War As It Really Is

Thompson most probably captured the Salonica material and the dogfights during his trip to the Balkans and France in November and December 1915.[5][6] Other reels of film are largely sourced from material he shot in June and July 1916 in France. Thompson claims to have shot 30 reels of film, primarily for Leslie's Weekly, but 70% of his material remained in France. He was commissioned by the French Government to record the French offensive at Verdun.[7] Thompson's hopes of covering the Allied offensive of 1916 were dashed when he was wounded in France on July 2 at the Battle of the Somme.[8] Nevertheless, he had enough footage for a 10-reel feature, which he edited down to seven reels for public release. He edited the footage while convalescing in New York.[9]

Thompson created a company named Donald C. Thompson Film Co., Inc. to market and distribute the film.[10] The company was formed largely of his associates at Leslie Weekly.[11][12]

Thompson initially offered the exclusive rights of the film to Samuel Rothafel, managing director of the Rialto Theatre in New York City.[9] Rothafel began screening the film in installments on October 15, 1916[3] and claimed that the film broke the Rialto's box office records.[12] The film was widely circulated in northeastern US[13] and in Canada[1] and by August 1917 in Australia.[14]

Thompson often showed the film to raise money[15] and offered the film free of charge to any organization that would donate proceeds from its exhibition to the American Red Cross.[8]

The Army and Navy War College in Washington DC bought prints of the film to use in an official capacity for study and observation. Officers were amazed at the detail in the film, such as the manufacture and piping of poison gas, the sappers digging mines under the enemy trenches by the aid of compressed air, how the ammunition is fed to the big 15-inch guns and their method of firing, the armored canal boats bringing up supplies in back of the lines, and the organization and working of the spy system.[16]

"To secure motion pictures of actual fighting in the European conflict requires a of mixture of skill, courage, the official influence and knowledge of military affairs. All these qualities are combined in the person of Donald C. Thompson, staff photographer for Leslie's Weekly and official cinematographer to the French Government. For that reason his collection of films stands in a class apart from the mass of stuff which has been exhibited in this country in the guise of "war pictures" and which has been in so many cases either utterly spurious or taken so far from the actual front line of battle as to be of little more than academic interest." The Moving Picture World, November 4, 1916[9]

"The most impressive feature of Mr. Thompson's pictures is their authenticity. Nothing is faked. The photographer was under fire repeatedly, and scene after scene was taken at the risk of his life. ...the man who made the pictures never let any obstacle or danger stand in his way." The Moving Picture World, November 11, 1916[17]

"Thompson is an artist as well as a photographer, a cool headed, daring photographer at that. Some of the pictures he has taken of the great war would size up favorably with the work of the great masters, and give a wealth of detail not found in these. One can sit thru the entire seven reels and not lose interest ... Besides their historical interest and the strong, bold portrayal of actual soldier life as it is today, the pictures have a number of unique features. Men, men, men by the thousands stream across the screen, young men, old men, uniformed men, ragged men, strong men and weak – French, Scots, English, Russian, Austrian, Algerian – men about to die and men already dead, but never a woman in the entire picture." The Topeka Daily Capital, December 9, 1916[18]

"Decidedly pro-Ally as the material is, it shows interesting effects of the German sweep through the war zone. Massed bodies of French and English troops en route; piled stores of shells; slumbering cannon, aero craft, and German prisoners; views from aloft of trenches as well as of battleships all go toward packing the seven reels with interest. Much detail is clearly screened in the corpses and skeletons piled about deserted fortifications. The very fine photography and immense expanse of territory covered at a sweep of the camera lense, bring this collection of front-line-of-battle pictures up to any war films yet seen on this side, as far as merit goes. Their value at box offices depends as ever-upon the state of the public appetite for such pictures." Steve Talbot, Motion Picture News, December 23, 1916[19]

A print of the movie has survived in the Records of the Office of the Chief Signal Officer of the National Archives in Washington, DC.