Johanna Enlists (1918): An Elliptic and Comic Portrayal of the Great War in Motion Pictures

Abstract

Where is the War? After fifteen minutes of watching the 1918 patriotic comedy Johanna Enlists, starring America’s Sweetheart Mary Pickford, any spectator is put off balance by the broken promise of such a title evoking the United States’ voluntary mobilization.¹ While active female participation in the Great War is expected, the war is not on screen, as the plot focuses on the peregrinations of a young farm girl, Johanna Renssaller (Mary Pickford), looking for love. The meaningful title can be interpreted as a kind of joke played on the baffled audience and announces the message of the movie as well as its various tricks: never judge a book by its cover. Johanna Enlists is deceptive and deals with pretense, therefore injecting a certain playfulness and humor in the representation of the war. Even before it came out in September 1918,² this Pickford-Artcraft production³ was announced by Motion Pictures News under the title “‘The mobilization of Johanna’, a play of laugh and tears,”⁴ revealing thus its duality. The spectator should both enjoy and question what he/she sees, as nothing is what it seems in this motion picture.