Hearts of the World

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Hearts of the World

1918,

1h 57m,

War

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Watchlist

95%

22 Reviews

Tomatometer

33%

100+ Ratings

Popcornmeter

95%

Tomatometer

22 Reviews

33%

Popcornmeter

100+ Ratings

Young American man Douglas Gordon Hamilton (Robert Harron) lives in a rural French community where he is successfully wooing local beauty Marie Stephenson (Lillian Gish). But their romance is interrupted when World War I dawns, and Douglas decides to join up with the French Army. The Germans then mercilessly bomb and infiltrate Marie's village, and Douglas is injured in battle. As lecherous German soldiers close in on Marie, a recovering Douglas plans a daring rescue.

Kenneth Macgowan

The New Republic

Jul 14, 2021

Mr. Griffith's films have demonstrated in their maker a vivid, an over-vivid, flair for violence, passion and horror... but none for the finer and larger qualities of faith and heroism which seem to deserve their place in the movies as well as in life.

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Globe Staff

Boston Globe

Aug 13, 2020

It is interesting to note that instead of trying to outdo himself in staging gigantic battle scenes, [Griffith] used the great war only as a background for the filming of a simple and attractive love story of tremendous human interest.

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Wapo Staff

Washington Post

Aug 13, 2020

Exquisite in pathos, tremendous in the scope of its visualization of the debacle of the trenches and without a peer in photographic beauty.

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Julian Johnson

Photoplay

Aug 13, 2020

I think the main secret of Griffith's clutch at people's hearts is his'patient preliminary exposition of every detail of his characters' lives.

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Harriette Underhill

New York Tribune

Aug 13, 2020

Every character in the play is real. Either Mr. Griffith has a genius for selecting his casts or else he has the power to infuse in his actors something of his own genius.

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Peter Milne

Motion Picture News

Aug 13, 2020

After all who is responsible for all this? It is D. W. Griffith. He who can glorify the commonplace, he who can include the reality of the titanic struggle of all the world in the four walls of a theatre.

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Synopsis

Young American man Douglas Gordon Hamilton (Robert Harron) lives in a rural French community where he is successfully wooing local beauty Marie Stephenson (Lillian Gish). But their romance is interrupted when World War I dawns, and Douglas decides to join up with the French Army. The Germans then mercilessly bomb and infiltrate Marie's village, and Douglas is injured in battle. As lecherous German soldiers close in on Marie, a recovering Douglas plans a daring rescue.

Director: D.W. Griffith
Screenwriter: D.W. Griffith
Production Co: Paramount
Genre: War
Release Date (Streaming): Aug 11, 2016
Runtime: 1h 57m

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