The Other Half
Die andere Seite
Source: Deutsche Kinemathek
ZaSu Pitts
The Other Half | Die andere Seite by King Vidor
USA 1919, Retrospective
Source: Deutsche Kinemathek
King Vidor
The Other Half | Die andere Seite by King Vidor
USA 1919, Retrospective
Source: Sammlung Cinémathèque suisse. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.
Donald Trent learned about class equality in the trenches of the Great War, and wants to live by it when he returns home. Instead of joining the upper echelons of his father’s steel mill, he begins at the bottom, as an ordinary worker. His closest chum there is his war buddy, Corporal Jimmy, and Trent's fiancée Katherine becomes friends with Jimmy’s jazz-mad girlfriend Jennie. But after his father’s death, Donald embraces Trent Sr’s admonishment of “no sentiment in business”. He remains obdurate even when Jimmy is blinded in a workplace accident caused by cost-cutting measures. Katherine, however, has stayed true to her ideals. Together with the workers’ newspaper “The Beacon”, she begins a “battle for democracy” as the (only partially surviving) Dutch version of the film was titled … “I believe in the motion picture that carries a message to humanity”, declared King Vidor in 1920. The Other Half reveals King Vidor not just as a director with an impressive command of film technique (cross cutting, dissolves, back lighting), but also as a committed champion of causes. Much like he does in this film, he would later sound the call for social consciousness in An American Romance.
With
- Florence Vidor
- Charles Meredith
- ZaSu Pitts
- David Butler
- Alfred Allen
- Frances Raymond
- Hugh Saxon
Crew
| Director | King Vidor |
| Screenplay | King Vidor |
| Story | King Vidor |
| Cinematography | Ira Morgan |
| Assistant Director | Roy H. Marshall |
Produced by
Brentwood Film Corp.
Additional information
Print: Eye Film Institute Netherlands, Amsterdam