The Godless Girl

(Cecil B. DeMille, US 1929, 118 min., 35mm)

Silent Tuesdays. A high-voltage melodrama of wild youth and institutional abuse based on real events: Judy, mouthpiece for the Godless Society, a group of teenage atheists, locks horns with Bob, class president and ardent defender of the Christian faith, and tragedy strikes. Both are sentenced to time in a notorious reform school, where a sadistic guard known only as “The Brute” awaits. The Godless Girl is part topical, part hysterical, part spectacle—and pure Cecil B. DeMille. Live piano by Philip C. Carli. Special support provided by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.