America (United Artists) (1924)

Cast a^nd Synopsis D. W. GRIFFITH Presents “AMERICA” Story and Titles by Robert W. Chambers Historical 1 Arrangement by John L. E. Pell Released by United Artists Corporation CAST OF CHARACTERS (In the order of their appearance) Nathan Holden .NEIL HAMILTON Justice Montague .ERVILLE ALDERSON Miss Nancy Montague .CAROL DEMPSTER Charles Philip Edward Montague.CHARLES EMMETT MACK Samuel Adams .LEE BEGGS John Hancock .JOHN DUNTON King George III .ARTHUR DONALDSON William Pitt .CHARLES BENNETT Lord Chamberlain!.DOWLING CLARK Thomas Jefferson .FRANK WALSH Patrick Henry .FRANK McGLYNN, JR. George Washington .ARTHUR DEWEY Richard Henry Lee .P. R. SCAMMON Captain Walter Butler .LIONEL BARRYMORE Sir Ashley Montague .SIDNEY DEANE General Gage .W. W. JONES Captain Montour .E. ROSEMAN Chief of Senecas, Hiakatoo.HARRY SEMALLS Paul Revere ..'.HARRY O’NEILL John Parker, Captain of Minute Men.H. VAN BOUSEN Major Pitcairn .HUGH BAIRD Jones Parker .JAMES MILAIDY Colonel Prescott .H. KOSER Major General Warren .MICHAEL DONOVAN Captain Hare .LOUIS WOLHEIM Chief of Mohawks, Joseph Brant.RILEY HATCH Edmund Burke .W. RISING Personal servant of Miss Montague.DANIEL CARNEY Household servant at Ashley Court.E. SCANLON Lord North .EMIL HOCH A Refugee Mother .LUCILLE LA VERNE (by special courtesy) Major Strong .EDWIN HOLLAND An Old Patriot .MILTON NOBLE THE STAFF ASSISTING MR. GRIFFITH Assistant Director . Herbert Sutch Director of Construction .William J. Bantel Photographers, Hendrick Sartov, G. W. Bitzer, Marcel Le Picard, H. S. Sintzenich Art Director .Charles M. Kirk Artist Designer .Warren A. Newcombe Film Editors .James and Rose Smith Still Photographer .Frank J. Diem Scenic Artist .Charles E. Boss Personal Representative .James M. Ashcraft Chief Projectionist .Benjamin Turner PD ATrriTT Ari/ATAtirT ^T-. t t GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENTS OF ASSISTANCE ARE DUE: Daughters of the American Revolution. Edwin B. Worthen, President Lexington Historical Society, Lexington, Mass. Secretary of War John W. Weeks, Washington, D. C. G. Watson James, Jr., National Historian, Sons of the Revolution. Brigadier General Sir) Percy Sykes of the British Army. Charles K. Bolton, President Boston Athenaeum and Senior Warden Old North Church. Dr. J. A. C. Chandler, President College of William and Mary. Br. W. A. R. Goodwin, of the Faculty College of William and Mary. E. G. Swen, Librarian College of William and Mary. Richard Crane, Westover on the James River, Va. 1 Admiral and Mrs. Oliver and Mrs. Bransford, Shirley on the James River, Va. Governor Trinkle of Virginia. John Q. James, Virginia Historical! Society, Richmond, Va. Major General Robert L. Bullard, U. S. A. Major William C. Rose, U. S. A., Governor’s Island. Major Marino, U. S. A., Fort Slocum, N. Y. Capt. George T. Shank, U. S. A., Fort Slocum, N. Y. The 18th Infantry, U. S. A. The 16th Infantry, U. S. A. Col. Hamilton Hawkins, 3rd U. S. Cavalry, Fort Meyer, Va. Major J. M. Wainwright, Fort Meyer, Va. Third U. S. Cavalry of Fort Meyer, Va. W. Jordan, Curator Independence Hall, Philadelphia, Pa. W. Herbert Burk, D.D., Valley Forge Historical Society. Paul Revere Historical Society. Virginia Historical Society. New York Public Library. New York Historical Society. Massachusetts Historical Society. Disputes have tumbled through his¬ torical societies and persons laden with historic lore, regarding the color of the horse Paul Revere rode in the famous flight to Lexington. This is, perhaps, America’s most famous horse; as, aside from the actual historic prom¬ inence, it is known to nearly every American through Longfellow’s popu¬ lar poem. Painters, generally, have portrayed this horse as white. The color was recommended largely through artistic expediency rather than historic proof, as the white horse provided an easy contrast and relief from the back¬ ground of the night scene. It is true that Revere’s own horse was white. Revere, however, lived in North Square, Boston, and as the British troops occupied the roads leading out of the city, he had to cross the river to Charlestown. Two friends, Joshua Bentley and Thomas Richardson, started with him across the Charles River in a boat when they saw the British ship “Somerset” anchored in mid-stream. They had nothing with which to muffle the oars, and Bentley went ashore, returning with a petti¬ coat still warm from the body of a Daughter of Liberty. It was the night of April 18, 1775. A horse had been borrowed from Deacon Larkin in Charlestown, for the ride. The Deacon had two horses, it is reported, one a seal bay and the other a dark roan in color. THE SYNOPSIS The romance develops between Nathan Holden, an express rider of Massachusetts, and Nancy Montague of Virginia. She belongs to one of the world’s most famous families of the nobility, directly descended from Charles, Earl of Halifax. The Montague house! and estates are the show place of America; hundreds of slaves serving the little .principality; the Montague’s own ships sailing the seas. When presented at court in London, little Nancy is the sensation of the season, a tantalizing little beauty. From the letters written by the great ladies concerning Miss Nancy’s presentation, comes a murmur, gentle but fragrant, of the daintiness of her taste in perfume and lingerie. Other letters comment on the whimsical way she used to look at George Washington. Nathan is the champion wrestler and tathlete of Massachusetts; a daring horseman; and, though poor, of good family and a graduate of Harvard. The passionate tenderness of his poetry, I still in existence, reflects in the sombre beauty of his smouldering eyes. Holden first meets Nancy in Virginia. He thrills at the first sight —a startling vision with her silk-clad ankles fluttering beneath her dainty skirt; a tender vision in her innocence and graceful beauty—and thinks to touch her