Little American, The (1917) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Cecil B. DeMille would eventually become known for his over the top films but I guess you can follow this type of film-making back to 1917 and this picture. The film starts off in America where Angela Moore (Mary Pickford) is being courted by both a German (Jack Holt) and a Frenchman (Raymond Hatton). When WW1 breaks out both men head off to fight for their different countries and soon Mary, now in France, comes under attack by German troops and Holt will have to decide to save her or stand up for his evil country. This film is so over the top in its patriotism that at times it becomes quite laughable. At the start of the film, when Pickford's character is introduced, we learn that she was born on the Fourth of July. When we first see her there's a big American flag waving behind her as she gives that lovely smile towards the camera. Overall this film is a mixed bag full of some great stuff but also containing a lot of weak stuff. The good stuff includes a strong performance by both Pickford and Holt who settle into their roles quite well. Apparently Pickford hated working for DeMille but that doesn't really show as she delivers her strong performance. The battle scenes, for the most part, are pretty good as well. The most interesting aspect of the film is how they show the evils being done by the German's at the time and this includes showing them raping some women as well as killing elderly men. The weak stuff is all the propaganda running throughout the film. I know this was common for the day but this film takes it to a whole new level. Another silly sequence is when Pickford's U-Boat is hit by a German torpedo. The special effects here are so bad that you can tell the boat seems to be a plastic one floating in a tub. The scenes towards the end where Pickford runs into Jesus on the cross doesn't contain the magic that DeMille was going for either. In the end, this is a mixed bag but fans of DeMille and Pickford would probably want to check it out but D.W. Griffith's Hearts of the World is much better.

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

"The Little American" is of course "America's Sweetheart", Mary Pickford. Produced and directed by Cecil B. De Mille, it tells the story of Angela Moore (Pickford) and her relationships with German-American Karl Von Austriem (Jack Holt) and French-American Count Jules de Destin (Raymond Hatton) during World War I. In a real propaganda move, there's an opening shot of Pickford standing before the American flag and giving the salute while smiling and winking at the audience. Pure De Mille.Prior to the outbreak of the war, both men are courting Angela with Austriem having the evident upper hand. Then, war is declared and Austriem and de Destin go off to Europe to join their respective country's forces.Angela, to be near the man she loves decides to sail for France however, en route her ship the Veritania (read: Lusitania) is sunk by a German submarine (in a sequence using less than convincing miniatures). Austrien receives a letter telling him that Angela is sailing to France on the doomed ship. Distraught, Austriem becomes one of the barbaric German soldiers drinking and carousing their way across France. De Destin meanwhile is wounded and loses an arm.Angela survives the sinking of the Veritania and goes to the château of her aunt who has conveniently just died making Angela the new owner. She turns the château into a hospital for wounded French soldiers and decides not to flee the oncoming Germans, to nurse the wounded.Before leaving the château, the French place a secret telephone from which the army can be alerted as to the location of the German guns. The Germans move in to the château and ravage the place, having their way with the female servants. With them is Austriem who in a drunken stupor tries to rape Angela in a darkened room before discovering that it is Angela and she is alive.Angela meanwhile is telephoning information to de Destin regarding the placements of German guns. She is subsequently arrested and despite Austriem's intervention on her behalf, both get sentenced to die. Just as they are about to be shot............................Evidently their were two versions of this film produced. I assume the original version was completed before America's entrance into the war in 1917. In that version, available in the DVD set: "Cecil B. De Mille: The Classics Collection" Angela with the help of de Destin, secures Austriem's release as a prisoner of war and returns home with him. In the version described in Ringgold & Bodeen's "The Films of Cecil B. De Mille", Austriem dies and she returns to America with de Destin, Obviously, little Mary couldn't be seen fraternizing with the enemy, hence the second version.Pickford was now Hollywood's first superstar and was commanding a salary of $10,000 per week. It was around this time that she married male superstar Douglas Fairbanks. The two would soon form United Artists along with Charlie Chaplin and D.W. Griffith and produce their own films.Also in the film in various smaller roles are Hobart Bosworth, Walter Long and Wallace Beery as German soldiers, Colleen Moore as one of the château maids and Ramon Novarro as a wounded French soldier.De Mille's last film with Ms. Pickford.

(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.