Boy City Film

This WWI home-front comedy is the earliest surviving film of King Vidor, who would later go on to make such classics as The Big Parade and The Crowd. A two-reeler, it's a propaganda comedy involving a little boy who can't wait to go fight against the Kaiser, and who sets an unrelentingly patriotic (and militaristic) example for his draft-age, feminized brother and peace-lovin' mother.

A number of boys are enjoying themselves at the old swimming hole in the bend of the creek, disporting themselves on the bank and in the water minus bathing suits: clad only in nature's garb. Tad and Mark, two urchins, are not members of the swimming hole gang.

Thomas Bellamy, a small black boy, is denied membership in the P. D. Q. Club, a secret organization composed of white boys, because of his color, but this does not dampen his ardor.