The Struggle
Cast & Crew
D. W. Griffith
Hal Skelly
Zita Johann
Charlotte Wynters
Evelyn Baldwin
Jackson Halliday
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
In 1911, before Prohibition, people are able to relax with a beer or a glass of wine. By 1923, however, liquor is illegal, and even people who never drank before, drink so they will not seem old-fashioned. One of these people is steel mill foreman Jimmie Wilson. After his fiancée Florrie begs him to stop, Jimmie swears he will never touch alcohol again and settles down to marriage and fatherhood. Problems at work and worries about his daughter Mary's health send Jimmie back to the bar where he is egged on by his friends who call him a pansy when he hesitates to have a drink. He once again promises Florrie to stop drinking, but feeling uncomfortable because she wants him to wear a new tie to his sister Nan's engagement party, he succumbs to drink. Because he insults Mr. Craig, the boss of Nan's fiancé Johnny Marshall, she is forced to break off the engagement. After Jimmie loses his job because of his continual drinking, he decides to cash in his insurance policy for the money. At the urging of a chorus girl, he contributes to a scheme to import liquor from Canada, and when he loses all his money in the swindle he goes on a binge. Mary and Florrie are evicted from their apartment when they cannot pay the rent, and Jimmie returns to find the rooms empty. Standing there he hears a religious broadcast on the radio, but its message does not save him from his downward journey, and he becomes a drunken bum wandering the streets. He is seen by friends of Mary and she runs after him. She finds him in a run-down tenement and runs back to bring Florrie with her. Finding her mother gone, she leaves a note telling her where to find them and returns to Jimmie's room. Suffering from delirium tremens, Jimmie mistakes Mary for a demon and attacks her. Florrie arrives in time to rescue Mary and nurses Jimmie back to health. He is overcome by remorse, believing that he has killed Mary, but when he learns she is alive, he is able to completely recover. Johnny and Nan are reunited, and Jimmie's future looks bright when the mill agrees to implement a system he designed.
Director
D. W. Griffith
Cast
Hal Skelly
Zita Johann
Charlotte Wynters
Evelyn Baldwin
Jackson Halliday
Edna Hagan
Claude Cooper
Arthur Lipson
Charles Richman
Helen Mack
Scott Moore
Dave Manley
Crew
Jack Aichele
Richard A. Blaydon
Raymond A. Clune
Joe W. Coffman
John Emerson
A. Griffith Grey
Richard Hertel
Alice Hunter
Frank Kirby
Anita Loos
Johnny Murphy
Nick Rogalli
Paul Rogalli
Barney Rogan
Joseph Ruttenberg
Ed. Scanlon
Philip Scheib
Ben Wetzler
Clement Williams
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
This film, D.W. Griffith's final directorial effort, never had a general because of the negative reaction it got at it's premiere.
Notes
According to letters included in the D. W. Griffith papers, inquiries were made into the rights status of the novel L'assommoire by Emile Zola and two plays based on the novel, one entitled The Demon Drink by Augustin Daly and the other L'assommoire by William Busrach, but there is no evidence that the Griffith film was based on the novel or the plays. A news item in Film Daily announces Larry Williams as cinematographer, but his name does not appear in the final credits. Motion Picture Almanac also credits Billy Bitzer with the photography. This was stage actress Zita Johann's first film. The streets that Jimmie wanders in after he begins drinking again are located in the Bronx around 175th St., the location of the Audio-Cinema studios where the movie was shot. Modern sources note that lacking the money for elaborate sets, Griffith was forced to shoot a number of scenes on the streets, a rare occurrence in the early days of sound films. The steel mill scenes were shot in Springdale, CT. According to an article in the NY Daily News, Griffith was upset over reports that his film was Soviet propaganda, a mistaken conclusion apparently based on the title of the film. A news item in Film Daily notes that Griffith denied that the film had anything to do with the Soviets, but was instead, "a story of everyday Americans." Information in the MPAA/PCA collection at the AMPAS Library indicates that censors requested the elimination of a scene which referred to Jesus and the scene in which Jimmie attacks Mary. United Artists requested a PCA certificate for re-release in 1935, but the stub in the MPAA/PCA Collection is annotated "Cancelled-withdrawn from circulation." This was the last film Griffith directed. According to modern sources, its failure sent Griffith into such debt that his company went bankrupt. Actress Evelyn Baldwin later became Griffith's second wife.
