Pillars of Society is adapted from a drama by Henrik Ibsen, “probably the world’s best playwright” according to the instruc­tive caption at the beginning, which re­veals the basic premise of the plot: hypoc­risy is the worst vice of the bourgeoisie, and only Truth and Liberty are the true pillars of correct social order. The truth is, when Ibsen wrote Pillars of Society in 1877, he wasn’t yet the world’s greatest playwright (A Doll’s House, Ghosts, and The Woman From the Sea were written one after the other in the following years), and his debut ‘social drama’ is hardly a masterpiece. Nevertheless, its tangled web of family melodrama – with missteps, faults, and unlikely redemptions – was largely appreciated: the first onscreen ad­aptation was in 1911, another followed in 1920, which served as a vehicle for the English stage star Ellen Terry (with the plot re-shaped to revolve almost entirely around the character of Mrs Bernick, the protagonist’s mother), and yet another ver­sion appeared in 1935 Germany – one of the first films by Detlef Sierck, who would later become Douglas Sirk. And Walsh? Walsh, in 1916, was in the middle of his Hollywood climb. Pillars of Society can’t boast “the dramatic power of Regenera­tion” (Paolo Cherchi Usai), the redemp­tion tragedy with Anna Q. Nilsson directed by Walsh the year before, but it does show a confident composition and even a grasp of international culture, especially with regards to the detailed, overloaded, and rather grim set design that gives it the look of a Northern European melodrama (per­haps with a slight touch of parody?). The screenplay by Frank E. Woods, known for his collaboration with Griffith on A Corner in Wheat and Birth of a Nation, re-aligns the timing that Ibsen laid out as a series of flashbacks, making it easier to follow the adventures of this man without quali­ties – more fearful than corrupt – domi­nated by a series of interesting feminine figures, a circumstance that will reappear in Walsh’s later, more virile and auteurish films: here our hero, secretly engaged to a neighbor, goes to enjoy the good life in Paris where he is seduced by an actress who overshadows him in both stature and temperament, then returns and, forced by his mother as well as economic and social reasons, decides to marry the sister of his secret fiancée – who justifiably rewards him with a good slap and, from then on­wards, looms over him like a severe guard­ian angel of his questionable morality… More than once source indicates that the film was ‘supervised’ by David W. Griffith. If so inclined, one could also suspect that the film anticipates or shares the same at­mosphere of DeMille’s moral dramedies, which will examine marriage, adultery, and money in terms of social structures – with an higher degree of irony and modernity.
(Paola Cristalli)

Norwegian shipping magnate Karsten Bernick prides himself on his value to society, and forgets that, in order to maintain his high standing, he has to rely on lies and dishonesty. Years before achieving wealth and social status, he had an affair with Madame Dorf, resulting in a daughter. At the time, Karsten, who was about to leave the Country, convinced his brother-in-law Johan to accept responsibility as the child’s father. Later, when Madame Dorf died, Karsten adopted the child, but remained terrified that one day the child might find out the truth. Years later Johan decides to return to Norway hoping to clear his name. Desperate that his secret will be revealed, Karsten decides to kill Johan by putting him on his most unseaworthy ship. But the plan backfires when Johan boards a different vessel, and Karsten’s son Olaf stows away on the unsafe one. Fate favors the rescuers, who are able to save Olaf, but Karsten, unable to continue lying, finally confesses to being his adopted daughter’s real father.

Note: The Thanhouser Co. made a short film of Ibsen’s play in 1911, and Douglas Sirk directed Stuztzen der Gesellschaft, a German adaptation of the play in 1935 for R.N. Film der Ufa.

Kim Tomadjoglou, American Film Institute