The Godless Girl - Reaction

A fine film, though lacking all subtlety, about atheist evangelism, fundamentalist Christian zealotry, redemption, and the hard, abusive life at juvenile lockup. Part of the reason for the latter was to show how horrible these places are and thereby spur reform. Both the evangelic atheists and the juvenile lockup themes were stolen from stories making news at the time. One even sees a few echoes from the Scopes trial, which happened a year or two before the movie was made. The theme about tolerance is timeless.

The music really makes the show. The performance I saw mostly used an organ, but nicely threw in some unusual instruments like bells and whistles as needed.

The final scenes involving fire are amazing, especially when one realizes that they didn't have special effects when this movie was made. They wouldn't be allowed to film much of it nowadays due to safety concerns. Those safety concerns are appropriate -- apparently some serious injuries happened while shooting.

The title cards, often with backgrounds of flowers, are pretty. They're sometimes (unintentionally?) funny with their comments about fanaticism and atheism.

The third character, Bozo, used for comic relief, seems out of place and unnecessary.