 Hamp 176 Harbord, C. 75 Harron, J. 47 Hart, W.S. 19 Hawks, H. 108; see also The Road to Glory Heartfield, J. 84 Hellinger, M. 159 Hemingway, E. 161 Hepworth, C. 58 Herbert, A.P. 75, 77

GENERAL INDEX

High Treason 66 Higher Command 89 Hill, G. 33 Hoffman, R. 62 Holden, A. 66 Holger-Madsen 7, 10; and Himmelskibet (A Trip to Mars) 7; and Lay Down Your Arms 7; and Pax Aeterna (Peace on Earth) 7 Hollywood Anti-Nazi League 141 Hollywood Spectator 132, 138, 143 Hollywood and the war 15–28, 128–47 Holmes, P. 130, 131 L’Homme que J’ai Tué 130; see also The Man I Killed Housman, A.E. 177 Howard, D. 33 Hugenberg, A. 84 Hughes, H. 69 Hughes, R. 93, 173 Hynes, S. 94 ‘I didn’t raise my boy to be a soldier’ (song) 17 Ince, T. 2; and Civilization 19–24; and New York Motion Picture Company 21; and Triangle Film Company 21; and views on war 21 International Peace Congress 1914 4, 13; and Lay Down Your Arms 4 International Peace Congress 1915 14; and Jane Addams 14 Isenberg, M. 12, 31, 37 Jacobs, L. 15 Jannings, E. 129 Janowitz, H. 85 Joachim Moebius, H. 88 Johannsen, E. 88–9 Johnny Got His Gun (book) 149 Kahn, G. 144 Kampers, F. 88 Kellogg-Briand Pact 64, 78 Kempf, B. 7 Keynon, C. 142 Kinematograph Weekly 50, 132 Koch, K. 113, 116 Kollwitz, K. 84

Köppen, E. 89 Kracauer, S. 82, 83, 85, 90, 95, 100 Kubrick, S. 37, 127; and biography 164; and Paths of Glory 162–76 Labenski, J. 57; see also All Quiet on the Western Front Laemmle, C. 21, 68; and All Quiet on the Western Front 44; and attempts to win Nobel Peace Prize 44; and IMP 21; and Little Man, What Now? 139–40; and pro-German support in 1920s 44; and views on war 44 Laemmle, C. Jnr, 44; and All Quiet on the Western Front 44; see also Laemmle, C. Lang, F. 80 Lansbury, G. 64 Larkin, P. 134 Lee, R. 11 Lejeune, C.A. 80 LeRoy, M. 151; see also Gold Diggers of l933 Lester, R. 172 Life 143 Literary Digest 108 Littlefield, L. 130 Locarno Treaty 62 Look 164 Loos, A. 27–8 Lorre, P. 99 Losey, J. 3, 176–80, 181; and biography 176–7; and summary of King and Country 177; and views on war 177; see also King and Country Lourié, E. 113 Low, R. 58, 61, 78 Lubitsch, E. 3, 128–30, 131; and biography 129–30; see also The Man I Killed Lucy, A. 44 Ludendorff, General 83–4 Lusitania 16 Lynn, J. 156 McDowell, C. 29, 33

171

172

GENERAL INDEX

Mack Brown, J. 160 McKern, L. 179 Maclaren, I. 65 McLaren, N. 79 Macready, G. 162, 169 Madox Ford, F. 41 Malins, G. 60 Mankiewicz, J. 144, 145 Mann, M. 11 Manners, D. 65, 160 Manning, F. 43 Mariane 113 Marriott, M. 78 Massey, R. 81 Masterman, C. 59–60 Mayer, C. 85 Mayer, L.B. 144 Meeker, R. 162 Menjou, A. 162; see also Paths of Glory Milestone, L. 2, 37, 46, 127, 143, 177; and biography 46–7; see also all Quiet on the Western Front Milliken, C. 131; see also MPPDA Milner, V. 130 Mirror News 173 Modot, G. 110 Moncure March, J. 69 Monk Sanders, J. 74, 160 Montgomery, D. 140 Monthly Film Bulletin 115, 124, 143 Morning Telegraph, The 9 Morris, W. 162 Motion Picture Herald 173 Motion Picture Magazine 19 Motion Picture News 9, 23 Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA): and The Big Parade 35; and A Farewell to Arms 140; and Three Comrades 144–5; and War is Declared 99 Motion Picture Review 108 Motion Picture World 10 Mottram, R.H. 63 Mounier, J. 88 Moving Picture World 10, 23 Muni, P. 151;

