Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Contentar Best movie of this year hands down!

Bereamic Awesome Movie

Senteur As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

MissSimonetta You'd think after over 90 years have passed, this little WWI propaganda would be rendered a creaky, laughable history piece. The Little American, however, remains a powerful work of melodrama, mainly due to the talents of its star, Mary Pickford.Pickford plays Angela Moore, the titular 'Little American', who's the center of a love triangle between a German-American (Jack Holt) and a French-American (Raymond Hatton). WWI breaks out, however, and Angela's suitors are called back to their home countries to serve in their nation's respective armies. Shortly after, Angela leaves for France to visit an aunt, but while en route a German U-boat sinks the ship she's on. She manages to survive though, and makes it to her destination only to discover her aunt has passed and the Germans are close to occupying the town. Being the plucky, kind-hearted gal she is, Angela houses wounded French soldiers in her newly inherited château and even acts as a spy for the French army. Things become even more complex when the Germans occupy the house and Angela encounters her old German beau, who almost forces himself upon her before realizing who she is. He becomes torn by love and duty, but willingly submits to the former once Angela is found out as a spy.Mary Pickford is a joy to watch. She takes a typical plucky young woman role and plays it with such charm that you just fall in love with her. Her style is naturalistic, making her stand out from most other early silent film actors, who tended to utilize broad, exaggerated gestures from the stage. This is the first time I've seen her acting, and I'm definitely planning on seeing more of her work in the future.Unlike Mary's acting, the story itself rarely utilizes subtlety. Angela's patriotic fervor is made obvious from the beginning: she was born on the Fourth of July, and carries a small American flag around with her throughout the majority of the picture. Later on, when Pickford and Hoft caught in the crossfire of a battle, they find refuge beneath a large crucifix, which manages to remain standing even as the rest of the church it was in crumbles to nothing. As is to be expected of propaganda, aside from Pickford's German lover, the Germans are depicted as heartless monsters who rape, murder, and kick puppies at the slightest whim. Due to the charm of Pickford and the great chemistry her character shares with Hoft's, you truly grow to despise the "Huns" as the film progresses; it's mind-blowing to think that during the picture's first release that aspect must have been a great driving force in getting men to run out and sign up for the war.If you're a silent buff, Pickford fan, or interested in WWI, then you should definitely give The Little American a look. It's a well-crafted piece of propaganda sporting not also historical value but a decent story and the charismatic presence of America's Sweetheart.

Steffi_P With the US having recently entered the First World War, the country's best known and most popular director teamed with its most beloved actress to fire a cinematic salvo in this flag-waving adventure.In style this is something of a departure for DeMille. He more or less abandons his use of long takes, painterly shot compositions and predominantly visual narrative, in favour of rapid editing and lots of expository intertitles. Of course this is purely pragmatic – it keeps the story moving along quickly and injects some excitement and tension into what is after all a propaganda piece. The heavier than usual use of intertitles also leaves no ambiguity about plot or character intention. Some of these editing patterns are quite effective – for example, the crosscutting used when the ocean liner is torpedoed. However fans of DeMille's early silents will probably find themselves missing the more considered approach they will be familiar with. This is certainly one of his least graceful films.The fact that The Little American is more action-centred means it is less acting centred – there is not the same concentration on performance that you normally get with DeMille. For this reason this is not a particularly memorable role for Mary Pickford, and to be fair almost any actress could have played the part equally well. However the casting of Pickford would have been symbolic and psychologically effective at the time. Although the press had not yet labelled her America's sweetheart, she certainly occupied that position. Therefore DeMille did not have to go out of his way to endear the audience to the character of Angela Moore, because they had already formed an emotional attachment to Mary Pickford.Regardless of how effective this picture was in its day it is really quite a mediocre effort when taken out of context. One interesting point though – the one scene in The Little American that really looks like the typical DeMille is the one in which Pickford and Holt take refuge in a ruined church below the effigy of Christ on the cross. Throughout the picture the stars and stripes is treated with the same reverence and significance DeMille might give to a crucifix. This picture is another small step towards the iconic imagery and preachiness that would characterise his work from the twenties onwards.

wes-connors Mary Pickford ("Born on the Fourth of July" as Angela Moore) is "The Little American" (of French heritage); she falls in love with Jack Holt (as Karl Von Austreim), who had moved to America with his German father and American mother. French-American Raymond Hatton (as Count Jules de Destin of the "Fighting Destins") has fallen in love with Ms. Pickford. The love triangled threesome eventually wind up in France, with the Great War (World War I, in hindsight) complicating their lives considerably.A mostly entertaining, if propagandistically flawed, Cecil B. DeMille film. The torpedoing, and sinking, of a ship carrying Pickford is "Titanic"-like. The war intrigue gets dramatic as Pickford slowly becomes an undercover spy for France, while the Germans occupy her ancestral home. Of course, German lover Holt arrives. It was difficult to believe they took so long to recognize each other as he moved in for the rape, but it was dark; and, prior events had them believe each other dead. The film goes WAY over-the-top in its symbolism. Pickford was, by the way, Canadian - though, few could deny she wasn't a "Little American", for all intents and purposes.FUN to spot "extras" who later became major stars include Wallace Beery, Colleen Moore, and Ramon Novarro - especially, watch for Mr. Novarro exhibiting "star" quality during one of the film's more memorable sequences: Pickford and the wounded soldier saluting each other as he is taken by her on a stretcher. Novarro even gets Mary Pickford to write a letter for him; obviously, he's got a future in pictures. Also future-bound is Ben Alexander, who plays the boy "Bobby"; he becomes a dependable child actor, and grows up to become a Jack Webb partner on "Dragnet". ******* The Little American (7/12/17) Cecil B. DeMille ~ Mary Pickford, Jack Holt, Raymond Hatton

burntoutsquid (SPOILERS IN FIRST PARAGRAPH) This movie's anti-German sentiment seems painfully dated now, but it's a brilliant example of great war-time propaganda. It was made back when Cecil B. DeMille was still a great director. (Ignore all his later Best Picture Academy Awards; he never made a very good sound film.) This movie lacks the comedy of most of Pickford's other films, and really it was DeMille's movie, not Pickford's. The vilification of the Germans can be compared to the way "The Patriot" of 2000 did the same to the British. The only good German in the film was a reluctant villain who had the ironic name of Austreheim. They even had Pickford take an ill-fated trip on a luxury ship that gets torpedoed by a German submarine. So what'll get the Americans more stirred up to war? The sinking of the Lusitania, or watching America's favorite Canadian import sinking in it? All throughout the film DeMille runs his protagonist from one kind of horrible calamity to another, barely escaping death, hypothermia, depravity, rape, execution, and explosions that go off in just the right place to keep her unharmed. The way she is saved from a firing squad is no more believable than the way the humans in "Jurassic Park" were ultimately rescued from the velociraptors. If I was any more gullible to such propaganda I would punish myself for having a part-German ancestry. Was it a good film? Aside from a humorous running gag about Americans abroad thinking they're untouchable – that was apparently a joke even back then – you might not be entertained. You'll find it more than a little melodramatic, and obviously one-sided, but the first thing that came to my mind after watching it is that it was years before Potemkin's false portrayal of a massacre revolutionized the language of cinema as well as a movie's potential for propaganda. It made me wonder: what became of Cecil B. DeMille? Somewhere between the advent of sound and "The Greatest Show on Earth" he seemed to lose his ambition. Ben Hur looked expensive, but not ambitious. In a sentence, this movie is for 1) Film historians, 2) Silent Film Buffs, 3) Mary Pickford fans, or 4) DeMille fans, if such a person exists.