Silent Films and World War I

By Daniel Gorman Jr.

Humans have told war stories since time immemorial, but WWI was the first global conflict to be portrayed in movies. Silent films made between 1918 and 1927 reveal what Americans (and, in Charlie Chaplin’s case, their allies) thought of WWI as it happened and in its aftermath. These films likely provided water-cooler conversation for Alma Clarke and her coworkers, the way that contemporary Americans debate Scandal or Game of Thrones.

Gene Kelly hosts this vintage documentary about silent film. While a great source of information, the documentary is almost a primary source in its own right! Source: Hollywood: The Golden Years, directed by David L. Wolper (Wolper Productions, 1962), Internet Archive, file uploaded by scampbell3, accessed November 2, 2015, https://archive.org/details/hollywoodthegoldenyears.

Cinema, fiction magazines, and comic books displaced older forms of entertainment like the dime novel in the early twentieth century. Of these new diversions, films were unique because they gave Americans detailed, tangible fantasies. Movies also provided shrewd businessmen with a new product. By the 1910s, the film industry had robust centers in New York and Hollywood, churning out romances, serial adventures, Westerns, and more. Silent acting combined vaudeville, pantomime, and the larger-than-life style typical of theatre in this period. Even though films lacked sound, actors did do some sound work during WWI — exhorting people in public speeches to buy war bonds.

WAR & CONFLICT BOOK ERA: WORLD WAR I/PATRIOTISM

Photo of: “Douglas Fairbanks, movie star, speaking to a large crowd in front of the Sub-Treasury building, New York City, to aid the third Liberty Loan, in April 1918,” Wikimedia Commons, c/o Wikipedia, file uploaded by Paul Thompson, image in the Public Domain, accessed November 2, 2015, http://bit.ly/1Hc9Es7.

Hollywood churned out propaganda films, as well. The propaganda pictures initially supported neutrality in WWI, but as the public switched its support from neutrality to involvement, Hollywood adjusted its approach to the war.

Actor-director Charlie Chaplin had made a short war bonds film, titled simply The Bond, but his longer follow-up, 1918’s Shoulder Arms, proved to be his wartime masterpiece.

Source: The Bond, written and directed by Charlie Chaplin (First National Pictures, 1918), YouTube, file uploaded by Adrian A. [pseud.], accessed November 5, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlZeX3qMpi4.

Released two months before the armistice, Shoulder Arms takes Chaplin’s Little Tramp to Europe. Writing nearly fifty years later in his Autobiography, Chaplin recalled: “Why not make a comedy about the war? I told several friends of my intention, but they shook their heads. Said [Cecil B.] De Mille: ‘It’s dangerous at this time to make fun of the war.’ Dangerous or not, the idea excited me.” Chaplin’s film turns trench warfare into escapism. To be sure, Chaplin includes iconic elements of trench life, such as flooding, bad food, constant bombings, and loneliness. However, any moment of tension leads to humor or triumph. No one dies. The Tramp even gets to enjoy a wonderful daydream in which he captures the Kaiser. Great propaganda as well as a sublime comedy, Shoulder Arms became “a smash hit,” although Chaplin biographer Kenneth S. Lynn considers it more clichéd than ingenious today. The New York Times observed at the time, “There have been learned discussions as to whether Chaplin’s comedy is low or high, artistic or crude, but no one can deny that when he impersonates a screen fool[,] he is funny.”

Source: Shoulder Arms, written and produced by Charlie Chaplin (First National Pictures, September 1918), YouTube, file uploaded by "מתכונים טעימים ומהירים,שף- נט" [pseud.], accessed November 5, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rj6DIm119-g.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse is not a comedy, but rather a melodrama, although several scenes are so over-the-top that they are unintentionally funny today. The film began as Vicente Blasco Ibañez’s 1919 novel, which Philadelphia’s Catholic archdiocese panned:

The horrors of war are depicted with a realism that is so graphic as to be gruesome. Throughout the story there are unpardonable lapses into vulgarity and coarseness. In this respect the [book] … is perhaps less guilty than the author’s other novels. But this is not to say that either it or they are to be put in the hands of the indiscriminate reader. All in all, the book is one that is best avoided…

vudl_423133_LARGE

Source: “Book to be Avoided,” The Catholic Standard and Times (Philadelphia, PA), Saturday, April 24, 1920: 2, Villanova Digital Library, CC BY-SA 3.0, accessed November 1, 2015, http://digital.library.villanova.edu/Item/vudl:423130.

