Office of the Historian

41. Letter From the Assistant Director of the Division of Foreign Picture Service, Committee on Public Information (Tuerk) to the Chairman of the Committee on Public Information (Creel)1

New York, November 25, 1918
Dear Mr. Creel:

We understand that Select Pictures plans to release on December 1st, a five reel subject, THE ROAD THROUGH THE DARK featuring Clara Kimball Young.

We reviewed a copy of this picture at our office on November 23rd, and beg to advise that many of its features make it objectionable both for exhibition in the United States, and for export to other countries.

In this picture Clara Kimball Young plays the part of Gabrielle, a French girl, in love with an American student. The scene is laid in France. To separate Gabrielle from her lover, her parents send her to live with an aunt in a village on the Meuse. She corresponds with her lover by means of a love code which makes their letters appear innocent to her parents.

This picture is prejudicial to the French because it shows the inhabitants of this village as offering no resistance to the Hun invaders. Gabrielle’s aunt gives her gold with which to buy off the Huns “as they did in 1870”.

This picture also makes a very strong bid for sympathy for Germany. It shows the German officer too honorable to accept gold. He prevents a private from carrying off Gabrielle. He treats her with great kindness and consideration. Acts of barbarism and the attempted burning of the village are portrayed as committed by privates, contrary to explicit orders from the Imperial Government.

The German officer, Von Strelitz, takes Gabrielle as his mistress to Berlin. So far as the audience can tell, she turns pro-German. The last few hundred feet of the picture reveal that she has been acting as a spy for the allies all through the picture and communicating the information which she gathers to her American lover by means of their love code.

The presence of many laboratory titles in the print which we projected indicates that this picture has under-gone a drastic revision, to adapt it to the change in the military situation. As it stands the [Page 87] picture abounds in technical errors and is wholly inconsistent with American public opinion.

Capt. Gleason’s2 office of the Military Intelligence is acquainted with these facts having viewed the picture with us. We hope to see a complete copy of this picture before it is released and to receive complete title sheets so that we can discuss the picture more in detail.3

Yours very truly,

DIVISION OF FOREIGN PICTURE SERVICE

John Tuerk

Assistant Director
  1. Source: National Archives, RG 63, Entry 1, General Correspondence of George Creel, Box 3, Brulator, Joseph C. No classification marking.↩
  2. Not further identified.↩
  3. The film was released later that year.↩