on I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang 152 Murphy, M. 141 Murray, J. 32 National Board of Censors of Motion Pictures (US) 17 National Board of Review 114 National Preparedness Society 27 Nationaltidende 9 Negri, P. 129 New Masses 145 New Statesman 159 New York Herald 69 New York Herald Tribune 115 New York Peace Society 15 New York Times 49–50, 57, 69, 165, 91, 92, 137, 143, 154, 159, 160 Newsweek 114, 147 Niblo, F. 11 Nichols, B. 64 Nieter, H. 78 Nobel, A. 4, 6; see also Lay Down Your Arms Nordisk Film Kompagni (Nordisk Film Company) 7, 9; see also Lay Down Your Arms Nugent, E. 160 Observer 98 Olivier, L. 66, 69 Olsen, O. 7; and views on war 7; see also Nordisk Film Kompagni, Lay Down Your Arms Pabst, G.W. 87, 94; and biography 87–8, 98–100; and War is Declared 99; see also Westfront 1918 and Kameradschaft pacifism: in Britain 64; in US 15–25 Pankhurst, S. 176 Parade’s End 41 Paramount 131 Parsons, L. 143, 152; and Great War films 27 Pathé 18 Paths of Glory (book) 164; see also Cobb, H. and Paths of Glory Patriot’s Progress, The 70

GENERAL INDEX

Peace Pledge Union 64 Pearson, G. 59, 67, 68, 69 Peet, C. 21 Pemberton-Billings, N. 66, 71 Photoplay 27, 35, 50, 69, 132, 159 Pickford, M. 13, 129; and The Little American 13 Pinkevitch, A. 112 Picturegoer 76, 132 Plumes, 31 Poirier, L. 102, 106–7 Politiken 9 Powell, D. 153, 173 Powers-Co Universal 17 Préjean, A. 106–7 preparedness movement in United States 14 Ramsaye, T. 21, 27 Raphaelson, S. 130 Raymond, E. 75 Realisations d’Art Cinématographique (RAC) 112 Reeves, N. 59, 60, 61 Remarque, E.M. 43, 47, 89, 135; and All Quiet on the Western Front 43–4; and biography 42–3; and The Road Back 43, 141; and Three Comrades 43 Renoir, C. 113 Renoir, J. 3, 101; and biography 111–12; and political views 110–11; and views on war films 111; see also La Grande Illusion Renn, L. 89 Reynolds News 50, 69 Richards, J. 65, 70, 71, 76 Richardson, R. 78 Rise and Fall of Free Speech in America, The 24 Road Back, The (book) 128 Robertson, J. 24, 26, 58, 63 Rogers, G. 12 Rollmer, F. 112 Roosevelt, T. 14, 16; and Hague Peace Conference 14 Rostand, M. 130 Rotha, P 61, 79, 93 Sassoon, S. 43, 74, 134, 148–9, 170 Schulberg, B.P. 99, 131

