The Unbeliever

The Unbeliever

Still with Marguerite Courtot and Raymond McKee
Directed by Alan Crosland
Produced by Edison Company
George Kleine
Based on The Three Things 
by Mary Raymond Shipman
Starring Raymond McKee
Marguerite Courtot
Music by J. Warde Hutton
Cinematography Philip Tannura
Production
company
Edison Company
Distributed by George Kleine
Release dates
February 11, 1918
Running time
80 minutes
Country United States
Language Silent (English intertitles)

The Unbeliever is a 1918 American silent propaganda film made towards the end of World War I. It was directed by Alan Crosland for the Edison Company towards its last days as a functioning film-making company. It stars Raymond McKee and Marguerite Courtot, who married a few years later, and Eric von Stroheim.[1][2]

Plot

As described in a film magazine,[3] Philip Landicutt has always held the people of the lower classes as being far beneath him. He also is prejudiced against anyone with German blood and does not believe in God. He joins the Marine Corps and goes to France where constant association with the men in his battery and nearly answering the call from above during an action makes him see things differently. He returns home, crippled, but with a better knowledge of man and God. During a raid he rescued a Belgian girl who is later sent to stay with his mother. When he comes home and sees her, he finds himself in love.

Cast

Reception

Like many American films of the time, The Unbeliever was subject to cuts by city and state film censorship boards. For example, the Chicago Board of Censors required a cut, in Reel 4, of executing a woman and child and two views of man pulling young woman's waist down.[4]

Preservation

A print is preserved at the Library of Congress.[5] As a still-surviving feature from Edison, The Unbeliever can be found on Kino's omnibus of Edison Company shorts and features; it is the last film on the final DVD.[6] with a new score by Donald Sosin. Alpha Video also has released a DVD version.[7]

References

External links

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