Nonetheless, both the novel and its 1921 film adaptation were enormous hits. The film of Horsemen turns WWI into a canvas for escapist romance. A French-Argentinian playboy (Rudolph Valentino), who dishonors his family with an adulterous pre-war romance, “only redeems himself by dying as a hero in World War I.” The destiny of the hero’s extended patrician family unfolds like propaganda: The French branch sacrifices and struggles to preserve old-world civilization, while their German cousins become unquestioning soldiers in the service of the Kaiser. Subtlety is not one of the film’s virtues, and Horsemen’s style trumps its questionable historical substance. Yet the film develops a peculiar power near the end, as Valentino goes to his death, his lover chooses to return to her husband, and Valentino’s father weeps over his son’s grave, amid thousands of identical crosses. Valentino became a matinee idol thanks to his good looks and his spellbinding tango scene, which helped to publicize Latin dance in the United States.

Source: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, directed by Rex Ingram (Metro Pictures, 1920), Internet Archive, file uploaded by Anastacia [pseud.], film in the Public Domain, accessed November 1, 2015, https://archive.org/details/The_Four_Horsemen_of_the_Apocalypse#.

1925’s The Big Parade incorporates melodrama, but director King Vidor also highlighted the war’s brutality. Unlike Horsemen, which focused on elite officers and their families, Parade portrays the experiences of ordinary enlisted soldiers. The film is also ambivalent about the need for the war, as the climactic battle achieves nothing of apparent strategic value. To quote Vidor, “When a nation or a people go to war, the people go and do not ask why. But in this last war they asked one question at all times. It was, ‘Why do we have war?’” Audiences pondered that question in droves — The Big Parade outgrossed Horsemen.

Source: “The Big Parade (1925) Trailer - John Gilbert, Renée Adorée," YouTube, file uploaded by _XYZT, accessed June 28, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dCmSL_lkog.
Source: The Big Parade Souvenir Program (New York: The Gordon Press, c. 1926), Internet Archive, file uploaded by associate-jenna-risano [pseud.], accessed November 5, 2015, https://archive.org/details/bigparade00unse.

1927’s Wings, a romantic drama about WWI fighter pilots, received the first Best Picture Oscar. It is a film of enormous scale. The U.S. Army loaned the filmmakers real planes, empty land on a San Antonio military base (promptly transformed into wartime France), and over 3,000 real soldiers. Director William Wellman had been a WWI pilot, so he used his combat knowledge to coordinate the spectacular dogfight sequences. All of the actors flew in real planes. When seen today, Wings has the broad humor and sweet love story typical of an old Hollywood movie, but the film is remarkable for the authenticity of its battle scenes.

Source: Scenes from: Wings, directed by William A. Wellman, with Clara Bow, Buddy Rogers, and Richard Arlen (Paramount Pictures, 1927), Internet Archive, file uploaded by gunjones [pseud.], accessed November 1, 2015, https://archive.org/details/ScenesFromWINGS1927ClaraBowBuddyRogersRichardArlen.

The centennial of WWI has sparked renewed interest in the conflict, leading to new dramas like Testament of Youth and Parade’s End. As good as these projects are, they lack the grit of silent films. The silent filmmakers often had to invent their production technologies as they went along; the roughshod nature of silent films is part of their charm. When the special effects work well, especially in Wings, the visuals are even more astonishing than modern films because everything is real. Silent films also have more thematic variety than the wholly serious WWI films that have premiered of late. Whether as propaganda, comedy, or drama, silent films preserve raw perceptions of the Great War.

To Learn More About…

New Entertainments in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries:

Kasson, John F. Houdini, Tarzan, and the Perfect Man: The White Male Body and the Challenge of Modernity in America. New York: Hill and Wang, 2002.

Kasson, Joy F. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West: Celebrity, Memory, and Popular History. New York: Hill and Wang, 2000.

Katz, Demian. Paper for the People: Dime Novels and Early Mass Market Publishing. Villanova University Library. https://exhibits.library.villanova.edu/dime-novels.

Peiss, Kathy. Cheap Amusements: Working Women and Leisure in Turn-of-the-Century New York. Philadelphia: Temple U.P., 1986.

