'Fire, Blood and Steel': memory and spectacle in "The Guns of Loos" (Sinclair Hill, 1928)
'Fire, Blood and Steel': memory and spectacle in "The Guns of Loos" (Sinclair Hill, 1928)
The Guns of Loos (Sinclair Hill, 1928, henceforth Loos) is set against the backdrop of the eponymous battle of 1915, as two soldiers, John Grimlaw (Henry Victor) and Clive (Donald McArdle) find their mental and physical fortitude tested on the battlefield. Public and private spheres meet and compete as both men are also fighting to win the affection of Diana (Maddeline Carroll in her screen debut), a Red Cross nurse in England. All this is juxtaposed against the growing tension of a workers’ dispute at Grimlaw’s Steel Works, which now operates as a munitions factory. This chapter explores the ways in which the film’s complex iconography addresses the mythic Home/Front divide, particularly through the duality of its protagonists, and issues of history, remembrance and modernity, as the audiences of 1928 were invited to recall the events of 1915.
9780230292628
118-133
Michael, Williams
fdd5b778-38f1-4529-b99c-9d41ab749576
4 October 2011
Michael, Williams
fdd5b778-38f1-4529-b99c-9d41ab749576
Michael, Williams
(2011)
'Fire, Blood and Steel': memory and spectacle in "The Guns of Loos" (Sinclair Hill, 1928).
In,
Hammond, Michael and Williams, Michael
(eds.)
British Silent Cinema and the Great War.
Basingstoke, GB.
Palgrave Macmillan, .
Record type:
Book Section
Abstract
The Guns of Loos (Sinclair Hill, 1928, henceforth Loos) is set against the backdrop of the eponymous battle of 1915, as two soldiers, John Grimlaw (Henry Victor) and Clive (Donald McArdle) find their mental and physical fortitude tested on the battlefield. Public and private spheres meet and compete as both men are also fighting to win the affection of Diana (Maddeline Carroll in her screen debut), a Red Cross nurse in England. All this is juxtaposed against the growing tension of a workers’ dispute at Grimlaw’s Steel Works, which now operates as a munitions factory. This chapter explores the ways in which the film’s complex iconography addresses the mythic Home/Front divide, particularly through the duality of its protagonists, and issues of history, remembrance and modernity, as the audiences of 1928 were invited to recall the events of 1915.
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More information
Published date: 4 October 2011
Organisations:
Film
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 199417
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/199417
ISBN: 9780230292628
PURE UUID: 94b978d0-4fa0-4895-936f-88fcc94a2073
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Date deposited: 18 Oct 2011 10:34
Last modified: 06 Aug 2022 01:37
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Contributors
Editor:
Michael Hammond
Editor:
Michael Williams
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