The Godless Girl

1928 film

The Godless Girl is a 1928 American sound part talkie dramatic directed by Cecil B. DeMille. 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 RCA Photophone sound on film system. The cast features Lina Basquette, Marie Prevost, Tom Keene, and Noah Beery.

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 two leaders and their groups attack each other, 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.

The film features a theme song entitled "Love (All I Want Is Love)" which was composed by Josiah Zuro and Charles Weinberg. It is sung and played several times on the soundtrack and serves as the love theme for the film.

The film was inspired by a real life incident at Hollywood High School when a student called Queen Silver started an atheist society. She was a child prodigy and socialist orator, accused of leaving atheist pamphlets in student lockers at Hollywood High School in 1927. The lead actress, Lina Basquette, named her autobiography, Lina: DeMille's Godless Girl, after the film. The UCLA Film and Television Archive restored the film's sound version, in which dialogue scenes were added to the final reel, a film that was one of DeMille's first part sound efforts. Actor Fritz Feld filmed the sound sequences without DeMille's supervision since DeMille had already broken his contract with Pathé, and signed with Metro Goldwyn Mayer.

The film was very popular in the U. S. S. R. and in Germany. The film's popularity in the Soviet Union is believed in part to be due to the fact that the USSR's film censors edited out the main character's conversion to Christianity near the end of the movie. It was a box office disaster in the US. By late 1928, sound films had become extremely popular with the general public so when a silent version was released in August 1928 it was virtually ignored. DeMille attributed the film's failure to its already outmoded format at a time when sound films had won over the public. The film was made into a part talkie with the addition of some dialogue sequences, a musical score and a theme song and this is the form in which most audiences saw the film. The theme song from the sound version became a minor hit and was recorded by several artists including Nat Shilkret for Victor Records. Unfortunately, due to the long delay in releasing the sound version, the film was again outdated by the time of its release as all talking film were quickly become standard by the mid 1929.

In 2007, a version was released by Photoplay Productions and George Eastman House, in association with the Cecil B. DeMille Foundation and Film4, with the picture portion restored from deMille's own nitrate print. Unfortunately, a modern score which bore no resemblance to the original score was used on the DVD. The film has yet to be released with its soundtrack in the form that most audiences originally saw the film in 1929.