THE GODLESS GIRL (1929)

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As all of you who follow FilmRadar know, I am a passionate die hard silent film fan.  I am always looking for rare and obscure things to see.  I was thrilled to death when I saw the UCLA calendar and they were showing THE GODLESS GIRL.  The film was released in 1929 and directed by Cecil B. DeMille.  I had never seen this film before, nor had many of my friends who are also silent film addicts. Fortunately the program notes prepared us well for what we were going to see.  THE GODLESS GIRL was one of the strangest films (silent OR sound) I have ever seen.  The plot concerns a group of college kids who are super militant about their religious (or anti-religious) beliefs.  There is the Christian faction (led by George Duryea) and the Atheist faction (led by Lina Basquette) who openly lust after each other in spite of their ideological differences.  The Atheist group starts peppering the school lockers with signs that say “Kill the Bible.”  The Christian group decides that violence (or at least throwing rotten eggs and vegetables) is the only way to deal with them.  An Atheist meeting goes terribly awry when the Christian group shows up and a huge riot ensues.  In the midst of it, one of the Atheist girls falls down the middle of a 6th floor stairwell and dies.  Her death is every bit as melodramatic as you could imagine.  She has a last minute change of heart seconds before she dies.  Both the Atheist girl and the Christian boy are both held responsible for her accidental death and sentenced to a juvenile hall.  This is perhaps the most sadistic, cruel, grim and torturous place you could imagine.  The Christian boy even has his head partially shaved upon admittance.  The kids are beaten, mistreated and tormented at every turn by the sadistic staff.  The boys and girls are kept in separate sides of the facility.  They occasionally see each other through the chain link fence.  In one particularly over the top scene, the Atheist girl is grabbing onto the chain link fence and gazing at the Christian boy on the other side.  They touch hands and attempt to kiss through the fence.  At that moment, the security guard throws a switch that sends electricity through the fence.  The girl is clearly injured as she wobbles back her hands emitting smoke.  She stares down at the palms of her hands which now appear to have a cross burned into them from the chain link fence.  De Mille was many things, but SUBTLE was not among them. It just keeps getting better after that.  Determined to escape the juvenile center, the boy steals a horse and cart and rescues the girl.  They are chased by police and hunting dogs until they are captured and of course brutally punished.  As punishment, they are each locked in solitary confinement and handcuffed to the wall of their cells.  When a cat knocks over a lantern, the entire juvenile hall goes up in flames.  The Christian boy manages to escape but tries desperately to save the Atheist girl.  As the flames are fast approaching the walls of her cell, she has a major religious conversion.  This fire is unlike anything I’ve ever seen on film.  It is so outrageous and massive and over the top.  I kept thinking, surely they would all die of smoke inhalation long before the dramatic rescue!  At any rate, the Christian boy rescues the now Christian girl from the blazing inferno.  Right before the make their final steps out of the fire, the girl spots one of the sadistic guards.  He has been electrocuted and is now being crushed by a burning rafter beam.  The boy says he deserves to die, but the girl disagrees.  They both go in and rescue him.  He is covered in soot and seconds before he dies he says he will make sure they are both pardoned from the juvenile center.  The last 5 minutes of the film feature what must be the most awkward and dreadful sound recording in film history.  The minute the boy opens his mouth I was thinking, “YIKES!”  Apparently the sound revolution struck when this film was almost in the can.  Re-shooting the entire thing wasn’t really feasible so they stuck on this “talkie” ending.  It was clumsy, ill conceived and somehow perfect!  The program notes said, “played with the electrifying lust we’ve come to demand of DeMille” and that phrase really hits the nail on the head.  This film is full of lust, desperation, religion, action, melodrama, romance and sadism that could fill 10 movies!  It was so wild and outrageous and blatant in tone.  Yet I have to hand it to DeMille, he KNOWS how to tell a story on film.  This film moved along and was never boring, stale or slow.  It has a frenetic energy and style that reminded me of why DeMille helped to put Hollywood on the map in the first place.    http://www.filmradar.com/karies_blog/item/the_godless_girl_1929/