"Swords and Hearts" is the last and the best of the seven Civil War shorts Griffith directed over a three-year period. This group nicely illustrates his tracking along a very steep learning curve as he becomes ever more technically and creatively proficient with the new art form of film-making. "Swords and Hearts" is billed as a wartime story in old Virginia and entertainingly alternates between domestic and battle sequences.
The chapter captions pretty much tell the story: 1. Hugh Frazier (Wilfred Lucas) son of a wealthy tobacco planter 2. His neighbor-Irene Lambert (Claire McDowell) beautiful but calculating 3. Jennie Baker (Dorothy West) and her father (Francis J. Grandon) of the "poor white class" 4. Promise me you will be mine 5. To join his company in the confederate army 6. We shall marry when you return 7. Months later, unknown to Hugh, Jennie's chance to prove her love 8. To steal a visit with Irene 9. Old Ben (William J. Butler) anticipates the bushwhackers' attack 10. Defeated in war, rejected in love 11. Hugh realizes her loyalty and worth.
The story incorporates Griffith's favorite themes, the superior virtues of the poor white class and the loyalty of good Negro slaves to their masters. It is quite ambitious as at times Griffith cross-cuts between three different events occurring simultaneously. Unfortunately the use of white actors in black-face in several scenes is disconcerting.
Dorothy West was arguably the most contemporary looking and natural of all the silent film stars. Consequently her films from 1910-1917 have held up better even than stuff made years later at the end of the silent film era. West combines the seemingly contradictory qualities of adolescent femininity that fascinated Griffith; a virginal unworldliness and a plucky practicality. In the film's best action sequence Jennie demonstrates her practicality by taking Hugh's uniform and horse, then leading the Yankee cavalry away from her love (during his liaison with Irene). An accomplished rider, West does her own stunts and even shoots a Yankee from horseback.
Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.
