Silent films may have less influence on more "modern" societies, which look down on or do not respect silent films and what they may have to offer, most notably the strong images which a silent film depicts. .
For the most part, we recollect images from a film as opposed to spoken phrases. Some spoken phrases are unforgettable such as "Hasta la vista baby" in Terminator 2 or "Here's looking at you kid" from Casablanca. But remarkable images displayed in movies can capture an audience's minds: The horror displayed in the trampling of the kid and the baby carriage rolling down the Odessa Steps in Battleship Potemkin or the ritualistic slaughter in The Eternal Jew. These remarkable images serve a purpose of playing on the audience's emotions instead of their intellect. It is important for propaganda film to play on the emotions of an audience because emotions can call people to action, instead of merely provoking thought in the audience's minds. .
The audience within a movie theater adds to the power of the movie medium, especially for propaganda film, which continuously attempts to influence the masses. Cinema is the only medium of communication in which the audience is a mass at the same time. Furthermore, it appeals to the individual as a member of the crowd. Within a crowd, an individual is susceptible to both their own emotion and the mass emotion within the crowd in the theater (Taylor 17-19). .
Early cinema offered other strengths that were later overtaken by radio and television. The cinema was the first medium that attracted its audience from all social classes. It had the ability for binding a nation together or strengthening a movement. The mechanics of the film itself allowed for multiple viewings at a rather inexpensive price. During the second quarter of the twentieth-century, film was a technological marvel, attracting all elements of the population. .
Considering the mass powers of early cinema, it was the ideal propaganda weapon during the early twentieth century.