The Little American (1917)

User Rating:

7.1/10   

Writers:

Jeanie Macpherson (screenplay)
Jeanie Macpherson (story)

Release Date:

27 August 1917 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Drama | History | Romance | War

Tagline:

Mary Pickford in a stirring photoplay of great patriotic appeal

Plot:

A young American has her ship torpedoed by a German U-boat but makes it back to ancestral home in France, where she witnesses German brutality firsthand.

Plot Keywords:

France | U Boat | Ocean Liner | Prussian | Chateau

Cast

Mary Pickford	...	Angela Moore
Jack Holt	...	Karl Von Austreim
Raymond Hatton	...	Count Jules De Destin

Runtime:

80 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Silent

Filming Locations:

Jesse Lasky Studios - 6284 Selma Street, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Mary Pickford Company

Trivia:

Film debut of Wallace Beery.

Quotes:

Angela Moore: [To Karl] If there's a spark of manhood left in you - go and save those women!

Movie Connections:

Featured in Cecil B. DeMille: American Epic (2004) (TV)

Mary Pickford Salutes Ramon Novarro

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