“Oh
Lordy- when I prayed for a man- WHY did you send me a thousand?”
Every
year I go back to my high school history teacher’s class to give a presentation
on the Imperial War Museum in London. I went to the Museum three years ago
(goodness it feel like yesterday!) and ever since then I have gone back to my
history teacher’s class. I have a good time teaching the kids, through my
photographs of the museum, the different aspects of both World Wars (I go
usually in the winter for WWI and then in the spring for WWII). When is started
giving this talk three years ago I was not into classic films and the history
of Hollywood as I was now (and I was not a very good teacher I was quite dull
and not that interactive. I guess my museum education classes have been coming
in handy after all) I had no idea that there were propaganda films during WWI. I
thought if I did not know this for the longest time neither would have classes
of sixteen to eighteen year olds so I thought it would be cool as an aside for
my picture of film and photograph camera to tell them about a few films from
that era.
I
remembered reading in a Mary Pickford biography that she had made two films
dealing with The Great War- The Little
American and Johanna Enlists. I put
the posters of these two films on my PowerPoint and gave the little tidbit that
although Mary Pickford was “America’s Sweetheart” she was actually from Canada.
I cannot remember what made me choose Johanna
Enlists over The Little American
but I am so happy I did because Johanna
Enlists is hysterical.
Johanna Renssaller (Pickford) is
a young girl coming of age on a farm out in the middle of nowhere. There are no
young men her age for miles. She flirts with the married handyman much to her
family’s disliking and her father chases him away with a shot gun. Her life is
a dull farm life getting up every day at 6am and doing back breaking work until
dusk. At night she prays for a beau to come and break the monotony of her life
and to take her away from the farm.
The
following day Johanna’s wish for a beau comes true- in the form of a thousand
man army regiment! The regiment is on their way to head to the front until they
get orders to stay put for a while. Johanna is thrilled that all these men will
be around to flirt with and pay attention to her. She starts to read beauty
magazines to make herself look pretty and even tries to educate herself by
trying to dance like a muse she sees in a book.
Johanna
gets much more flirting and attention than she bargained for. A Lieutenant
named Frank LeRoy and a High Private named Vibbard vigorously vie for Johanna’s
attention. This fight for her attention leads Vibbard to almost being Court
Martialed.
From
beginning to end I was laughing so hard at this film. The title cards are so hilarious.
Since Johanna and her family are supposed to be uneducated so everything is spelled
wrong or used in the wrong context. I was dying with the way college was
spelled- “collitch”- and the way education was spelled- “ejjicatun”. The title
cards were fabulously dry and sarcastic almost to a point of being cruel but
you cannot help but laugh every time they come up.
Mary
Pickford was a riot. I can see why audiences loved her she did anything to get
a laugh and was totally believable as this young girl doing all she could to
get a beau (Pickford was young at the time she was twenty-five). I was dying
laughing at the park where Johanna tries dancing like a muse. Her father comes
out and calls for the mother and they think Johanna has come down with a case
of the fits. The father gets a bucket and throws water on her while she is
rolling around on the ground!
Johanna Enlists despite being
outrageously funny is really interesting to watch for its use of an actual
regiment. At the end a title card lets you know that the soldiers were all
actual members of the 143 Field Artillery Regiment and that Mary Pickford was
their Godmother and Honorary Colonel. So not only do I get to tell my teacher’s
classes how this is a good example of a propaganda piece from World War I, I also
get to them this is a lot of fun to watch. If you want to have a good time
laughing at a silly old film with some of the best title cards you will ever
see watch Johanna Enlists. As of
right now it is available to watch on YouTube.
No comments:
Post a Comment