WAY DOWN EAST (Griffith/United Artists, 1920) Entire Film HD

 

WAY DOWN EAST (Griffith/United Artists, 1920) Entire Film HD

Lillian Gish undoubtedly does her best work to date as Anna Moore, the featured load. She combines subtly the simple-hearted childishness for which her characterizations have long been known with the hurt reserve that the spirit bruising knocks of a cruel world accomplish so quickly in dazed youth. There are few light touches in her offering, and it is much more effective so. Lillian Gish lifts her eyes to heaven as she flees across the shifting ice floes. Her performance as Anna dramatized the shifting perception of women in the decade following passage of the women’s suffrage amendment.

WAY DOWN EAST proved to be one of the most profitable pictures ever made. The master had once more turned the trick. The public was drawn to see an old favorite in a new guise and found its familiar melodramatic qualities heightened beyond expectation. While sticking faithfully to the bones of the play, Griffith had very rightly adapted it to suit the newer medium—notably at the beginning, by adding material to establish the background of the characters, and at the end to give full rein to the last-minute rescue, developed in purely visual terms and heightened through artful photography and cutting. It was a device which had seldom failed Griffith in the past and stood him in good stead now. (Iris Barry)

The Cast:

  • Anna Moore ………….…………………… Lillian Gish
  • Her Mother ……….……………. Mrs. David Landau
  • Mrs. Tremont ………..………… Josephine Bernard
  • Diana Tremont ……….….. Mrs. Morgan Belmont
  • Her Sister ……………………..……….. Patricia Fruen
  • The Eccentric Aunt ………………… Florence Short
  • Lennox Sanderson …….…………. Lowell Sherman
  • Squire Bartlett …………………..…… Burr McIntosh
  • Mrs. Bartlett …………………………..……. Kate Bruce
  • David Bartlett ……..………… Richard Barthelmess
  • Martha Perkins ………………………….. Vivia Ogden
  • Seth Holcomb ………….………………. Porter Strong
  • Reuben Whipple …………….………. George Neville
  • Hi Holler …………………..……………… Edgar Nelson
  • Kate Brewster …………..…………………… Mary Hay
  • Professor Sterling ………….….……. Creighton Hale
  • Maria Poole ………………..…….……… Emily Fitzroy

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