This is Cecil B. DeMille’s last silent movie, and it is weird and unintentionally hilarious. A student forms an underground atheist society at her school, which is apparently a crime.
When the student body president brings a mob to disrupt a society meeting, a girl is killed. Then they go to prison (well, prison-like reform school), where they find love and she finds religion.
The Godless Society has an excellent graphic department. Check this out:
One of the best things about watching this was Marie Prevost (6201 Hollywood Boulevard). I watched a different, terrible movie with her earlier in the year, and it was refreshing to see her in a role that justified her having a Walk of Fame star.
Lina Basquette (1529 Vine Street) is the Godless Girl, who was loosely based on a real person. Basquette had quite a life. She had been married to Sam Warner (co-founder of Warner Bros.), and the rest of the family was upset because the Warners were Jewish and Basquette was Roman Catholic. When Sam died, Lina was pressured by Harry Warner to give up custody of her daughter so the child would be raised Jewish. The custody battle effectively blacklisted Basquette for a time. In the late 1930s she was flown to Germany meet with a German film studio and several Nazis, including Hitler. She claimed she kicked Hitler in the crotch when he hit on her, and that Hitler didn’t stop pestering her until she told him her grandfather was Jewish.
And now, the fake poster. It’s hard to find fun movies with “God” or “Godless” in the title, so I went with “Girl.”
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