“Sold for Marriage” 1916 — Entire Film —

 

“Sold for Marriage” 1916 — Entire Film —

  • “Sold for Marriage” 1916
  • Triangle-Fine Arts Story of the Russian Peasantry.

Sold for Marriage is an interesting story of a Russian family emigrating to the United States and attempting to sell their daughter (Lillian Gish) to a wealthy, elderly suitor. The first two reels, set in the Russian steppes, are impressive in their detail, and in these reels there is at times a comic vein apparent, particularly in the titles and in Miss Gish’s looking her ugly and old suitor up and down before exclaiming, “Marry that beast!” Throughout much of the film, the actress has a pouting look on her face, but there is fine acting in the scene in which she grabs a pair of scissors and considers killing the suitor to whom she has been sold. Despite some beautiful early scenes in the snow and one brief shot of Lillian’s lover, Jim, played by Frank Bennett, on a train speeding from San Francisco to Los Angeles, Sold for Marriage is not a great film. Julian Johnson, writing in Photoplay (June, 1916) gives an accurate appraisal: “Lillian Gish puts a convincing touch on a play of Russian life which is not convincing in itself.” Oscar Cooper in Motion Picture News (April 15, 1916) also endorsed Miss Gish’s performance, noting “Her work here, as always, gives the impression that she is one of the very few who can justly be called screen stars.”

  • Marfa – Lillian Gish
  • Jan – Frank Bennett
  • Colonel Gregioff – Walter Long
  • Ivan, the uncle – A. D. Sears
  • Anna, the aunt – Pearl Elmore
  • Dimitri, the grandfather – Curt Rehfelt
  • Georg, Ivan’s brother – William Lowery
  • The American policeman – Fred Burns
  • A desperado – Bromwell
  • Marfa’s mother – Olga Gray
  • Marfa’s father – G. M. Blue
  • The undesirable suitor – Mike Siebert

Lillian Gish, Frank Bennett, Walter Long and A. D. Sears carry the principal parts excellently. The scenes in Los Angeles’s Little Russia are as suggestive of our hybrid ghettos as the wilder and more obviously effective glimpses of Russia during a Pogrom.

Back to Lillian Gish Home page

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

D.W. Griffith – An American Life (By Richard Schickel – 1984)

Image
D.W. Griffith – An American Life (By Richard Schickel – 1984) D.W. Griffith – An American Life By Richard Schickel – 1984 Griffith! Before him, the movies were a nickelodeon novelty, after him, they were an international art form and a powerful, glamorous American industry He was the first to codify the rules and techniques of screen storytelling, the first to establish the conventions by which the unique capacities of the movies for both sweeping spectacle and profound intimacy could be employed in long, complex narratives, the first to assert the director’s claim to primary authorship of a film Above all, it was Griffith who imagined the future of his medium, and with his driving energy, his taste for the grandiose and his flair for publicity, propelled that medium toward that future—only to be crushed by the very forces he had unleashed. D.w. Griffith (1875-1948) Painting; D.w. Griffith (1875-1948) Art Print for sale His story is, in huge measure, the story of how the
Read more

Lillian Gish and Jeanne Moreau – Vanity Fair 1983

Image
Lillian Gish and Jeanne Moreau – Vanity Fair 1983 Vanity Fair – October 1983 Lillian Gish Jeanne Moreau This is a summit meeting: a queen paying homage to an empress. Of course, Lillian Gish, far right, is no truer a blueblood than any other homespun midwesterner. But wherever she goes now, she is treated like a monarch, acknowledging standing ovations in allAmerican palaces like Radio City Music Hall. Her admirers aren’t really applauding her 101 films (she has just completed the 102nd, about a sweet old lady and her sweet old dog). They may never have seen her slim but supernally intense performances in the D. W. Griffith masterpieces or in the Victor Sjostrom classics she made in the late ’20s at MGM. Lillian-Gish-Jeanne-Moreau 60s But they sense in her the grace, the purity, the wealth of symbolism that royalty sustains. Gish’s companion here, Jeanne Moreau, radiates a similar authority; what Gish was to the cinema of the ’20s, Moreau was to the cinema of the ’60s. “The
Read more