The Cinematic Century – By Harry Haun (2000)
The Cinematic Century – By Harry Haun (2000) The Cinematic Century By Harry Haun Copyright ® 2000 Applause Books An Intimate Diary of America’s Affair with the Movies 1920: Filmed amid much wintry hardship at White River Junction, VT, Way Down East premieres on this day at New York’s 44th Street Theater—and the dark clouds that plagued the production have not lifted: Bobby Harron, 26, the Biograph office-boy who became D.W. Griffith’s top juvenile actor but somehow got left out of this film (supplanted, pointedly, by Richard Barthelmess)—shot himself to death the night before the big launch. Then, there was the mysterious location death of Clarine Seymour, 21, who was playing Barthelmess’ intended and had to be replaced by Mary Hay. Death was, however, breathlessly averted once—and the cameras caught it, the genuine heroics of Barthelmess, snatching Lillian Gish to safety just as the ice floe they were riding on went over a waterfall. Gish did not escape entirely unharmed, though. Th