This is the story of a fan. This is the story of George W. Lighton. Today, he is not someone anybody outside of his family would likely have heard of — I only became aware of him through his advocacy of silent film in general and Pandora’s Box in particular. And although Louise Brooks spent some two weeks in Louisville, Kentucky (where Lighton lived) in 1935, I don’t think the two ever encountered one another. Nevertheless, Lighton’s story is worth telling. It paints a picture of a time and place. During my many years of researching and reading about Louise Brooks, I have never come across a story like this.
It all began in back in 2016, when I came across a letter to the editor published in a Louisville, Kentucky newspaper. The letter was dated January 2, 1931. The letter, of all things, mentions the 1929 Brooks’ film, Pandora’s Box. About the film, Lighton noted: “German silent film, directed by G.W. Pabst. Cinema at its most naturalistic. From Frank Wedekind’s story. The film reaches its most adult stage.” Lighton, out of necessity, was concise. Amd yet, it is clear he considered it a mature film on a mature subject, and he ranked it ahead of the similarly themed The Blue Angel.
To me, such a mention is fascinating — because back then the film was so little known in the United States. In fact, the film was only shown a few times in America prior to 1931, in New York City on two occasions, and once in Baltimore. That’s it. The film’s December 1929 debut at the 55th Street Playhouse in New York City did generate some press coverage, which resulted in reviews in the various NYC newspapers as well as a handful of pieces in national publications, like Variety and Billboard, and some of the fan magazines, like Photoplay. (A detailed history of the exhibition history of Pandora’s Box in the United States can be found HERE.)
The letter to the editor which I came across was penned by George W. Lighton, a 20-year old Louisville resident and obvious film buff with a preference for the silent cinema. Lighton wrote his letter in response to a December 21, 1930 article by local film critic Boyd Martin naming what he considered some of the best films of the year. They include All Quiet on the Western Front, Hell’s Angels, Journey’s End, The Love Parade and others. All were American productions. Boyd was a thoughtful and prolific newspaper critic for the Louisville Courier Journal. (His reviews of earlier Brooks’ films are gathered in the Louise Brooks Society archive.) Lighton, one would guess, was a regular reader. Within just a few days, the young film buff mailed his own list in response to Boyd’s column. It is shown here.
In his letter, Lighton all but admits to having not seen most of the films he sets out to call to the public’s attention. Perhaps he was just showing his knowledge of foreign cinema, or more likely, perhaps he was hoping an exhibitor might take notice and screen these films in Louisville. It’s hard to say. Nevertheless, it is a remarkable list — full of Soviet and German classics, including three other films by G.W. Pabst, and two starring Marlene Dietrich, both of which were directed by Josef von Sternberg; it is a list which stands the test of time. [Could Lighton have seen Pandora’s Box? It is possible, but unlikely. Prior to 1931, as noted, it played only in New York City and Baltimore. To see it in Maryland, for example, Lighton would have to have traveled more than 600 miles to view the film.]
Who was George W. Lighton? I haven’t been able to find out much about him except that he was born in 1911 and was a bright kid who seemed to be reader and writer and a film buff from an early age — as well as someone curious about and willing to engage the world. As a teen, he was a junior reporter for the Louisville Courier Journal; in 1924, while a high school freshman, he won a contest sponsored by the paper for a review he wrote of The Silent Watcher, a film starring Hobart Bosworth, Glen Hunter and Bessie Love. The film centers on the fallout from the actions of a morally corrupt politician. Lighton’s review ends with this stirring summary: “The Silent Watcher is the unknown soldier buried in Arlington Cemetery, who expects the Government and those in it to be just and honorable on the principals he died for.” A few years later, in 1927, Lighton won a contest sponsored by the National Republic for an essay on the American Constitution.
In 1931, the same year as his “European Films” letter was published, Lighton had three other letters-to-the-editor published. One of them was titled “Marlene,” and was seemingly in response to an earlier letter, titled “The Blue Angel,” from a local poet, Kalfus Kurtz Guskling. Film aesthetics were a serious matter for these young intellectuals. In one letter, titled “The Silent Film,” Lighton referenced the “comparative artistic values of silent and audible cinema” in discussing the relative merits and demerits of Chaplin’s City Lights. A couple years later, in 1933, Lighton was lecturing in Louisville on the subject of “The Movies — Our Newest Art.” His talk, which followed one by Boyd on the subject of “Current Plays on Broadway,” was sponsored by the Division of Adult Education at the University of Louisville.
