Many months ago, before I was laid off, Omaha and I contributed to a local arts charity and one of the consolation prizes was an evening at the local theater's "Silent Movie Mondays," where they show a classic film from the silent era.
We arrived at the Paramount about ten minutes early. The place was quite packed, and given that it's a very large theater that's an accomplishment. Seattle, in the midst of a severe recession, remains Very Artsy.
The movie of the day was The Godless Girl, which is a preachy fun little thing about a high-school girl who leads a secret "Atheist Society" meeting group. The school principal gets wind of the group and lets out a firey lecture that such blasphemy will not be tolerated and that whoever was handing out the anti-god flyers could be up on charges. The leader of the student body, Bob, swears he'll find who's handing out the flyers and make sure they stop.
He leads a large group of students to the "Atheist Society" meeting and a riot breaks out between the godly and the godless. The leader of the Atheist Society is Judy, the girl Bob's had his eyes on forever. During the course of fisticuffs, one of the other girls from the atheist group falls to her death off a balcony. There's a sorrowful scene where she begs Judy to tell her there's more to death than just nothingness, and then she dies.
Judy and Bob (and a poor fellow nicknamed Bozo who provides some Chaplin-esque physical humor and pratfalls) are sent to a cruel reformatory, where they're subjected to terrible mental and physical tortures at the hands of the head guard, a man we're told by a text page has the "Strength of an ox, brains of a sheep, mercy of a hyena!"
They escape, have a romantic night in the wilderness where godly Bob, overcome with the idea of being alone with a girl, tells her we should "live for today, it's the only thing we're sure of," while Judy rejects his advances, saying, "There's a tomorrow, and only by living right today will we get there!" Then they're recaptured.
As they're both being locked back into solitary, a fire breaks out. Bob is released from solitary to help fight the fire. Judy is trapped in the basement of the girl's reformatory as it burns to the ground, but Bob bravely races in to rescue her. In the process, Judy encourages him to to rescue the head guard, who dies an hour later knowing there is forgiveness in both Bob and Judy's hearts, and Judy is converted to some flavor of Christianity by the outpouring of love.
Whatever.
There were some text placards that made the audience laugh. When the head guard says, "I'll–be–back!" or when Mame, Judy's only friend in the girl's reformatory, tells Judy to "Bend for it baby," referring to something on the floor Judy must pick up. Other placards were a hoot because they set up the action in such ridiculous ways: a long text about the invasion of "atheistic societies in our school," or another one about how most reformatories are "progressive and humane," just not the one you're about to see.
The film has all the moralism you'd expect of a "road to Damascus" story, combined with DeMille's usual masterful titillation and audience arousal. Judy has a nude scene, although the lens is so smeared with vaseline it's hard to tell, and while the reformatory burns the "bad girls" group goes on a wild, bacchanalian dancing spree in front of the flames, showing more shoulder and leg than you'd think would be appropriate for the 1920's. There's also a brutal fire hose scene that makes the scene in First Blood look tame by comparison.
What interested me most, actually, was the tech level. Electricity was in some ways still "magical" to some people, and the new electric lights are mixed freely with lanterns. There are some cars, but most rural people are still using horses. It's a fascinating glimpse into that time and place, and was well worth the effort Omaha and I made to attend.
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