Douglas Sirk directed a series of melodramas during the 1950s in which a lavish visual style and careful mise-en-scene telegraphed a subtle criticism of middle-class social conventions beneath the emotion-driven storylines.  With their rich Technicolor surfaces and highly charged performances, Sirk’s melodramas are distinctive and easily recognizable as the work of this respected director. Much of the scholarship and critical commentary on Sirk centers on these films, which include Magnificent Obsession, All That Heaven Allows, The Tarnished Angels, Written on the Wind, and Imitation of Life. Recently, I had the opportunity to view Sirk’s little-known The First Legion at the wonderful Bank of America Cinema in Chicago, which is devoted to showing classic films every Saturday night.  Not available on DVD, The First Legion represents an early work by Sirk that reflects his trademark style yet also differs from it.

The First Legion opens with troubled young Father Fulton, who plans to leave the Jesuit seminary known as St. Gregory’s Novitiate because he feels the Jesuits are too isolated from the outside world. Level-headed Father Arnoux, played by Charles Boyer in one of his finest performances, is sent to talk Father Fulton out of leaving, but the young priest is determined to go the following morning. That night, visiting priest Father Quarterman  plans to show a film about his mission work in India, and Father Fulton and his friend, Father Rawleigh, who is also disillusioned, attend the presentation. In the meantime, old Father Sierra lies upstairs with life-threatening pneumonia. Father Sierra has not been able to walk for three years, though Dr. Peter Morrell believes his problem is psychological not neurological.  As Father Sierra struggles with his fever and illness, he calls out to a statue of Blessed Joseph Martin. Blessed Joseph was not only the founder of the St. Gregory order, but he is close to being declared a saint, a goal to which the Father Rector of the novitiate, Paul Duquesne, is devoted.  The set-up neatly reveals the different personalities of the various priests as well as their preoccupations and problems.

THE FRENCH POSTER EXPLOITS BOYER'S ROMANTIC IMAGE, BUT FATHER ARNOUX IS NOTHING LIKE THIS.

As the entire rectory watches Father Quarterman’s film, a fully recovered Father Sierra makes a miraculous appearance, walking down the stairs to the amazement of all. Father Sierra tells the excited rectory that the Blessed Joseph appeared to him and in that moment, his legs came back to life, and he was cured of both paralysis and pneumonia. Father Sierra’s miracle has a different effect on each priest:  Father Fulton has re-found his faith; Father Rector uses the miracle to fuel his drive to declare Blessed Joseph a saint; but, Father Arnoux, who is also a lawyer, turns skeptical. He questions Dr. Morrell about the so-called miracle, believing there is more to the story, especially because he knows the doctor is an atheist. But, Dr. Morrell will only say that he cannot explain Father Sierra’s recovery. News of the miracle quickly spreads, and pilgrims from all over the country flock to St. Gregory’s gates, hoping to find a quick solution to their own troubles and problems.

THE PRIESTS OF ST. GREGORY'S NOVITIATE

If you are one of those people who dislike reading spoilers, you might want to skip the following paragraph, though the odds of seeing this film are fairly remote. Father Arnoux eventually discovers that his suspicions about Father Sierra’s recovery are valid. Dr. Morrell took advantage of the good father’s delirium and his faith to “impersonate” the Blessed Joseph and encourage Father Sierra to get up and walk. Cynical and world-weary, the doctor deliberately concocted the scheme not only to relieve the father of his paralysis but also to poke a hole in organized religion for which he is contemptuous.  The scheme backfires when his favorite patient, a young paralyzed girl named Terry, believes that she, too, can be cured if only she can pray in the chapel at St. Gregory’s. Dr. Morrell repeatedly tells Terry that her spinal cord is severed, and she will never stand on her own again, let alone walk, but she has too much faith to believe him. When Terry finally finds her way into the chapel, Dr. Morrell and Father Arnoux witness her stand up and take a few steps to the altar.

Generally, miracle films, such as The Song of Bernadette, or religious epics like The Robe, do little for me, because I dislike their simplistic, overly sentimental depictions of faith and religion. I went to see The First Legion because I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to see this little-known Sirk drama on the big screen, but I wasn’t sure what to expect. As it turned out, I was greatly impressed by the director’s sophisticated yet sincere treatment of the subject matter. Through the dilemmas and problems of the characters, he created a dialectic that revealed both the positive virtues and the negative consequences of religious faith. In doing so, Sirk managed to both criticize and support religion as a social institution.