Lighton was an idealist, and a wanderer. When money ran out after his first year in college, Lighton went on “hobo trips” around the country, venturing as far north as Canada and as far south as Mexico. In the midst of the Depression, he spent five years bumming around and recording his observations in a notebook. According to a 1938 article about Lighton, “He kept an extensive journal of his experiences, his impressions of cities and people and his reactions to works of art in museums all over the country. He wrote about being robbed by a one-legged man in Chicago and about the plight of the Harlan County miners and about being stranded when a ‘too cheap’ bus abandoned its passengers enroute to California.” The same newspaper article also noted “He looked up people who interested him and recounted conversations he had with Theodore Dreiser, John Dos Passos, and [Sergie] Eisenstein and others. He had an article published in Cinema and hoped to take up a literary career.”
Lighton continued his rambles until he was convinced by the head of the University of Louisville English department to return to school and get his degree. He did so, and graduated in June 1937 as the only student to ever be awarded honors in both sociology and humanities. According to The University of Louisville (University Press of Kentucky, 2000), a history of the school by Dwayne D. Cox and William J. Morison, “George Lighton exemplified the militant student intellectual of the 1930s. In class he displayed contempt for anyone or anything that smacked of bourgeois values. When time allowed, Lighton took hobo trips throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico, gathering material for novels of social criticism and poetry. He graduated with honors in humanities and sociology and wrote a senior thesis on the Industrial Workers of the World organization as reflected in literature. Following graduation, Lighton joined the Loyalist side in the Spanish Civil War, which he considered a great battle between fascism and socialism. After eleven weeks overseas, Lighton decided to return to the United States to resume his education and prepare a graduate thesis using material gathered in Spain. On January 9, 1938, however, Lighton, a Loyalist army private, left a shallow entrenchment to carry a message to his squad leader. He was spotted by a sniper, shot, and killed.” If I am reading the citations correctly, news of Lighton’s death was carried in the Louisville Cardinal, the school newspaper.
Discouraged by not being able to find a job, he took off once again, this time for Chicago in August of 1937. In September , his Mother received a letter from her son, who was then in Paris, mentioning that he would be going to Spain to fight against Fascism. Another letter followed. “I am now in Spain as a member of the International Brigade of the Loyalist Army. I had not been in Paris more than two days when I enlisted as a volunteer.” Many more letters followed, detailing daily life and his movements around Spain. Lighton’s last letter was sent on Christmas day, 1937.
Despite no additional letters, and despite reports of the deaths of numerous American volunteers in Spain, Lighton’s mother continued to believe he was still alive. She held onto her belief until one of her son’s friends in Spain wrote to say he had been killed, but where and when was not known. Also lost was the journal Lighton had kept in Spain. Lighton’s friend wrote “telling of the pact he had had with George to recover his note book in the event of his death…. On my return to the company I tried, but failed to obtain possession of George’s journal.”
There is little online about Lighton except for the few obscure clippings mentioned above, as well as a page on the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives website. (The Abraham Lincoln Brigade were American volunteers who went to Spain to fight Franco’s forces, who were backed by Hitler. In the years prior to the Second World War, these American volunteers were scene, to some, not as heroes but as “premature anti-fascists.”)
There are also passing mentions to Lighton in a couple of contemporary books, including Letters from Barcelona: An American Woman in Revolution and Civil War (2009), and A History of Education in Kentucky (2011). In the former, Lighton is described as a “idle dreamer and griper” by the subject of the book, who appears to have been acquainted with many participants in the Spanish Civil War, including George Orwell. In the latter, Lighton is made out to be an internationalist who stood apart from his fellow students, most all of whom were then staunch isolationists.
I would be interested in reading Lighton’s contribution to Cinema, but have had trouble finding it. There was one journal by that name published in New York in 1930, and one in London, during the early 1930’s. I wonder if there is an index for either periodical? Does anyone know anything about the American periodical named Cinema?
George W. Lighton once described himself as a “champion of the silent cinema.” He was that, an idealist, both in life and as a film buff.
