In 1919, Abel Gance made a silent version of J'Accuse, an unprecedented outburst against the insane wastage of war. In 1937, with Europe on the verge of yet another holocaust, Gance reiterated his accusation with this film which, as Richard Roud points out, “is not a re-make (of the 1919 version).... The whole action of the early film is got through in the first third of the sound version, which then goes on to the between-the-wars period and gains more immediacy by relaying the fears of a second World War during the late Thirties.” Both versions contain the horrifying sequence in which the dead rise to accuse the living, but in the sound version “the theme has been subtly changed. No longer do the dead come back to see whether their sacrifice has been in vain. In this film, they return because they actually know that all war is futile. This version benefits from...Gance's exciting use of sound and music - both realistically and sometimes expressionistically. The whole mood of pre-war anguish is memorably rendered; indeed, as protest, has seldom been equalled” (Richard Roud, National Film Theatre, London). This is the full-length, restored version of J'Accuse.