"The Godless Girl" was one of Cecil B. DeMille's cynical attempts to combine sexual sensationalism with puritanical moralising ... thus catering for movie audiences' voyeurism while stroking their prejudices and allowing them to feel moral and pious. Many of DeMille's films offered this combination of sexual exploitation and fetishism in a moralistic framework ... which explains why DeMille's movies almost invariably were huge hits at the box office.
Lina Basquette (dark-haired and very beautiful) portrays Judy Craig, the leader of the Atheist Society, a radical students' group. She is opposed by George Hathaway (Tom Keene, too old for his role), the handsome leader of a club for church-going Christian students. The two factions clash on campus, and a girl is accidentally killed. (There are two impressive elevator shots here, similar to a shot in Rene Clair's film 'Sous les Toits de Paris'.) The bitter rivals Judy and George, plus hapless scapegoat Samuel 'Bozo' Johnson (comic relief Eddie Quillan, who seems to be in an entirely different movie), are charged with manslaughter. Because they're minors, they're sentenced to the reformatory rather than prison.
SLIGHT SPOILERS COMING. DeMille takes great delight in showing us Judy's degradation. We see long loving close-ups as Lina Basquette's beautiful long hair is clipped short for her entry into the Borstal. It's clear that DeMille is aroused by Judy's degradation, and that he expects us to feel the same way.
Eventually, Judy and George (former enemies) manage to break out of the reformatory together and escape to a pastoral wilderness where they can start over as Eve and Adam in a new Eden. This was another recurring motif in DeMille's films ... as in 'Four Frightened People', in which Claudette Colbert and Herbert Marshall portray two repressed people who lose their inhibitions (and their clothing) in a tropical paradise. Basquette's eyeliner remains intact throughout her adventures.
"The Godless Girl" was the peak of Basquette's career. Allegedly, her performance in this film was so convincing that movie audiences supposedly assumed that Basquette herself must be as immoral as the atheist she portrays here ... and so she was never again cast in a starring role. I suspect that Basquette was actually a casualty of talking pictures. "The Godless Girl" was filmed as a silent movie with brief sound-film sequences in the final reel. The audible sequences reveal that Basquette was unsuited for a career in talking pictures. Her voice isn't as bad as Marceline Day's (another leading lady of the late silent era whose peculiar diction scuttled her talking-picture career), but Basquette's voice isn't very good and it records badly. Ironically, one of Basquette's husbands was Sam Warner of Warner Brothers: the one man in Hollywood who, more than anyone else, pushed for the talking-film revolution. (Sam's brother Jack L Warner opposed the idea, but was quick to take credit after Sam's death.)
After Basquette's last divorce, she retired to a remote farm in Pennsylvania where she bred Great Danes, also working as an unpaid judge at dog shows. In 1943, an AWOL serviceman trespassed on Basquette's farm and raped her. The assault made national headlines; prior to Connie Francis, Lina Basquette was probably the most famous show-biz personality to be publicly identified as a rape victim. Her assailant was convicted, and he did heavy prison time. Sadly, in the 1940s and '50s, Basquette was better known for being raped than for her careers as an actress and dog breeder.
"The Godless Girl" is heavy-handed, but still a very powerful film which I strongly recommend. It's an excellent example of the awkward period of Hollywood's transition from silent films to talkies. I'll rate this movie 7 points out of 10.
Lina Basquette (dark-haired and very beautiful) portrays Judy Craig, the leader of the Atheist Society, a radical students' group. She is opposed by George Hathaway (Tom Keene, too old for his role), the handsome leader of a club for church-going Christian students. The two factions clash on campus, and a girl is accidentally killed. (There are two impressive elevator shots here, similar to a shot in Rene Clair's film 'Sous les Toits de Paris'.) The bitter rivals Judy and George, plus hapless scapegoat Samuel 'Bozo' Johnson (comic relief Eddie Quillan, who seems to be in an entirely different movie), are charged with manslaughter. Because they're minors, they're sentenced to the reformatory rather than prison.
SLIGHT SPOILERS COMING. DeMille takes great delight in showing us Judy's degradation. We see long loving close-ups as Lina Basquette's beautiful long hair is clipped short for her entry into the Borstal. It's clear that DeMille is aroused by Judy's degradation, and that he expects us to feel the same way.
Eventually, Judy and George (former enemies) manage to break out of the reformatory together and escape to a pastoral wilderness where they can start over as Eve and Adam in a new Eden. This was another recurring motif in DeMille's films ... as in 'Four Frightened People', in which Claudette Colbert and Herbert Marshall portray two repressed people who lose their inhibitions (and their clothing) in a tropical paradise. Basquette's eyeliner remains intact throughout her adventures.
"The Godless Girl" was the peak of Basquette's career. Allegedly, her performance in this film was so convincing that movie audiences supposedly assumed that Basquette herself must be as immoral as the atheist she portrays here ... and so she was never again cast in a starring role. I suspect that Basquette was actually a casualty of talking pictures. "The Godless Girl" was filmed as a silent movie with brief sound-film sequences in the final reel. The audible sequences reveal that Basquette was unsuited for a career in talking pictures. Her voice isn't as bad as Marceline Day's (another leading lady of the late silent era whose peculiar diction scuttled her talking-picture career), but Basquette's voice isn't very good and it records badly. Ironically, one of Basquette's husbands was Sam Warner of Warner Brothers: the one man in Hollywood who, more than anyone else, pushed for the talking-film revolution. (Sam's brother Jack L Warner opposed the idea, but was quick to take credit after Sam's death.)
After Basquette's last divorce, she retired to a remote farm in Pennsylvania where she bred Great Danes, also working as an unpaid judge at dog shows. In 1943, an AWOL serviceman trespassed on Basquette's farm and raped her. The assault made national headlines; prior to Connie Francis, Lina Basquette was probably the most famous show-biz personality to be publicly identified as a rape victim. Her assailant was convicted, and he did heavy prison time. Sadly, in the 1940s and '50s, Basquette was better known for being raped than for her careers as an actress and dog breeder.
"The Godless Girl" is heavy-handed, but still a very powerful film which I strongly recommend. It's an excellent example of the awkward period of Hollywood's transition from silent films to talkies. I'll rate this movie 7 points out of 10.