173

Schickel, R. 24, 25 Schwimmer, R. 14 Screen Actor’s Guild 141 Script 142 Secret Battle, The 75 Shape of Things to Come, The 80; see also Things to Come Sheridan, F. 130 Sherriff, R.C. 65, 66, 69; and Hollywood screenwriting career 68; and Journey’s End 66; and The Road Back 141; and views on war 70, 71; see also Journey’s End and The Road Back Sherwood, R. 40, 139 Sight and Sound 78 Simmon, S. 37 Slide, A. 21 Sloman, T. 142 Socialdemokraten 8 Socialist Film Council 64 Sorlin, P. 116 Spaak, C. 112 Spaak, H.C. 114 Spears, J. 13, 16; on Civilization 21 Spiegel, S. 51 Stallings, L. 31; and The Doughboys 31; and The First World War 31; and Plumes 31; and views on war 31; see also The Big Parade Star 36 Stroheim, E. von 109, 112; see also La Grande Illusion Sullavan, M. 140, 145, 146 Summerville, G. 44–6 Sun Also Rises, The (book) 161 Sunday Times 50, 81 Suttner, B. von 181; and Austrian Peace Society 6; and biography 4–7; and Daniela Dormes 5; and Die Waffen Nieder (Lay Down Your Arms) 6; and High Life 5; and International Arbitration and Peace Association 6; and Alfred Nobel 6; and Leo Tolstoy 6;

174

GENERAL INDEX

and Vor dem Gewitter 5; see also Lay Down Your Arms Sydney Morning Herald 51 Swaffer, H. 66 Tabachnik, S. 165 Tavernier, B. 126, 180 Taylor, R. 145 Testament of Youth 64 Thalberg, I. 31, 34; and The Big Parade 31–2; and Vidor’s criticism of role in The Big Parade 33 Three Comrades (book) 135 Tiffany-Stahl 67, 69 Time 92 Times, The 93 Tolstoy, L. 6 Tone, F. 145 Tourneur, M. 107 Triangle Film Company 21 Trivas, V. 98 Trotti, L. 131 Trumbo, D. 149, 167 Tuchman, B. 1 Under Fire (Le Feu) 101 United States and the war 15–28; and feminist movement 13; and forgotten man 150; and non-intervention policy 15–19; and pacifist movement 15–19 United States Signal Corps 34 Universal Pictures 44, 128 Universum Film A.G. (UFA) 83, 127 Vajda, E. 130 Valentino, R. 29 Variety 9, 17, 23, 34, 49, 69, 76, 90, 91, 92,98, 114, 132, 147, 154 Veidt, C. 12 Vidor, K. 2, 29–42; and army experience 33; and biography 30–1; and Creed and Pledge 30–1; and A Tree is a Tree (autobiography) 33; and Vidor Village 30; and views on the anti-war nature of The Big Parade 36–7

Vier von der Infanterie (Four Infantrymen on the Western Front) 88–9; see also Westfront 1918 Walker, A. 164, 169, 175–6 War 89 War Against War 86 War Imagined, A 94 Warner, J. 27 Warner Brothers 145, 149–50 Weinberg, H. 129 Wellman, W. 33, 150 Wells, H.G. 80 Welsh-Pearson 67 Welsh, T. 67 Whale, J. 66, 67, 70; and biography 66; in Hollywood 67–8; and The Road Back 141–2; see also Journey’s End and The Road Back Whitehall, R. 92, 93 Wiene, R. 85 Wilcox, H. 63–4 Wilson, W. (President) 4; and Civilization 21; and non-intervention policy 15–17 Willatt, I. 21–2 Williamson, H. 70 Willingham, C. 164 Wolheim, L. 44 Wollenberg, H.H. 82 women: portrayal in war cinema 11–14 Woolcott, A. 34–5; 40 Wray, J. 44 Wright, B. 70 Yeats, W.B. 2 Young, R. 146 Zweig, A. 43 Zimmerman Telegram 16

Index of films

All Quiet on the Western Front 2, 11, 40, 43–57, 68, 90, 92, 93, 96, 111, 128–9, 147, 159, 164, 177, 181; and budget 48; and censorship 50–2; and critical reception 49–52; and filming 48; and German censorship 51–2; and 1934 re-release 56; and 1939 re- release 56–7; and 1950 re-release 57; and 1984 reconstruction 57; summary of film 44–6 Am Rende Der Welt 87 An American Tragedy 131 Annales de la Guerre 102 Armageddon 61 Arms and the Girl 13

