Vintage original 8 x 10 in. US double-weight matte photograph from the lost teens war-themed silent film comedy/drama, TO HELL WITH THE KAISER!, released in 1918 by Metro Pictures Corporation and directed by George Irving.
The image depicts Satan (Walter P. Lewis) as he reminds the Kaiser (Lawrence Grant) that his soul belongs to him by pointing to the document in the Kaiser's hands. It is in very fine- condition.*"To Hell With the Kaiser! is a 1918 American silent Great War propaganda comedy film produced by Screen Classics Productions and distributed by Metro Pictures. It was directed by George Irving and starred Lawrence Grant as the Kaiser. Made toward the close of World War I, this film falls in line with other films of this popular genre, the wartime propaganda film, made at the same time (i.e., The Kaiser, Beast of Berlin, The Prussian Cur, The Claws of the Hun, Yankee Doodle in Berlin, Civilization, Hearts of the World, The Heart of Humanity, Over the Rhine, The False Faces, The Unpardonable Sin, My Four Years in Germany, and The Sinking of the Lusitania, to name a few).
Like many American films of the time, To Hell with the Kaiser!was subject to restrictions and cuts by city and state film censorship boards. For example, the Chicago Board of Censors cut, in Reel 2, the intertitle "Give the men free reign [sic] — you know what that means", Reel 3, the three intertitles "These quarters are not so bad — all but the girls, of course", "I'll take the first choice", and "Morning — the lust of the war gods", and, Reel 5, the intertitle "You came here willingly" etc."
*(source: Wikipedia)
*"When To Hell with the Kaiser and Pathe's Kicking the Germ Out of Germany were screened at Kansas City, Missouri's Convention Hall on 20 July 1918, thousands were turned away despite the venue's 10,000-seat capacity, the 17 August 1918 Moving Picture World reported. The film turned out to be an effective propaganda tool, the 5 October 1918 Motion Picture News. "Not only has the picture been shown in munitions plants and training camps, by official recommendation, in recognition of its importance as a patriot-builder, but this power has now been demonstrated in a new way, by the use of the patriotic superfeature to convert 'conscientious objectors.'"
As it turned out, Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated the following month, on 9 November 1918, and fled the next day to the Netherlands (where he died in exile in 1941). Screen Classics responded with another fllm, The Great Victory, Wilson or the Kaiser? the Fall of the Hohenzollerns (1919). The National Film Preservation Board (NFPB) included this film on its list of Lost U.S. Silent Feature Films as of February 2021."
*(source: AFI Catalog of Feature Films)
3RB