AMERICA
starring Carol Dempster, Lionel Barrymore, Neil Hamilton
MOVIE WEEKLY
March 22, 1924
The motion picture "America" ranks among the three or four truly great films of the cinema's brief history. D.W. Griffith has again reminded the world with an emphatic gesture that he is the chief of all American directors, and supreme artist of great canvases.
It is no coincidence that "The Birth of a Nation," "The Covered Wagon" and "America" have all dealt with epochal periods in this nation's history. The screen is ideally fitted for the portrayal of gigantic themes, and American directorial genius is naturally superlatively inspired by that which is greatly American.
The Revolution and the troublous times which preceded and followed it was one of the most dramatic eras in all man's annals. It was a time of passions, tragedies and the vast, stern gaiety of the liberated human spirit.
With extraordinary force Griffith has brought that national emotion to the screen. The Revolution has been reproduced with such perfection of mood and detail that the spectator feels himself literally experiencing much of the action and sentiment that accompanied it.
An unbelievable wealth of material and incident has been spent to make the picture really epic in quality. There is, of necessity, occasional frailty of continuity, but the marvel on the whole is that "America" holds together at all. For it does.
A charming romance between a Virginia patrician girl and a Boston plough-boy winds its way indissolubly through the sequence of historical scenes. The Battle of Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill, the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Cornwallis' surrender, and the storming of Fort Sacrifice are but a few of the events which have been brought, with marvelous fidelity and drama, to the screen.
Nothing, however is introduced with the crudity of a pageant. Each historic occurrence is brought forward only as it concerns the characters of the story. Their human, poignantly personal tragedies serve as allegories of the nation's woes.
But it is vain to attempt to do justice to the perfection of Griffith's direction, whether demonstrated in the performance of a delicate love scene or a mighty battle.
The spectator is caught up in an emotional cyclone which deposits him, three hours later, gasping back again in a time which, for the nonce, has ceased to exist - the present.
The acting responsibilities fall upon Carol Dempster, Lionel Barrymore and Neil Hamilton. Each is incomparably fine. Barrymore, in a remarkably interesting part, is brilliantly decisive and forceful. Miss Dempster convinces us, after duly calm consideration, that she is the one finely gifted and really beautiful woman on the screen.
It is needless to advise you to see "America." We might make ourselves useful, however, by suggesting a second and a third, and perhaps a fourth trip to it. You will tire of it only when you tire of romance in its greatest sense.
Video source: Kino