iii Looking at Labor-Capital Films

Liberal Films Continued

These films also suggested that strikes were not brutal affairs that automatically devolved into violence or anarchy. When violence did occur it was usually instigated by corrupt capitalists who employed scabs, police, militia, company spies, or private armies in their battles against their employees.

The Valley of the Moon (1914), an adaptation of Jack London's novel, we see police mercilessly club striking teamsters, while patrol wagons cruelly trample over fallen men who "lay with broke heads and bleeding freely in the open" (fig. 38).

fig 38:The Valley of the Moon (1914)

Films like Regeneration (1915) were often sympathetic toward the preachings of socialists, though not always toward socialists themselves (fig. 39).

fig 39:Regeneration (1915) (v)

Softer Liberalism

The more numerous and dominant mode of liberal films, and one which set an ideological tone that survives to the present, acknowledged the genuine economic and physical suffering experienced by wage earners, but condemned violence--by employers or employees -- as the answer to the problems of the day. Many reflected a gender-biased politics that focused on "more vulnerable" victims of industry: women and children (fig. 40, 41, 42).

fig 40:The Still Alarm (1911)

fig 42:Child Labor (1913)