Behind the Door. 1919. Directed by Irvin V. Willat

Film

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Behind the Door. 1919. USA. Directed by Irvin V. Willat. Courtesy San Francisco Silent Film Festival

Behind the Door. 1919. USA. Directed by Irvin V. Willat. With Hobart Bosworth, Wallace Beery, Jane Novak. Silent, with live piano accompaniment by Stephen Horne. 70 min.

MoMA presents the New York premiere of the newly restored *Behind the Door*—“the most outspoken of all the WWI vengeance films” (Kevin Brownlow)—which can finally be seen in a tinted reconstruction of its 1919 theatrical release thanks to the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, The Library of Congress, and Gosfilmofund of Russia. Though it may have missed its calling as wartime propaganda—the film reached theaters after Armistice was declared—Behind the Door was nevertheless a hit for Paramount, a brutal tabloid drama of rape and retribution that pits Hobart Bosworth, a German-American sailor, against Wallace Beery, a sadistic German U-boat commander. The film’s director, Irvin Willat, who was instrumental in the making of Thomas Ince’s 1916 pacifist allegory Civilization, proves himself a gifted orchestrator of Old Testament violence. DCP.

This film accompanies To Save and Project: The 14th MoMA International Festival of Film Preservation.

Past events

Mon, Nov 21, 2016, 2:30 p.m.

MoMA, Floor T2, Theater 2

The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 2
Sun, Nov 20, 2016, 6:45 p.m.

Introduced by David Stenn, author of the biography Clara Bow: Runnin’ Wild

MoMA, Floor T2, Theater 2

The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 2

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