Father Fulton’s frustrations over the fact that he and his fellow priests are isolated from the real world are understandable.  Despite being a teaching order, the priests at St. Gregory have no direct contact with the community or influence on the lives of the people.  Through the dilemma of Father Fulton, the film posits: What value is a religion that focuses on contemplation, ponders the answers to arcane theological riddles, or pursues sainthood for long-dead figures who have no relationship to the contemporary world? As if in response to Father Fulton’s frustrations and complaints, the character of Monsignor Michael Carey pops up to counter the image of the cloistered Jesuits. As a Catholic parish priest, the no-nonsense Monsignor, played by lovable William Demarest, counsels local residents in matters of faith, advises them on everyday problems, and even teaches them Latin. Yet, the good work of the Monsignor does not negate the issues raised by the character of Father Fulton.

BOYER, FAMOUS FOR HIS ROMANTIC IMAGE, IS CAST AGAINST TYPE AS LEVEL-HEADED FATHER ARNOUX.

The fake miracle that brings thousands of pilgrims to the gates of St. Gregory’s provides Sirk with an opportunity to depict the exploitative side of organized religion, as vendors set up outside the rectory to sell tacky statues of the Blessed Joseph to the blindly faithful and reporters sensationalize Father Sierra’s story to sell papers. The pilgrims are painted as mostly opportunists and sensation-seekers, with Father Arnoux declaring, “Half of them would have come if you shouted ‘gold.’” Most damning is the use of the fake miracle by the unwitting Father Rector to push for sainthood for Joseph Martin. But, through the character of Father Arnoux, Sirk offers an argument for believing in miracles. With conviction, Father Arnoux affirms the power of miracles when he notes that he finds one in each new day, each flower, and each ray of sunshine. The contemplative life of prayer and obedience at St. Gregory’s has allowed him to see the beauty of such miracles and to find meaning in his life through them.  Again, acknowledging the miracles of the everyday world does not erase the sour note left by those who exploited the fake miracle for personal gain.

Sirk shows each end of the spectrum of religious belief—blind faith and atheism— for its shortcomings. Poor Father Sierra, who believes that his invocation to Joseph Martin restored his legs and Father Fulton’s faith, is hopelessly naïve, while Dr. Morrell, who concocted the fake miracle that led to dire consequences, is pompous and self-important. Father Arnoux represents a kind of centrist position between the two: He is a true believer, but his background as a lawyer grants him the foresight to question events and put them in proper perspective.

After presenting the whole gamut of religious belief and faith, Sirk challenges the viewer at the end of the film when he shows Terry Carmichael taking a few steps before falling to the floor, despite the doctor’s assertions that her physical condition makes it impossible for her to walk again. Is this a true miracle as a reward for Terry’s blind faith? Or, is it an anomaly because she manages only a few steps before falling? Do we accept the happy ending as a validation of miracles in our world? Or, is it a cop-out to a Hollywood convention? The answer probably tells you more about your own attitudes toward faith and religion than it does about Sirk’s.

In a 2005 article in Senses of Cinema, Tag Gallagher claimed that Douglas Sirk was “fascinated” with characters who believed in religion, quoting the director from Jon Halliday’s Sirk on Sirk, “[Religion] is one of my constant preoccupations. Even not believing in God is a religious act in a way . . . . In a way, I think everything is about religion: It’s about the unknown things in man.”  Apparently, Sirk had been raised Protestant but became an agnostic, though he remained forever uneasy about his relationship to religion.

FROM A MORE FAMILIAR SIRK FILM: THE SET DESIGN IN 'ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS' SUGGESTS THAT WYMAN'S CHARACTER IS TRAPPED BY HER CLASS AND STATUS.

On the surface, The First Legion seems miles away from Sirk’s more famous films. Shot in black and white, often in outdoor locations, this small-scale drama lacks the lavish surface quality and highly artificial set design of his Technicolor melodramas. In addition, the main characters are all male, and the storyline does not depend on a major romance to drive the narrative or elevate the emotion of scenes. However, closer examination finds that The First Legion features many of the highly touted characteristics of Sirk’s body of work. Just as the film both criticizes and supports religion as a social institution, so his later melodramas will question and criticize such institutions as marriage, capitalism, and family, as well as the social conventions surrounding them, without entirely subverting them. Though The First Legion is not a melodrama, the acting style can be melodramatic in key scenes, including the gradual disintegration of Dr. Morrell, played by Lyle Bettger, and the emotional outbursts and declarations of faith by Terry, played by a young and beautiful Barbara Rush. Likewise, Sirk’s legendary control of mise-en-scene is apparent throughout the film, albeit in less obvious ways. When Father Sierra takes his miracle walk down the stairs, he is shown in a low angle, descending from the shadows into a pool of light, which recalls the heavenly Descensions of Christ depicted in Renaissance paintings.  At the end, when the Father Rector succumbs to a heart attack, Father Arnoux, Father Fulton, and another priest pray together. They are framed in a beautiful, triangular composition that focuses on their mouths as they recite the same prayer in unison, reinforcing their dedication to the order and the strength they derive from that.

THE FILM WAS BASED ON A PLAY BY EMMET LAVERY, PERFORMED AS A FEDERAL THEATER PRODUCTION DURING THE DEPRESSION.

