D.W. Griffith places his 17-year-old mistress, Carol Dempster, in the leading female role for this somewhat overlooked 1919 film, opposite sturdy Richard Barthelmess, although both are outshined by the secondary leads, Robert Harron and Clarine Seymour, as Griffith is providing his customary surfeit of sub-plots during the telling of a romantic drama concerning the Great War, just concluded at the time of filming. Griffith's systematic skills with flashbacks, montage and editing, along with the as ever creative camerawork of his loyal cinematographer, Billy Bitzer, combine to produce a very tightly-made film, with no loose ends in evidence after its fast-moving 60 minutes. The scenario involves, among so many other elements, the experiences of two brothers, portrayed by Barthelmess and Harron, who are drafted into the United States Army, experience combat in France, each stimulated by a left-behind love affair founded upon, and developing for the most part from, hope alone. A dark aspect of the work stems from the deaths not long after its completion of Harron (a freak gun accident at 27) and Seymour (intestinal illness at 21) with the petite actress who made only a handful of films just having signed a four year contract for two million dollars, an enormous sum at the time; she was that good, and Harron was an actor whose humanity and subtle comic skills were as fine as could be found.
Review of The Girl Who Stayed at Home
