The Unbeliever

The Unbeliever
Movie poster
Directed by	Alan Crosland
Based on	The Three Things by Mary Raymond Shipman
Produced by	Edison Company George Kleine
Starring	Raymond McKee Marguerite Courtot
Cinematography	Philip Tannura
Music by	J. Warde Hutton
Production company	Edison Company
Distributed by	George Kleine
Release date	February 11, 1918 (1918-02-11)
Running time	80 minutes
Country	United States
Language	Silent (English intertitles)

The Unbeliever is a 1918 American silent propaganda film made towards the end of World War I. It was directed by Alan Crosland for the Edison Company towards its last days as a functioning film-making company. It stars Raymond McKee and Marguerite Courtot, who married a few years later, and Erich von Stroheim. ^{[1] [2]}

Plot

The Unbeliever (1918)

As described in a film magazine, ^[3] Philip Landicutt has always held the people of the lower classes as being far beneath him. He also is prejudiced against anyone with German blood and does not believe in God. He joins the Marine Corps and goes to France where constant association with the men in his battery and nearly answering the call from above during an action makes him see things differently. He returns home, crippled, but with a better knowledge of man and God. During a raid he rescued a Belgian girl who is later sent to stay with his mother. When he comes home and sees her, he finds himself in love.

Cast

Scene with Marguerite Courtot and Raymond McKee

• Marguerite Courtot as Virginie Harbrok
• Raymond McKee as Philip Landicutt
• Erich von Stroheim as Lieutenant Kurt von Schnieditz
• Kate Lester as Margaret Landicutt
• Frank de Vernon as Uncle "Jemmy" Landicutt
• Mortimer Martine as Eugene Harbrok (credited as Mortimer Martini)
• Blanche Davenport as Madam Harbrok
• Harold Hollacher as Pierre Harbrok (credited as Harold Hallacher)
• Darwin Karr as "Lefty"
• Earl Schenck as Emanuel Muller
• Gertrude Norman as Marianne Marnholm
• Lew Hart as Hoffman
• Thomas Holcomb as The Commanding Officer (credited as Major Thomas Holcomb)
• Lieutenant J. F. Rorke as Lieutenant Terence O'Shaughnessy
• Sergeant Moss Gill as Albert Mullins
• Major Ross E. Rowell
• Captain Thomas Sterett
• Percy Webb
• Corporal Bob Ryland

Reception

Like many American films of the time, The Unbeliever was subject to cuts by city and state film censorship boards. For example, the Chicago Board of Censors required a cut, in Reel 4, of executing a woman and child and two views of man pulling young woman's waist down. ^[4]

Preservation

A print is preserved at the Library of Congress. ^[5] As a still-surviving feature from Edison, The Unbeliever can be found on Kino's omnibus of Edison Company shorts and features; it is the last film on the final DVD. ^[6] with a new score by Donald Sosin. Alpha Video also has released a DVD version. ^[7]

References

1. Progressive Silent Film List: The Unbeliever at silentera.com
2. The AFI Catalog of Feature Films: The Unbeliever
3. "Reviews: The Unbeliever". Exhibitors Herald. 6 (13). New York City: Exhibitors Herald Company: 23. March 23, 1918.
4. "Official Cut-Outs by the Chicago Board of Censors". Exhibitors Herald. 6 (15): 33. April 6, 1918.
5. The Library of Congress American Silent Feature Film Survival Catalog: The Unbeliever
6. "Edison: The Invention of the Movies at KinoLorber.com". Archived from the original on December 17, 2014. Retrieved December 20, 2014.
7. The Unbeliever on dvd by Alpha Video

External links

• The Unbeliever at IMDb
• Andrews, Mary Raymond Shipman (1915), The Three Things; the Forge in Which the Soul of a Man Was Tested , Boston: Little, Brown and Company, on the Internet Archive