Rabinovitz, Lauren. Electric Dreamland: Amusement Parks, Movies, and American Modernity. New York: Columbia U.P., 2012.

World War I:

Cooper Jr., John Milton. Woodrow Wilson: A Biography. New York: Knopf (Random House), 2009.

Keegan, John. The First World War. New York: Knopf (Random House), 1999.

Macmillan, Margaret. Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed The World. New York: Random House, 2001.

Tuchman, Barbara W. The Guns of August. New York: Macmillan, 1962.

———. The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890–1914. New York: Macmillan, 1966.

———. The Zimmerman Telegram: America Enters the War, 1917­–1918. Macmillan, 1958; repr. New York: Random House, 2014.

Silent Films and WWI:

The Big Parade. Directed by King Vidor. MGM, 1925; Burbank, CA: Turner Entertainment and Warner Home Video, 2013. DVD.

The Big Parade (1925) Trailer – John Gilbert, Renée Adorée,” YouTube, file uploaded by _XYZT, accessed June 28, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uQdhBEfgkY.

 The Bond. Written and directed by Charlie Chaplin. First National Pictures, 1918. YouTube. File uploaded by Adrian A. [pseud.]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlZeX3qMpi4.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Directed by Rex Ingram. Metro Pictures, 1920. Internet Archive. File uploaded by Anastacia [pseud.]. Film in the Public Domain. https://archive.org/details/The_Four_Horsemen_of_the_Apocalypse#. 

Pierce, David. The Survival of American Silent Feature Films: 1912–1929. National Film Preservation Board. Washington, D.C.: Council on Library and Information Resources and the Library of Congress, September 2013. http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2013/files/2013silent_films_rpt.pdf.

Scenes from: Wings. Directed by William A. Wellman. With Clara Bow, Buddy Rogers, and Richard Arlen. Paramount Pictures, 1927. Internet Archive. File uploaded by gunjones [pseud.]. https://archive.org/details/ScenesFromWINGS1927ClaraBowBuddyRogersRichardArlen.

Shoulder Arms. Written and produced by Charlie Chaplin. First National Pictures, September 1918. YouTube. File uploaded by “מתכונים טעימים ומהירים,שף- נט” [pseud.]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rj6DIm119-g.

Silent Films [Digital Collection]. Internet Archive. Created by A. Rossi [pseud.], February 25, 2010.  https://archive.org/details/silent_films.

What Price Glory. Directed by Raoul Walsh. Fox Film Corporation, 1926. YouTube. File uploaded by Dolores del Río [pseud.], May 9, 2012. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrRcNio9fmM.

Wings. Directed by William A. Wellman. Paramount Pictures, 1927; Hollywood, CA: Paramount Home Video, 2012. DVD.

Bibliography and Works Cited:

Primary Sources for WWI Films and Literature

Articles from the New York Times. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times (1857–1922).

“Book to be Avoided.” The Catholic Standard and Times (Philadelphia, PA), Saturday, April 24, 1920: 2. Villanova Digital Library. CC BY-SA 3.0. http://digital.library.villanova.edu/Item/vudl:423130.

Chaplin, Charles. My Autobiography. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1964.

Dorgan, Dick. “A Song of Hate.” Photoplay 22, no. 2 (July 1922): 26. Internet Archive. File uploaded by Jacob-QA [pseud.]. https://archive.org/stream/photoplayvolume222chic#page/26/mode/2up.

Ibañez, Vicente Blasco. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, translated by Charlotte Brewster Jordan. New York: E.P. Dutton & Company, 1919; Moulin Digital Editions, 2014. Internet Archive. File uploaded by twimhoof [pseud.]. CC0 1.0 Universal. https://archive.org/details/TheFourHorsemenOfTheApocalypse_235.

Photo of: “Douglas Fairbanks, movie star, speaking to a large crowd in front of the Sub-Treasury building, New York City, to aid the third Liberty Loan, in April 1918.” Wikimedia Commons, c/o Wikipedia. File uploaded by Paul Thompson. Image in the Public Domain. http://bit.ly/1Hc9Es7.

Smith, Frederick James. “The Film Year in Review.” Photoplay 22, no. 3 (August, 1922): 56–58. Internet Archive. File uploaded by Jacob-QA [pseud.]. https://archive.org/stream/photoplayvolume222chic#page/184/mode/2up/search/horsemen.

