"On the Firing Line with the Germans" - 1915 Silent Film Preview

Entire Film

In the spring of 1915, almost a year after the start of the first World War, American journalist Wilbur Durborough & cinematographer Guy Ries left Chicago bound for Berlin, Germany. They traveled with the German army to the front lines in East Prussia and Poland and shot 25,000 feet of film, about five and a half hours. They returned to the U.S. in September of 1915 and in November released a 108-minute feature film - "On the Firing Line with the Germans." The film received positive reviews and was screened widely in the United States - despite the fact that it presented a favorable view of the Germans. We learn about how the once-lost film was rediscovered and restored by the Library of Congress. Then we watch the entire film, with commentary by two scholars who helped reassemble a movie that had become a jigsaw puzzle of fragments.