Godless Girl, The (1929)
*** (out of 4)
This here turned out to be DeMille final silent as well as his first sound film. Apparently the movie was shot completely silent but after filming and sound films had become popular, they went back and added a dialogue sequence but the version I watched, from Photoplay, doesn't have that sequence in it. The film is about two teens: Judy (Lina Basquette) a hard boiled Atheist and Bob (Tom Keene) a boy who believes in nothing but the Bible. Judy has a crush on him but he doesn't know it, which leads him and a gang of Christian to break into her meeting. A riot breaks out and an Atheist girl is killed so Judy, Bob and another kid end up at a reform school where they are abused by the evil guard (Noah Beery). Soon both Judy and Bob are rethinking what they believed when they entered the reformatory. This is a rather strange and bizarre film that's main goal is to preach intolerance but along the way we get all sorts of strange stuff from campy anti-God speeches to brutal violence against kids and then transforming into a tender love story. The movie starts to wear out its welcome in the final act but this remains a strange little film that is so well-told that even though who don't like silents would probably enjoy it. The first part of the film, involving the Christian and Atheist gangs, is rather campy because of how much the two sides are going after one another. Even though it comes off campy it leads to one of the most dramatic and rather beautiful scenes I've seen from any silent and that's where the girl, an Atheist, is afraid to die because she doesn't know what's next. She mentions she's afraid to be alone and a policeman tells her something, that I won't ruin, which comes off so tender that you somewhat feel bad for laughing at some stuff that happened before it. When the prison drama sets in we get some pretty strong violence, which is pure DeMille pulp. Beery is downright evil in his role and is a lot of fun to watch. Basquette, who apparently received a letter from an unknown Hitler after making this film, is very good in her role and really carries this thing from start to finish. Keene, probably best known today for his role in Plan 9 From Outer Space is very good as well. While this film isn't a complete success it remains a very entertaining one that manages to get its point across mainly because it beats the viewer over the head with a Bible. I don't like that much preaching in movies but whoever said DeMille would hold back when wanting to get a message across?