“A Talk With King Vidor.” In The Big Parade Souvenir Program, 11. New York: The Gordon Press, c. 1926. Internet Archive. File uploaded by associate-jenna-risano [pseud.]. https://archive.org/stream/bigparade00unse#page/n11/mode/2up.

Secondary Sources

“All Time Box Office: Domestic Grosses, Adjusted for Ticket Price Inflation.” Box Office Mojo. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm.

“Box office / business for The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” IMDB. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0012190/business.

Buergert, Kristen. “Ibanez, V. Blasco: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” In 20thCentury American Bestsellers [online database]. Edited by John Unsworth. Brandeis University. http://unsworth.unet.brandeis.edu/courses/bestsellers/search.cgi?title=The+Four+Horsemen+of+the+Apocalypse.

Cook, David A. “The Silent Years, 1910–1927.” In History of the Motion Picture. Encyclopedia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/art/history-of-the-motion-picture/The-silent-years-1910-27.

Dirks, Tim. “The Big Parade (1925).” AMC Filmsite: Movie Reviews.
http://www.filmsite.org/bigp.html.

Gorman Jr., Daniel. “The Untold Stories of Mormonism Exposed: Material Culture, Dime Novels, and Mormonism in American Society.” Concept 38 (2015): 18–45. http://concept.journals.villanova.edu/article/view/1830/1734.

Hollywood: The Golden Years. Directed by David L. Wolper. Wolper Productions, 1962. Internet Archive. File uploaded by scampbell3 [pseud.]. https://archive.org/details/hollywoodthegoldenyears.

Hollywood: “Hollywood Goes to War.” Written and directed by Kevin Brownlow and David Gill. Thames Television, 1980. YouTube. File uploaded by jamon2112. http://bit.ly/1QhKABU.

King, Gilbert. “The ‘Latin Lover’ and His Enemies.” Smithsonian Magazine, June 13, 2012.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-latin-lover-and-his-enemies-119968944/

Landazuri, Margarita. “The Big Parade.” San Francisco Silent Film Festival (Silent Film.org), 2005. http://www.silentfilm.org/archive/the-big-parade.

Lynn, Kenneth S. Charlie Chaplin and His Times. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997.

“Rudolph Valentino.” Encyclopedia of World Biography. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Rudolph_Valentino.aspx.

“Wings: Grandeur in the Sky” [documentary]. Wings. Directed by William A. Wellman. Paramount Pictures, 1927; Hollywood, CA: Paramount Home Video, 2012. DVD.

Endnote One

Daniel Gorman Jr., “The Untold Stories of Mormonism Exposed: Material Culture, Dime Novels, and Mormonism in American Society,” Concept 38 (2015): 20, accessed November 1, 2015, http://concept.journals.villanova.edu/article/view/1830/1734.

Endnote Two

David A. Cook, “The Silent Years, 1910–1927,” in History of the Motion Picture, Encyclopedia Britannica, accessed November 5, 2015, http://www.britannica.com/art/history-of-the-motion-picture/The-silent-years-1910-27; Hollywood: The Golden Years, directed by David L. Wolper (Wolper Productions, 1962), Internet Archive, file uploaded by scampbell3, accessed November 2, 2015, https://archive.org/details/hollywoodthegoldenyears.

Endnote Three

Charles Chaplin, My Autobiography (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1964), 220–221; Wolper, Hollywood.

Endnote Four

Hollywood: “Hollywood Goes to War,” written and directed by Kevin Brownlow and David Gill (Thames Television, 1980), YouTube, file uploaded by jamon2112 [pseud.], accessed November 5, 2015, http://bit.ly/1QhKABU.

Endnote Five

The Bond, written and directed by Charlie Chaplin (First National Pictures, 1918), YouTube, file uploaded by Adrian A. [pseud.], accessed November 5, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlZeX3qMpi4; Kenneth S. Lynn, Charlie Chaplin and His Times (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997), 204.

Endnote Six

Shoulder Arms, written and produced by Charlie Chaplin, (First National Pictures, September 1918), YouTube, file uploaded by dosterian [pseud.], accessed November 5, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxzEUtgCbNA. See also: “Display Ad 205 – No Title,” New York Times (1857–1922), November 24, 1918: 47, ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times; “Two Opera Stars in Silent Films…,” New York Times (1857–1922), November 25, 1918: 11, ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times.

Endnote Seven

Chaplin, My Autobiography, 220.

