The Little American

Summary

In Cecil B. DeMille's 1917 cinematic crucible, "The Little American," the radiant Mary Pickford, portraying Angela More, initially embodies an almost ethereal innocence, a quintessential American belle residing in a world of privilege and burgeoning romance. Her idyllic existence, marked by a blossoming affection for a German-American suitor, Karl von Austreim, and a former flame, the French officer Jules Ayres, is violently sundered by the thunderous advent of World War I. A fateful transatlantic voyage, undertaken to reconnect with her ancestral French roots, transforms into a harrowing ordeal as her ship falls victim to a merciless German U-boat torpedo attack. Miraculously surviving the maritime catastrophe, Angela finds herself cast ashore in war-torn France, specifically at her family's ancient chateau, now a grim testament to the encroaching conflict. Here, the film sheds its romantic veneer, plunging Angela and the viewer into the visceral realities of occupation. She becomes a firsthand witness to the unsparing brutality of German forces, a chilling tableau of requisitioned homes, civilian subjugation, and the systematic dismantling of dignity. Her initial naiveté evaporates, replaced by a steely resolve forged in the crucible of suffering, as she navigates a landscape where former loyalties are tested, and the stark choice between collaboration and resistance becomes a matter of life and death, ultimately shaping her into an unlikely, yet resolute, symbol of wartime defiance.

Synopsis

A young American has her ship torpedoed by a German U-boat but makes it back to ancestral home in France, where she witnesses German brutality firsthand.