March 12 - 9:00pm

The Godless Girl

Cecil B. DeMille (1929) 113 mins

DeMille’s final silent drama, with a concluding sound coda, is a supposed condemnation of the atheist movement then prevalent on high school & college campuses, & also a reform school exposè with sadistic jailers & lurid torture scenes that DeMille claimed mirrored “life”. DeMille pulled out all the stops aware that this was his farewell to the silent screen. Part outrageous melodrama, part social comedy, part prison reform propaganda, & part religious parable, it is a film of irrational yet compelling power, a film oddity worthy of re-appreciation.

Imported 35mm print courtesy of UCLA Film & TV Archive.

* Preceded at 7.00pm by A Woman of Paris.