Endnote Eight

Chaplin, My Autobiography, 221.

Endnote Nine

Lynn, Chaplin, 222.

Endnote Ten

“Chaplin as Soldier Drops Old Disguise…,” New York Times (1857–1922), October 21, 1918: 15, ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times.

Endnote Eleven

Vicente Blasco Ibañez, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, translated by Charlotte Brewster Jordan (New York: E.P. Dutton & Company, 1919; Moulin Digital Editions, 2014), Internet Archive, file uploaded by twimhoof [pseud.], CC0 1.0 Universal, accessed November 2, 2015, https://archive.org/details/TheFourHorsemenOfTheApocalypse_235.

Endnote Twelve

“Book to be Avoided,” The Catholic Standard and Times (Philadelphia, PA), Saturday, April 24, 1920: 2, Villanova Digital Library, CC BY-SA 3.0, accessed November 1, 2015, http://digital.library.villanova.edu/Item/vudl:423130.

Endnote Thirteen

Box Office Mojo.com adjusts for inflation and shows that Horsemen’s gross of $9,183,673 equals $382,959,200 in 2015 dollars [“All Time Box Office: Domestic Grosses, Adjusted for Ticket Price Inflation,” Box Office Mojo, accessed November 7, 2015, http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm]. See also: “Box office / business for The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” IMDB, accessed November 7, 2015, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0012190/business; The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, directed by Rex Ingram (Metro Pictures, 1920), Internet Archive, file uploaded by Anastacia [pseud.], film in the Public Domain, accessed November 1, 2015, https://archive.org/details/The_Four_Horsemen_of_the_Apocalypse#.

Endnote Fourteen

Kristen Buergert, “Ibanez, V. Blasco: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” in 20th-Century American Bestsellers [online database], edited by John Unsworth, Brandeis University, accessed November 10, 2015, http://unsworth.unet.brandeis.edu/courses/bestsellers/search.cgi?title=The+Four+Horsemen+of+the+Apocalypse; “Rudolph Valentino,” Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2004, Encyclopedia.com, accessed November 7, 2015, http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Rudolph_Valentino.aspx.

Endnote Fifteen

Dick Dorgan, “A Song of Hate,” Photoplay 22, no. 2 (July 1922): 26, Internet Archive, file uploaded by Jacob-QA [pseud.], accessed November 7, 2015, https://archive.org/stream/photoplayvolume222chic#page/26/mode/2up; Gilbert King, “The ‘Latin Lover’ and His Enemies,” Smithsonian Magazine, June 13, 2012, accessed November 7, 2015, http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-latin-lover-and-his-enemies-119968944/; “Rudolph Valentino”; Frederick James Smith, “The Film Year in Review,” Photoplay 22, no. 3 (August, 1922): 58, Internet Archive, file uploaded by Jacob-QA [pseud.], accessed November 7, 2015, https://archive.org/stream/photoplayvolume222chic#page/184/mode/2up/search/horsemen; Wolper, Hollywood.

Endnote Sixteen

The Big Parade, directed by King Vidor (MGM, 1925; Burbank, CA: Turner Entertainment and Warner Home Video, 2013), DVD; Brownlow and Gill, Hollywood: “Hollywood Goes to War”; Tim Dirks, “The Big Parade (1925),” AMC Filmsite: Movie Reviews, accessed November 7, 2015, http://www.filmsite.org/bigp.html.

Endnote Seventeen

“A Talk With King Vidor,” in The Big Parade Souvenir Program (New York: The Gordon Press, c. 1926), 11, Internet Archive, file uploaded by associate-jenna-risano [pseud.], accessed November 5, 2015, https://archive.org/stream/bigparade00unse#page/n11/mode/2up.

Endnote Eighteen

Margarita Landazuri, “The Big Parade,” San Francisco Silent Film Festival (Silent Film.org), c. 2005, accessed November 7, 2015, http://www.silentfilm.org/archive/the-big-parade.

Endnote Nineteen

Brownlow and Gill, Hollywood: “Hollywood Goes to War”; Wings, directed by William A. Wellman (Paramount Pictures, 1927; Hollywood, CA: Paramount Home Video, 2012), DVD; “Wings: Grandeur in the Sky” [documentary], Wings, directed by William A. Wellman (Paramount Pictures, 1927; Hollywood, CA: Paramount Home Video, 2012), DVD.