I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

When the US entered World War I, the government forced Hollywood to churn out propaganda films. THE LITTLE American is probably the best of the lot because it stars Mary Pickford.Pickford plays a young woman torn between two men: Jack Holt (German) and Raymond Hatton (French), but her decision is delayed because of the war as both men enlist.When the ship Pickford is sailing on is sunk by the Germans (think Lusitania) because it is carrying munitions, Pickford has a great scene as she stands on the lifeboat and yells at the German commander. Later on, of course, she runs into both Holt and Hatton when she is being held as a war prisoner at a château.Director Cecil B. DeMille provides one truly great scene in this film as Pickford and Holt are wandering through a bombed-out village. They pass a destroyed church of which only one wall remains standing. Against the wall is a very large crucifix. As they stand and watch, the wall collapses but the Jesus figure remains, suspended in mid air. It's a very surreal moment in a film that is otherwise very straightforward and un-artsy.Pickford is, as always, a pleasure to watch. She was always a very natural actress who avoided the arm-waving histrionics many other actors of the day used. She's also very very pretty. Holt is very good here in a leading-man role. Hatton is OK. Among the list of name actors in "extra" parts are Wallace Beery, Ramon Novarro, Colleen Moore, Ben Alexander, Hobart Bosworth, Norman Kerry, Walter Long, James Neill, and Edythe Chapman.Not a great film, but interesting to see US propaganda at work.

With the US having recently entered the First World War, the country's best known and most popular director teamed with its most beloved actress to fire a cinematic salvo in this flag-waving adventure.In style this is something of a departure for DeMille. He more or less abandons his use of long takes, painterly shot compositions and predominantly visual narrative, in favour of rapid editing and lots of expository intertitles. Of course this is purely pragmatic – it keeps the story moving along quickly and injects some excitement and tension into what is after all a propaganda piece. The heavier than usual use of intertitles also leaves no ambiguity about plot or character intention. Some of these editing patterns are quite effective – for example, the crosscutting used when the ocean liner is torpedoed. However fans of DeMille's early silents will probably find themselves missing the more considered approach they will be familiar with. This is certainly one of his least graceful films.The fact that The Little American is more action-centred means it is less acting centred – there is not the same concentration on performance that you normally get with DeMille. For this reason this is not a particularly memorable role for Mary Pickford, and to be fair almost any actress could have played the part equally well. However the casting of Pickford would have been symbolic and psychologically effective at the time. Although the press had not yet labelled her America's sweetheart, she certainly occupied that position. Therefore DeMille did not have to go out of his way to endear the audience to the character of Angela Moore, because they had already formed an emotional attachment to Mary Pickford.Regardless of how effective this picture was in its day it is really quite a mediocre effort when taken out of context. One interesting point though – the one scene in The Little American that really looks like the typical DeMille is the one in which Pickford and Holt take refuge in a ruined church below the effigy of Christ on the cross. Throughout the picture the stars and stripes is treated with the same reverence and significance DeMille might give to a crucifix. This picture is another small step towards the iconic imagery and preachiness that would characterise his work from the twenties onwards.

Little American, The (1917) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Cecil B. DeMille would eventually become known for his over the top films but I guess you can follow this type of film-making back to 1917 and this picture. The film starts off in America where Angela Moore (Mary Pickford) is being courted by both a German (Jack Holt) and a Frenchman (Raymond Hatton). When WW1 breaks out both men head off to fight for their different countries and soon Mary, now in France, comes under attack by German troops and Holt will have to decide to save her or stand up for his evil country. This film is so over the top in its patriotism that at times it becomes quite laughable. At the start of the film, when Pickford's character is introduced, we learn that she was born on the Fourth of July. When we first see her there's a big American flag waving behind her as she gives that lovely smile towards the camera. Overall this film is a mixed bag full of some great stuff but also containing a lot of weak stuff. The good stuff includes a strong performance by both Pickford and Holt who settle into their roles quite well. Apparently Pickford hated working for DeMille but that doesn't really show as she delivers her strong performance. The battle scenes, for the most part, are pretty good as well. The most interesting aspect of the film is how they show the evils being done by the German's at the time and this includes showing them raping some women as well as killing elderly men. The weak stuff is all the propaganda running throughout the film. I know this was common for the day but this film takes it to a whole new level. Another silly sequence is when Pickford's U-Boat is hit by a German torpedo. The special effects here are so bad that you can tell the boat seems to be a plastic one floating in a tub. The scenes towards the end where Pickford runs into Jesus on the cross doesn't contain the magic that DeMille was going for either. In the end, this is a mixed bag but fans of DeMille and Pickford would probably want to check it out but D.W. Griffith's Hearts of the World is much better.

(SPOILERS IN FIRST PARAGRAPH) This movie's anti-German sentiment seems painfully dated now, but it's a brilliant example of great war-time propaganda. It was made back when Cecil B. DeMille was still a great director. (Ignore all his later Best Picture Academy Awards; he never made a very good sound film.) This movie lacks the comedy of most of Pickford's other films, and really it was DeMille's movie, not Pickford's. The vilification of the Germans can be compared to the way "The Patriot" of 2000 did the same to the British. The only good German in the film was a reluctant villain who had the ironic name of Austreheim. They even had Pickford take an ill-fated trip on a luxury ship that gets torpedoed by a German submarine. So what'll get the Americans more stirred up to war? The sinking of the Lusitania, or watching America's favorite Canadian import sinking in it? All throughout the film DeMille runs his protagonist from one kind of horrible calamity to another, barely escaping death, hypothermia, depravity, rape, execution, and explosions that go off in just the right place to keep her unharmed. The way she is saved from a firing squad is no more believable than the way the humans in "Jurassic Park" were ultimately rescued from the velociraptors. If I was any more gullible to such propaganda I would punish myself for having a part-German ancestry. Was it a good film? Aside from a humorous running gag about Americans abroad thinking they're untouchable – that was apparently a joke even back then – you might not be entertained. You'll find it more than a little melodramatic, and obviously one-sided, but the first thing that came to my mind after watching it is that it was years before Potemkin's false portrayal of a massacre revolutionized the language of cinema as well as a movie's potential for propaganda. It made me wonder: what became of Cecil B. DeMille? Somewhere between the advent of sound and "The Greatest Show on Earth" he seemed to lose his ambition. Ben Hur looked expensive, but not ambitious. In a sentence, this movie is for 1) Film historians, 2) Silent Film Buffs, 3) Mary Pickford fans, or 4) DeMille fans, if such a person exists.