Vive La France! (1918)
Director:
Roy William Neill (as R. William Neill)
Writers:
C. Gardner Sullivan (scenario), H.H. Van Loan (story "The Cross of Shame")
Stars:
Dorothy Dalton, Edmund Lowe, Fred Starr, Tom Guise, Bert Woodruff, B. Sprotte
In this war drama, Dorothy Dalton is Jenevieve Bouchette, an actress in New York. When she hears that her parents have been killed by German troops, she hastens back to the French village of her youth. The Germans and French have been fighting for possession of the town, and Jenevieve is victimized by a Hun who brands her with "the cross of shame." Jean Picard (Edmund Lowe), a former co-star of Jenevieve's, is now a volunteer in the French Army and he encounters her once again when he is wounded. She saves him from the Germans and sends him on his way. Then to escape the Germans, she puts on the uniform of a dead soldier. Since the French find spy maps on the uniform she has been wearing, she is ordered to be shot, but then the officer in charge sees the cross branded on her breast and releases her. Finally peace comes to the village. Jean returns, but he has lost his memory. All efforts to help him fail until Jenevieve shows him her cross. Then he remembers and the two are reunited.