Blow, Bugles, Blow 64 Born on the Fourth of July 129 Boy With Green Hair, The 176 Boys of the Bulldog Breed 58 Bridge on the River Kwai, The 167 Britain Prepared 60 Broken Lullaby: see The Man I Killed Bud’s Recruits 30 Burgomaster of Stilemonde, The 63 Cabinet of Dr Caligari, The 129 Case of Sergeant Grischa, The 46 Civilization 2, 11, 15–28, 47; and British release 23–4; and budget 19; and critical reception 21–4; and revenue 19; summary of film 22–3 Civilization—What Every True Briton is Fighting For 23– 4; and censorship 23 Confessions of a Nazi Spy 147 Criminal, The 176 Croix de bois, Les (Wooden Crosses) 101, 107–9; and purchase by Twentieth Century Fox 107; and The Road to Glory 108–9; and summary of film 107–8

Barbed Wire 11 Battle of Jutland, The 61 Battle of the Somme, The 60 Battles of the Coronel and Falkland Islands, The 61, 62 Be Neutral 17 Beau Geste 66, 67 Behind the Door 21, 33 Betrayal of Lord Kitchener, The 62–3 Big Parade, The 2, 11, 29–42, 55, 62, 76, 123, 149, 181; and critical reception in France 36; and critical reception in UK 35–6; and critical reception in US 34–5; and general critical reception 29; and military reaction 34; and music 34; and summary of film 29–30 Birth of a Nation, The 24, 25 Blighty 63 Blood of our Brothers, The 18

Damned, The 176 Dawn 63–4, 65 Dawn Patrol, The (1930) (1938) 74 Day of Wrath 7 Democracy 59 Enemy, The 11 England’s Menace 58 Envoy Extraordinary or, The World’s War, The 17 175

176

INDEX OF FILMS

L’Equipage 107 European Armies in Action 17 Fall of a Nation, The 19 Farewell to Arms, A 140; and censorship 140 The Fate of a Soldier in America: see The Roaring Twenties Fear and Desire 164 Fifth Commandment, The: see The Man I Killed Forbidden Paris 130 Forgotten Men 78 Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The 29 Four Sons 11,12 Gallipoli 78 German Side of the War, The 18 Glory Hole: see King and Country 177 Gold Diggers of 1933 3, 150, 152–4 Grande Illusion, La 3, 11, 55, 98, 109–27, 174, 181; and awards 114; and banning 114; and critical reception 113–14; and location shooting 113; and post-war history 115–16; and summary of film 109–10 Great Dictator, The 147 Guns of Navarone, The 2 Hearst-Selig News Pictorial 17 Hearts of Humanity 149 Hearts of the World 25, 59, 60, 62, 103 Hell Unlimited 79 Hell’s Angels 31, 62, 61, 69 Heroes for Sale 155–6 High Treason 79, 80 Himmelskibet (A Trip to Mars) 7 Horrors of War, The 18 I am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang 3, 150, 151–2 I Was a Spy 78 I’m a Man 30 I’m Glad My Son Grew Up to Be a Soldier 17 Intolerance 2, 15–18, 103; and failure 24; and London premiere 25 Invasion of Britain, The: see The national Film Isn’t Life Wonderful 128

J’Accuse 101, 102–6, 126; and critical reception 103; and summary of film 103 Joan the Woman 13 Journey’s End 2, 58, 65–74, 92, 93, 178; and BBC 67; and budget 69; and critical reception 66–7, 69; and description of characters 68; Stage Society and 66; and Winston Churchill 67 Jubilee 79 Kaiser: The Beast of Berlin, The 44 Kameradschaft 96–9; and summary of film 97–8 Keeping Up with the Jones 14 Kiddies in the Ruins, The 59 Killer’s Kiss 164 Killing, The 164 King and Country 3, 176–80, 181; and critical reception 180; and summary of film 177–9 Kreuzer Emden 86 Lady Windermere’s Fan 130 Last Flight, The, 160–1 Lawless, The 176 Lay Down Your Arms 2, 4–14, 17, 41; and critical reception in Copenhagen 8–9; and critical reception in US 9–10; and Carl Dreyer 7, 11; and Holger-Madsen 7; and New York Peace Society 10; and Ole Olsen 7; and possible influence on Ingmar Bergman 11; and Sing-Sing Prison 10; and summary of film 7–8; and world premiere 8 Leopard’s Spots, The 61 Lest We Forget (1914) 58, (1934) 149 Little American, The 13 Little Man, What Now? 139 Little Miss Hoover 13 Love Parade, The 129 Madame Dubarry 129 Mädchen in Uniform 111

