Lest We Forget
Cast & Crew
Léonce Perret
Rita Jolivet
Hamilton Revelle
L. Rogers Lytton
Kate Blancke
Clifford Saum
Film Details
Synopsis
Rita Heriot, a famous French opera singer, becomes engaged to American millionaire Harry Winslow, but with the outbreak of World War I, she volunteers her services as a village telegraph operator and is captured by the Germans. Sentenced to be shot, Rita somehow escapes and makes her way to Paris, where she hopes to find her sweetheart, who unknown to her, has joined the French army to avenge her alleged death. When Baron von Bergen, a German diplomat who desires Rita for himself, tells her that Harry has been lost in the Battle of the Marne, she goes to New York, disconsolate, to appear on the stage. Rita later informs the baron that she is planning to sail to London, but he begs her to remain in New York, knowing that her ship, the Lusitania , will never reach England. The ship is torpedoed and sunk, but Rita survives, only to be attacked by von Bergen, who wishes to mask his connection with the Lusitania affair. She strangles him with a cord, however, and then travels to Paris, where in an army hospital, she is reunited with Harry.
Director
Léonce Perret
Cast
Rita Jolivet
Hamilton Revelle
L. Rogers Lytton
Kate Blancke
Clifford Saum
Emil Roe
Henry Smith
Gaby Perrier
Texas Cooper
H. P. St. Leger
Ernest Maupain
Edward Gerstle
George Slatteau
Crew
Film Details
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
Actress Rita Jolivet was a survivor of the Lusitania, which sank off the coast of Ireland on May 17, 1915. According to a modern source, Rita Jolivet's husband, Count Giuseppe de Cippico, produced the film with J. L. Kempner. According to publicity, the film was a $250,000 production with a cast of 3,000 people. According to a news item, many of the scenes were shot in a French village built in Westchester County, NY. Also according to publicity, the film immortalized the last words of American theatrical producer Charles Frohman, who died on the ship. His last words, as reported by Jolivet, who was with him as he died, were, "Why fear death? It is life's most beautiful adventure."