would be more than youth could endure. He writes that he sets her as a thing apart. Perhaps it is the great difference in their stations. Strangely enough,; they meet later when, the Montagues, being Loy¬ alists, go North to consult with the King’s people about resisting the rebels at Lexington, arriving on the very night Paul Revere sets the world afire by his mad ride. It is here Nancy puts her girlhood aside; for it is here her lover is forced to break her heart. As the poet says: “Each man kills the thing he loves: Let this by all be heard. The brave man does it with a sword; the coward with a word.” It is here also that Nancy’s brother, though of a family of Loyalists, embraces the American cause. Nancy, like her mother, is known for the passionate tenderness of her devotion to her brother. Though a dandy, he is a dangerous swords¬ man, expert marksman and brave as men can be. Risking all, her brother embraces the cause of Freedom, the symbol of sacrifices of the many that freedom might not die from the face of the earth. And then later, Nancy, with her father, escapes to her Uncle’s home in Northernl New York, and there in the great sacrifice; she puts away the rich garments of the past, and takes on the sweetest robes of all, the perfumed, glorious robes of service. Here also continues our love story, a silver thread of romance run¬ ning through that great horth country from the upper Hudson through Pennsylvania; where were the granaries of Washington’s armies. The people of the southern states endured much, but the/ people 'of the Northland lived and worked and struggled through the war in con¬ stant fearl of death that hovered in every wood and covert. Through all this vast country, towns and districts were destroyed with fire and sword in the hands of Tories, Hessians and regulars. With the visitations of the enemy, death, torture, burning at the stake, mutilations and horrors that cannot even be suggested, were inflicted upon men, women and children, time and time again; and, with tremendous courage, the people rebuilt their homes, restored their fields, only to have them destroyed again. One may ask why Washington crossing the Delaware is not( shown. Our story deals with the sacrifices made to give us our institutions today. In crossing 1 the Delaware, Washington lost but two men. The American forces that held the North lost ten thousand; suffered at the hands of the Tories and Indians unmentionable tortures. With every man’s scalp worth seven dollars then (more than $100 by comparison today), death of the Americans meant commercial success as well as triumph with arms. And the women, for whose scalps no bounty was offered, were oftentimes burned in their homes. These unknown heroes along America’s border from Fort Pitt, Penn¬ sylvania, to her eastern boundaries! These brave, loyal hearts that held this great stretch of country against America’s enemies, Tories, Hessians, Indians and regulars! Thousands gave their lives: These heroes, unlike Paul Revere, had no glorious Longfellow to sing their song, and the historians of the Revo¬ lution were with the southern armies. Unknown, unsung, they lie on this vast plain, sacrificed on this great altar. Over them let us drop one tear from a grateful heart; over them one sigh of compassion; over them at least one little laurel spray for remembrance. To this Northland Washington sends Nathan Holden, now a captain in Morgan’s Riflemen, the most famous fighting unit of the Americans. They wear “Liberty or Death” upon their breasts. Here Nathan again meets Nancy, not in dramatic devices, but in incidents which actually occur according to. the authentic reports of the military records. Nancy is caught with the other refugees at Fort Sacrifice, the symbol of America. America’s enemies are pounding at the gates. Nancy is threatened in a whirlpool of terror, death, destruction, swirling around the Fort. An American courier takes this news to young Holden and his Mor¬ gan’s Riflemen. We/ must thrill with them when they receive this news, and when Nathan goes with his men to save the Fort, grander in their homespun than knights in armor and swifter than Fate in their retribution. This picture play is merely an attempt to suggest in a small way the great sacrifice made by our forefathers that America might become a free and independent nation. It is in no sense an attempt to portray the story of the Revolu¬ tionary War: as that story is too tremendous to be told fully by many picture plays, much less by one. No efforts have been spared to have the historical incidents as cor¬ rect as possible 1 . The villages of Lexington and Concord were designed from the Doolittle drawings, and descriptions given by writers of the day. In the conflict at Lexington and Concord Bridge, despite the num¬ bers engaged, our picture shows the exact number killed. The battle lines at Lexington are exact reproductions of the original, as to numbers—800 British against 77 Americans. The details of Paul Revere’s ride are historical incidents and not dramatic conveniences. When pursued by British horsemen, he outrode them by hurdling fence and gate cross-country, finally losing them in a quagmire. Replicas of Paul Revere’s lanterns were actually hung in Old North Church for the signals. The drum used by the Minute Men is the original one used at the Battle of Lexington. Several flint-lock guns carried in the scene were actually used in that strife, and pistols shown are those recovered from Maj. Pitcairn’s horse, after being abandoned when injured. Buckman’s Tavern is an exact reproduction, and the Clark home Is an actual photograph of the original. As for Walter Butler, symbol of other leaders in the battle of autoc¬ racy against freedom, Fiske, perhaps the greatest of the American his¬ torians, says he is the only character in all history in whom he could find not one single redeeming trait.