INDEX OF FILMS

Mademoiselle from Armentières 63 Man I Killed, The 3, 40, 128–39, 147, 149 181; and actors and technical personnel 130; and censorship 132; and critical reception 132; and MPPDA 131–2; and summary of film 130–1 Man Who Stayed at Home, The 58 Marseillaise, La 111 Marriage Circle, The 130 Metropolis 80 Mons 61, 62 Monte Carlo 129 Mortal Storm, The 147 Mother and the Law, The 24 Munitions Girl’s Romance, The 50 My Four Years in Germany 32 Namenlose Helden (Nameless Heroes) 85–8 National Film, The 26, 60–1 Niemansland 98, 111; and British release 98 Ninotchka 129 No Greater Glory 140 Nurse Edith Cavell 64 One Hour With You 129 One of Millions 17 Orders to Kill 129 Passion de Jeanne d’Arc, La 7 Paths of Glory 3, 72, 162–76, 181; and budget 164; and censorship 167–9; and critical reception 166–7; and locations 174; and MPPDA 167; and summary of film 162–4 Pax Aeterna (Peace on Earth) 7 Peace at Any Price 14 Peace on the Western Front 78 Peace or War 78 Perkins Peace Party 14 Pilgrimage 12 Prince of Peace 17–18 The Public Enemy 150–1, 156 Purple Cross, The 21 Q Ships 6l

177

Rake’s Progress, The 149 Road Back, The 128, 141–4, 159; and MPPDA 128; and 1939 re- release 144; and summary of film 141–2 Road to Glory, The 108–9, 181; and cast details 108; and critical reception 108–9 Roaring Twenties, The 3, 150, 159, 156–60; and Canadian ban 160; and Russian release 159; and summary of film 156–8 Roses of Picardy 63 Rosita 129 Shirker’s Nightmare, The 58 Shooting Party, The 118 Smiling Lieutenant 129 So This is Paris 130 Somme, The 61 Spirit of ‘76, The 27 Story of Vernon and Irene Castle, The 12 Stosstrupp 1917 100 Tell England 58, 62, 75–8 They Gave Him a Gun 156 Things to Come 79, 80–1 Three Comrades 144–7; and MPPDA 144–5, 146; and summary of film 145–6 Thunder in the Air 78, 79 To Be or Not to Be 129 To Hell with the Kaiser 32 Trouble in Paradise 129 Tunnel, The 79–80, 86 U-9 Weddigen 86 Unfit 58 Universal Animated Weekly 17 Unknown Soldier, The 62 Verdun, visions d’ histoire 101, 106–7; and critical reception 107 Victim of War, A 17 Vie est a nous, La 110 Vie et Rien d’Autre, La (Life and Nothing But) 126, 181 Walk in the Sun, A 2 War and the Woman 13

178

INDEX OF FILMS

War Brides 24, 26, 60 War in Europe 17 War O’Dreams, The 18 Weltkrieg, Der 78, 86–7; and critical reception 87 Westfront 1918 2, 87–96, 100, 122; and banning in Germany 90; and critical reception 90–3; and summary of film 88–90 What Price Glory? (1925) 31, 62 Wings 33, 62 Woman of Paris, A 130 Woman’s Work in Wartime 13 World Moves On, The 12 World Unarmed, The 87 Ypres 61 Zeebrugge 61