GRIFFITH AT THE FRONT [Main]


View at www.iwm.org.uk
  • Other title(s): HEARTS OF THE WORLD (production scenes) [related]
  • Year: 1917
  • Runtime: 11 mins
  • Description: The film starts with Griffith talking to the abbot and another monk outside the Cistercian abbey at Mont des Cats, used as a casualty clearing station. Griffith is then shown with two British officers entering and leaving a Red Cross station on Kemmel Ridge. The main part of the film shows Griffith's tour over the Ypres ridges. This begins in a trench with British soldiers "sixty yards from the Germans, four miles from Ypres", probably on Wytschaete Ridge south of Hill 60. Griffith goes to the top of the observation post and comes down to set up his camera. There is a test scene of two British soldiers rushing down the trench and slamming a barbed wire screen behind them. Griffith is taken by an escort through Polygon Wood. He watches 6-inch Mk VII guns firing in the Elverdinghe area. With his production crew he surveys the ruins of Ypres Cloth Hall. He talks to Belgian soldiers in a reserve trench in Houlthulst Wood. Finally he inspects a German pillbox, probably at Shrewsbury Forest. He and his escorts try on their gasmasks for the camera. The last scene is of Griffith meeting with British official war correspondents in Cassel, Porte de Bergue area. One of these may be Philip Gibbs of the 'Daily Telegraph' and 'Daily Chronicle'.
    A visit by D W Griffith to the Western Front during the filming of HEARTS OF THE WORLD, September 1917.
  • Keywords: EFG1914 / World War I / Griffith, D W / Gibbs, Philip Armand Hamilton / British Army / Belgian Army / Belgian Catholic Church / buildings, Belgian - religious: monastery / buildings, Belgian - residential / delegations, United States international - goodwill / journalism and record, United States - press / equipment, British - personal: gasmask (small box respirator) / weapons, British - gun: 6-inch Mark VII / 01/3(4-15).7 / Cloth Hall, Ypres, West Flanders, Belgium / Mont des Cats, Kemmel, West Flanders, Belgium / Kemmel Ridge, West Flanders, Belgium / Wytschaete, West Flanders, Belgium / Elverdinge, West Flanders, Belgium / Houthulst Forest, West Flanders, Belgium / Shrewsbury Forest, West Flanders, Belgium / Cassel, Nord, France / camera / World War, 1914-1918 -- Motion pictures and the war
  • Provider: Imperial War Museums
  • Rights: In Copyright / Imperial War Museums
  • Production company: War Office Cinema Committee
  • Colour: Black & White
  • Sound: Without sound