Few film historians and Sirk enthusiasts have written specifically about The First Legion, and those who have, most notably Dave Grosz in “The First Legion: Vision and Perception in Sirk,” focus on the importance of his visual style and its connection to his themes and subtexts. But, I was struck by the film’s subtle references to the war. Shot just five years after the end of WWII, The First Legion reflects the postwar angst that permeated some films and genres, including film noir. For example, two characters in different scenes, Father Arnoux and the Monsignor, refer to the world a sick and ailing place, while Dr. Morrell labels it “out of joint.”  Father Arnoux describes the violent tendencies and abhorrent behavior of people outside St. Gregory’s as reason enough to stay inside its walls. Dr. Morrell describes himself as someone who left his small town to fight the war in Europe but notes that when he returned home, he was not the same. His contempt for religion and for the faithful seem to stem from his war experience.

The First Legion came at an interesting point in Sirk’s life and career. Born Hans Detlef Sierck in Germany in 1900, he first studied law before turning his attention to philosophy and art history. To support himself, he wrote for newspapers and ventured into the theater. In 1934, when many German directors and creative personnel had already fled the country because of the growing power of the Nazis, Sirk began to make movies for Germany’s famed UFA studios, though by this time, the film industry was under control of the Nazi party. He continued to make films until 1937, when he finally left Germany, arriving in Hollywood in 1939. Changing his name to Douglas Sirk, he directed his first Hollywood film in 1942, Hitler’s Madmen, and then signed a contract with Columbia. Sirk was relieved when his contract to that studio ended in 1949, because he disliked the crass, unrefined Harry Cohn. After making one film for Universal, he returned to Germany, where he found the film industry in shambles and the atmosphere hostile to returning immigrants. When he arrived back in Hollywood, he produced and directed The First Legion as an independent, releasing it in 1951.

SIRK DIRECTS FAMOUS GERMAN STAR ZORAH LEANDER IN HIS GERMAN FILM, 'LA HABANERA.'

Returning to Germany had proved disturbing for Sirk for many reasons, not the least of which was a reminder of his horrific experiences during the Nazi era. In 1929, while still a theater director, he divorced his first wife, Lydia Brinken, with whom he had a son, Claus Detlef Sierck.  That same year, he married Hilde Jary, a poet of Jewish descent.  Lydia began to turn little Claus into a Hitler Youth while she pushed him into the movies, where he quickly became the country’s number-one child star. After the Nazis took over the film industry, Brinken used Jary’s identity as a Jew to prevent Sirk from seeing his son. When Sirk left Germany in 1937, partly because his second wife had already fled the country, he had no choice but to leave behind his only child. Toward the end of the war, Claus was drafted and then disappeared on the Russian front. Sirk’s return to Germany in 1949 was, in part, to look for Claus, who was officially listed as missing in action, but his search was in vain. Small wonder that the war casts a long shadow over The First Legion, or that the film is preoccupied with questions of faith in a “sick” and “ailing” world.

Sirk enjoyed a revival of his work by film scholars and historians during the 1960s and 1970s, while he was still alive to enjoy it. Nonetheless, he asked those writing about him not to publish the information about his son. This generation of scholars put great emphasis on the labored mise-en-scene of his Technicolor melodramas, proclaiming his obvious visual style an ironic distancing device meant to criticize the conventions of melodrama, including the exaggerated emotion and highly charged acting, just as he was criticizing middle-class social institutions and values. While I acknowledge the importance of this first generation of film scholars, who pioneered close, in-depth readings of films to uncover their subtexts, I disagree with some of their interpretation of Sirk, which remains the dominant view of his work. I recognize that Sirk is critiquing social institutions, conventions, and mores, and I see the irony of his careful mise-en-scene. However, I don’t believe he does this to subvert or condemn society but rather to strengthen it, or as Gallagher says, “to anneal.”  And, I don’t think he was trashing his genre of choice—the melodrama. As Marxists and feminists, these early scholars seemed determine to invalidate the melodrama because of its reinforcement of romantic love and middle-class values, or at least to make excuses for its emotionally charged surface. In lieu of appreciating the obvious emotion and exaggerated conventions of this much-maligned genre, these scholars, and those who have followed them in lock-step, feel compelled to denigrate it, so they harp on irony in Sirk’s films, sometimes seeing it where there is none.

I found nothing ironic about The First Legion. To the contrary, its sincere exploration of religion by a director who experienced such soul-shattering tragedy during his lifetime is profoundly moving.

Gallagher, Tag. “White Melodrama: Douglas Sirk.” Senses of Cinema. http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/05/36/sirk.html, 2005.

Grosz, Dave. “The First Legion: Vision and Perception in Sirk,” Screen, Vol. 12 no. 2, 1971.

Halliday, Jon. Sirk on Sirk. London: Faber and Faber, 1997.