The Russian Revolution thoroughly alarmed post-First World War America, and 'Bolshevism on Trial' is often mentioned as a high-profile component in the United States' response to this new threat from the East.
Based, like 'Birth of a Nation', on a novel by the Southern Baptist minister Thomas Dixon Jr., 'Bolshevism on Trial' sidesteps the former's outrageous racism by having only one non-white character, Saka, played by Chief Standing Bear, who proudly declares himself "Me tame Indian -- no like-um Red".
The original novel, 'Comrades: A Story of Social Adventure in California' was published in 1909, and the print available on YouTube bears the title of a later recut version, 'Shattered Dreams', so we're not seeing exactly the same film that audiences saw in 1919. The word 'Bolshevism' never actually appears in 'Shattered Dreams', the group that socialite heroine Barbara Alden (Inez Nesbit) throws in her lot with being variously described as socialists, communists and as reds; disdainfully portrayed as a bunch of useless, bohemian layabouts rather than as an imminent threat to western civilisation.
Leading man Robert Frazer is most likely to be recognisable to modern audiences as the hero of 'White Zombie' (1932). His millionaire father, Colonel Henry Bradshaw (Henry Truesdale), is - the film tells us - "a brain worker" whose inventions have increased the comfort of his generation, created work for thousands of employes (sic) and brought wealth to himself; but presumably he's now retired, since he spends most of the film seated in his palatial home (complete with an indoor fountain) staring sternly into space like most rich men in silent films.
As portrayed by Leslie Stowe, bolshevik-in-chief Herman Wolff is an ugly, scowling brute who in a prophetic nod to the antics of more recent cult leaders (SPOILER COMING) ditches his wife Catherine (played by Ethel Wright) to make a play for Barbara before being foiled by a naval occupation and exposed as really being named "Androvitch".
Based, like 'Birth of a Nation', on a novel by the Southern Baptist minister Thomas Dixon Jr., 'Bolshevism on Trial' sidesteps the former's outrageous racism by having only one non-white character, Saka, played by Chief Standing Bear, who proudly declares himself "Me tame Indian -- no like-um Red".
The original novel, 'Comrades: A Story of Social Adventure in California' was published in 1909, and the print available on YouTube bears the title of a later recut version, 'Shattered Dreams', so we're not seeing exactly the same film that audiences saw in 1919. The word 'Bolshevism' never actually appears in 'Shattered Dreams', the group that socialite heroine Barbara Alden (Inez Nesbit) throws in her lot with being variously described as socialists, communists and as reds; disdainfully portrayed as a bunch of useless, bohemian layabouts rather than as an imminent threat to western civilisation.
Leading man Robert Frazer is most likely to be recognisable to modern audiences as the hero of 'White Zombie' (1932). His millionaire father, Colonel Henry Bradshaw (Henry Truesdale), is - the film tells us - "a brain worker" whose inventions have increased the comfort of his generation, created work for thousands of employes (sic) and brought wealth to himself; but presumably he's now retired, since he spends most of the film seated in his palatial home (complete with an indoor fountain) staring sternly into space like most rich men in silent films.
As portrayed by Leslie Stowe, bolshevik-in-chief Herman Wolff is an ugly, scowling brute who in a prophetic nod to the antics of more recent cult leaders (SPOILER COMING) ditches his wife Catherine (played by Ethel Wright) to make a play for Barbara before being foiled by a naval occupation and exposed as really being named "Androvitch".
