Plot
This drama features a romance between two different teenagers: a young atheist girl, Judith Craig, and the male head of a Christian youth organization, Bob Hathaway. The male head breaks into the school to interrupt the atheist club meetings, starting a riot that kills a young girl. Followed by a goofy boy, Bozo, the three are thrown into a juvenile prison with a cruel head guard and bad living conditions. The film maker makes a point of talking about the truth of prison cruelty in the middle of the movie. Bob, who is in love with Judy, eventually rescues her and takes shelter in an old farm where Judy, breath-taken by the romance and beauty of the forest, realizes there must be a God. They are found and taken back to prison and held in solitary confinement until a fire breaks out. Mame is Judy's new friend who is trying to get her out before she burns. But the rest of the prison girls escape. Bob, who is trusting in God to help them, finally rescues Judy with the help of Mame and Bozo; they also rescue the cruel head guard who pleads for his life and, as he is dying, sets them free for their kind act and rescue. At the very end, Bozo and Mame seem to end up together while Bob and Judy and their rekindled faith ride off together as the movie ends.
Cecil Blount DeMille was an American filmmaker and actor. Between 1914 and 1958, he made 70 features, both silent and sound films. He is acknowledged as a founding father of American cinema and the most commercially successful producer-director in film history. His films were distinguished by their epic scale and by his cinematic showmanship. His silent films included social dramas, comedies, Westerns, farces, morality plays, and historical pageants. He was an active Freemason and member of Prince of Orange Lodge #16 in New York City.
Marie Prevost was a Canadian-born film actress. During her 20-year career, she made 121 silent and sound films.
Samuel Louis Warner was an American film producer who was the co-founder and chief executive officer of Warner Bros. He established the studio along with his brothers Harry, Albert, and Jack L. Warner. Sam Warner is credited with procuring the technology that enabled Warner Bros. to produce the film industry's first feature-length talking picture, The Jazz Singer. He died in 1927, on the day before the film's enormously successful premiere.
Hell Divers is a 1932 American pre-Code black-and-white film from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer starring Wallace Beery and Clark Gable as a pair of competing chief petty officers in early naval aviation. The film, made with the cooperation of the United States Navy, features considerable footage of flight operations aboard the Navy's second aircraft carrier, the USS Saratoga, including dramatic shots of takeoffs and landings filmed from the Curtiss F8C-4 Helldiver dive bombers after which the movie was named.
The King of Kings is a 1927 American synchronized sound epic film produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille. It depicts the last weeks of Jesus before his crucifixion and stars H. B. Warner in the lead role. While the film has no audible dialog, it was released with a synchronized musical score with sound effects using the RCA Photophone sound-on-film process.
Lina Basquette was an American actress. She is noted for her 75-year career in entertainment, which began during the silent film era. Talented as a dancer, she was paid as a girl for performing and gained her first film contract at age nine. In her acting career, Basquette may have been best known for her role as Judith in The Godless Girl (1929). The film was based on the life of Queen Silver, known as a 20th-century child prodigy, and feminist and socialist activist.
Pardon Us is a 1931 American pre-Code Laurel and Hardy film. It was the team's first starring feature-length comedy film, produced by Hal Roach, directed by James Parrott, and originally distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1931.
Julia Faye Maloney, known professionally as Julia Faye, was an American actress of silent and sound films. She was known for her appearances in more than 30 Cecil B. DeMille productions. Her various roles ranged from maids and ingénues to vamps and queens.
Anne Bauchens, born Roseanne Bauchens, was an American film editor who is remembered for her collaboration over 40 years with the director Cecil B. DeMille. In 1940, she won the Academy Award for film editing.
Jacqueline Alexandra Dyris was a petite stage actress and silent film star, a native of Brussels, Belgium. Her father was of English and Dutch descent and her mother was Spanish and French. Jacqueline was educated in Europe and later Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Chicago, Illinois, and New York, New York.
John Peverell Marley was an American cinematographer. He is one of only six cinematographers to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Edward Quillan was an American film actor and singer whose career began as a child on the vaudeville stages and silent film and continued through the age of television in the 1980s.
The Noose is an American silent drama film adaptation of the Willard Mack play The Noose, which was released in 1928 by First National Pictures. It stars Richard Barthelmess, Montagu Love, Robert Emmett O'Connor, and Thelma Todd. It was directed by John Francis Dillon and Richard Barthelmess's performance was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. The movie was adapted by Garrett Graham and James T. O'Donohoe from the play. The play was also the basis of the Paramount Pictures film I'd Give My Life (1936).
Beggars of Life is a 1928 American part-talkie sound film that was directed by William Wellman. Although the film featured sequences with audible dialogue, the majority of the film had a synchronized musical score with sound effects. The film was released on both sound-on-disc and sound-on-film formats. Currently circulating are mute prints from the sound-on-disc version. The majority of the sound discs are believed to be lost.
Dynamite is a 1929 American pre-Code drama film produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille and starring Conrad Nagel, Kay Johnson, Charles Bickford, and Julia Faye. Written by Jeanie MacPherson, John Howard Lawson, and Gladys Unger, the film is about a convicted murderer scheduled to be executed, whom a socialite marries simply to satisfy a condition of her grandfather's will. Mitchell Leisen was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Art Direction.
Paramount on Parade is a 1930 all-star American pre-Code revue released by Paramount Pictures, directed by several directors including Edmund Goulding, Dorothy Arzner, Ernst Lubitsch, Rowland V. Lee, A. Edward Sutherland, Lothar Mendes, Otto Brower, Edwin H. Knopf, Frank Tuttle, and Victor Schertzinger—all supervised by the production supervisor, singer, actress, and songwriter Elsie Janis.
The Younger Generation is a 1929 sound part-talkie American drama film directed by Frank Capra and starring Ricardo Cortez. In addition to sequences with audible dialogue or talking sequences, the film features a synchronized musical score and sound effects along with English intertitles. The soundtrack was recorded using the Western Electric sound-on-film system. The film was produced by Jack Cohn for Columbia Pictures. It was Capra's first sound film. The screenplay was adapted from a 1927 Fannie Hurst play, It Is to Laugh.
The Night Club is a 1925 American silent comedy film directed by Paul Iribe and Frank Urson and written by Cecil B. DeMille, Keene Thompson, Walter Woods, and William C. deMille. The film stars Raymond Griffith, Vera Reynolds, Wallace Beery, Louise Fazenda, and William Austin. The film was released on April 27, 1925, by Paramount Pictures.
On to Reno is a 1928 silent film comedy directed by James Cruze and starring Marie Prevost. It was produced by Cecil B. DeMille and released through Pathé Exchange.
Show Folks is a 1928 American part-talkie sound drama film directed by Paul L. Stein and starring Eddie Quillan, Lina Basquette, and Carole Lombard. Although the film featured a few sequences with audible dialogue, the majority of the film had a synchronized musical score with sound effects. The film was released in both the sound-on-disc and sound-on-film format.
