She Goes to War [DVD] [1929]

In spite of its unbelievable storyline, She Goes to War manages to sustain interest from first reel to last. During WWI, spoiled socialite Joan Morant (Eleanor Boardman) heads to France, hoping to be reunited with her soldier sweetheart Reggie (Edmund Burns). Her presence is resented by Reggie's CO, Lieutenant Tom Pike (John Holland), who endeavors to prove to the heroine that social standing means nothing in the face of war. When Reggie turns coward and refuses to march into battle, the newly-responsible Joan, hoping to save Reggie's honor, dons a uniform and marches off in his place! Through a bizarre turn of events, Joan ends up saving the lives of everyone else in the regiment. Currently available from several public-domain videocassette sources, She Goes to War is worth seeing if only for its brief talkie sequences, in which the voice of actress Alma Rubens (cast as ukelele-plucking Rosie Cohen) was heard for the first and only time; within two years, Rubens would be dead, having lost her ongoing battle with drug addiction.~Hal Erickson