BARBARA FRIETCHIE
Starring Florence Vidor and Edmund Lowe
MOVIE WEEKLY
October 25, 1924
"Barbara Frietchie" is being advertised as a "gorgeous, spectacular production that will make box office history," and even to one who is not forever dashing about crying "100% American," it seems a strange way to advertise the old lady made famous by Whittier. But then, of course, when Clyde Fitch put Barbara Frietchie into a play, he made her young and beautiful, and the picture has been taken from the play. "Barbara Frietchie" is a story of the war of the rebellion, when South was pitted against North, and Florence Vidor plays the young girl from Dixie who loved a Northern soldier. Edmund Lowe is the lover, but neither the war of the nation or the war of the lovers entertained us very much. It all seemed quite unimportant; which probably means that it isn't very well done. The episode which made Whittier's old heroine for all time is used in the picture when Barbara Frietchie waves the flag at Stonewall Jackson's men and cries, "Shoot if you must this old grey head, but spare your country's flag." This particular period has been done so often and so well on the screen that this picture almost seems an anachronism. However, Florence Vidor makes a very pretty heroine, and Edmund a very handsome lover.
BARBARA FRIETCHIE
Starring Florence Vidor and Edmund Lowe
PHOTOPLAY
December, 1924
The poetic "shoot if you will this old gray head, but spare your country's flag" has little do to with the heroine of this adaptation of Clyde Fitch's play. Once again there is a lovely Southern gal in desperate love with a handsome Northern officer. The flag episode is dragged in. Conventional and slow movie Civil War stuff. The direction makes Florence Vidor's Barbara super-sweet.