HOME, SWEET HOME (Reliance-Majestic/Mutual, 1914) Entire film

 

HOME, SWEET HOME (Reliance-Majestic/Mutual, 1914) Entire film

One of Griffith’s program pictures for Mutual, Home, Sweet Home, showed where Griffith had been and indicated where he was to go. Like the later Intolerance, Home, Sweet Home uses four strands of action. Unlike the later film, Griffith does not weave the strands together but keeps them separate, using only the leitmotif of the song, “Home, Sweet Home,” to unite the four stories, just as the wandering Pippa’s song unites the incidents of Pippa Passes, in the framing story of Home, Sweet Home, the composer of the famous song, John Howard Payne, deserts home, mother, and sweetheart for the big city. There he falls to wenching, drinking, degeneracy, and poverty, summoning up just enough of his old home spirit to write his famous song. Payne later dies of unspecified causes in a foreign land, and his hometown sweetheart dies at the same time, presumably from ESP.

One of Griffith’s program pictures for Mutual, Home, Sweet Home, showed where Griffith had been and indicated where he was to go. Like the later Intolerance, Home, Sweet Home uses four strands of action. Unlike the later film, Griffith does not weave the strands together but keeps them separate, using only the leitmotif of the song, “Home, Sweet Home,” to unite the four stories, just as the wandering Pippa’s song unites the incidents of Pippa Passes.

Home Sweet Home (1914) HDV 720p

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