
A bronze star meets a bamboo rod—Our Leading Citizen quietly detonates every Horatio Alger cliché the silents ever minted. Paramount’s 1922 release arrived at the precise moment when America, still hungover from its first global war, wanted either bootleg gin or flag-waving hokum. This picture slips a third option i...

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Comparing the cinematic DNA and archive impact of two defining moments in cult history.

Alfred E. Green

Alfred E. Green
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" A bronze star meets a bamboo rod—Our Leading Citizen quietly detonates every Horatio Alger cliché the silents ever minted. Paramount’s 1922 release arrived at the precise moment when America, still hungover from its first global war, wanted either bootleg gin or flag-waving hokum. This picture slips a third option into the national glass: civic disenchantment distilled with lake-water clarity. Director Alfred E. Green, armed by satirist George Ade and scenarist Waldemar Young, turns George Ad..."

Guy Oliver
Waldemar Young, George Ade
United States

