Book Review: The Silents Go To War

Author Anita R. Appelbaum has released, thru McFarland publishers, an interesting and enlightening study that examines silent films covering WW1. With a Foreword by noted film historian Anthony Slide, this book does a fine job of presenting cultural history through the movie camera lens. Everything from towering classics to lesser known subjects are discussed, and, thankfully, the author does not overlook comedies (as many studies maddeningly do), including films with the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Mabel Normand, even cross-dresser Bothwell Brown in a Mack Sennett comedy. 

Motion pictures had been growing steadily and rapidly during the beginning of the 20th century.  By the time we get to the fifteen year period this book covers (1915-1930), narrative cinema had expanded and was fairly adept at responding to events in the culture.  War films covered several varied perspective, and this book separates them as the immediate pre-war period (1915-1916), the beginning of the war (1917), documentaries, dramas, and comedies (1918), post-war films (1919), and Antiwar films (1921-1930).  Each section discusses the movies, the period of the war to which they are responding, and their intention of being informative, entertaining or both.

Films like Thomas Ince’s Civilization (1916), J. Stuart Blackton and William P.S. Earle’s Womanhood: The Glory of the Nation (1917), DeMille’s Till I Come Back To You (1918), Chaplin’s Shoulder Arms (1918), Sennett’s Yankee Doodle in Berlin (1919), King Vidor’s The Big Parade (1925), and Lewis Milestone’s All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), are among those discussed throughout the text, the author providing great insight for each.

Along with being a film study, The Silents Go To War is also a history book, discussing the first third of the twentieth century and how its cinema responded to what was inaccurately called “the war to end all wars.”

Anita R. Appplebaum’s book is most highly recommended for pubic and university libraries, research centers, and individuals with an interest in war history and motion pictures.  It is one of the finest books to explore this interesting subject.

The book can be ordered at this link:  SILENTS/WAR