Moving Picture Age (Nov-Dec 1919)

MOVING PSCIME AG (REEL and SLIDE MAGAZINE) TO RA DEC 15 1919 ■At 3£a] MuB?^ VOL. II DECEMBER, 1919 NO. 12 How "The Lost Battalion" Helped to Make History Reproduced in Moving Pictures, One of the Most Thrilling Incidents of Battle During the Great War Is Permanently Recorded for Future Generations to See By the Editor of Moving Picture Age A BATTLE motion picture that will take rank with "The Birth of a Nation" as a work of historical interest and value has recently been presented to the public by the McManus Corporation of New York. "The Lost Battalion" gives the story of one of the most dramatic incidents of the most destructive war in history in a way that will keep the incident itself fresh in the memory of every good American. Its _ scenes follow the two pregnant years through which the nation has just passed and, showing the rapid formation of our army, culminate in one of the bravest exploits in the records of any military unit in any army. That the scenes were not filmed "on the ground" does not detract in the least from their general accuracy. They were reconstructed and personally supervised by members of the battalion who went through the fight in the Argonne forest with it. The story of the lost battalion is too well known to now need rehearsing. When that battalion of the Seventyseventh Division was entirely cut off flanks and rear from all c o m m unication and help and besieged for six days from all sides by the Germans the allied world knew about it almost before the rescuing troops had reached them ; never a true heart among us all, sinners and saints alike, that did not swell in proud approval as we read of Colonel Whittlesey's terse answer to the German demand to surrender. And because of its fidelity to detail and to the spirit of every home throughout the land when once we were roused to war this film will probably become a most valuable historical document. Somehow the producer and director have caught the spirit of the American "doughboy." Every scene films the homely, humorous and noble characteristics of the American soldier, product of many climes and nations. It touches human interest from almost every angle ; it appeals to patriotic pride ; it has power to produce tears of laughter and tears that spring from the sight of rows of white crosses in a graveyard in France. For human interest, there are the thief, the two Chinese boys, the son of a millionaire, the clerk who knew it all and the many others that came from New York's high and low places to form the Seventyseventh Division to bring out all the characteristics of the ordinary New York boy; for patriotic pride there are these same boys standing at attention or presenting arms as the flag swoops down at "retreat ;" and for grins and tears, from the gay to the grim side of war these same boys symbolize their country to the average American. General Robert S. Alexander gives the Lost Battalion final instructions before going over the top to their five-day fight surrounded and outnumbered by the Germans. 11 Soldiers and friends of soldiers will laugh again as they did during the first days in camp or when friends first came to visit. The millionaire father who had promised to use his influence asks for "Captain Merwin" and is told that the only Merwin in camp is a "K. P." Papa struts with pride and says to the boy's sweetheart, "I told you my influence would get him an officer's job." But a few minutes later Merwin is found cleaning a garbage pail. Against such scenes come in high relief the later ones of tragedy, when the little band, cut off and hopeless, fight on as those who do the day's work cheerfully. In the sending out of carrier pigeons and the exchange of messages with the enemy are moments of interest relieving the more dramatic action. At the first presentation of the story in Hartford, Conn., Captain William J. Cullen, Irving Woolf of Hartford and Abraham L. Krotoshinsky of New York, all members of the battalion, appeared before the screen and it is said they winced more before the applause that greeted them than they d i d when repulsing German attacks in "The Pocket" in the Argonne. It was the New York boy who crawled two and one-half miles in thirteen hours and brought word of the battalion's predicament. Slang is not a dignified method of e x p r e s sing thought and according to the guardians and keepers of the English language its use is never justified, but there are times when it drives home a point as no other word could do, even as the terse reply of Colonel Whittlesey to the German officers conveyed a fact to them, when he told them to go to some other place. With which preamble it may perhaps be allowable to write that author, director and producer of this film have in it "grabbed off the cream" of the war. Miles of film have been filled with scenes of the battlefields and; taken from a distance, of actual collisions with the enemy during the war. The United States government and private producers have vaults full of them now and the screen will show them from time to time. They have, most of them, great historical value and some of them record the wild drama at its best — or worst. Not many of them, however, can claim for themselves such an atmosphere of direct interest and remembrance of events portrayed as does this film showing the story of one little battalion among the thousands that fought in the trenches "over there." It was not made at the time or in the actual surroundings of the occurrence that makes the lost battalion a household word that will never be forgotten in American homes. Its scenes were reproduced as nearly as possible to the life from descriptions and directions given by men who were in the fight and whose im