cstotlar-1 Strange as it may seem, I think this film is better because it is silent. We can easily fit in the sound effects in our minds. Mr. Sjostrom made absolutely sure of that. And Sjostrom worked in the outdoors so often. "The Outlaw and His Wife" pops into mind. The plot, as desperate as it is, could hold up to any amount of over-acting and the lack of explicit sound simply draws us farther and farther into the film. I guess I wouldn't mind an independent score but I've seen the film both in Paris at the Cinematheque and here in the States a few years back and I didn't miss a thing - I think. Highly recommended! Curtis Stotlar

didi-5 'The Wind' is something of a pot-boiler. Lillian Gish goes to stay with her cousin in the country (a place where the wind constantly blows, storms boil, and cyclones attack). But jealousy and her own naivety cause problems for her - that and a charming stranger she meets on the train into her destination.The wind itself is a major character in this film, causing havoc, covering up secrets, coming into houses, distracting, dissolving, and influencing all outcomes. When Gish's character is railroaded into marriage with a man she can't love, we shouldn't be surprised, nor should the main events leading to the film's conclusion be unexpected.Beautifully shot by Seastrom and a wonderful performance from Gish help bring this film out from the classification of usual silent adaptations. It works well and even with an ending not originally as written, stands up after all this time.

Pixie I have no idea how this film bombed at the box office, because it was incredible to watch. Lars Hanson and Lillian Gish's acting steal the movie, but I found myself on the edge of my seat wondering what would happen next all the way from the first scene to the last. That is what a movie is all about- making the viewer anticipate on what will happen next not just sit there and correctly guess scene after scene. I will say that I saw this film at the 2009 San Francisco Silent Film Festival with an AMAZING live wurlitzer-which added an extra element to the film that made it an amazing performance. What breaks and makes a silent film (usually but not always) is defiantly the score of the film, and i'm quite sure that Lillian Gish would have loved the live music!

lebiglebowski OK first I would like to say that I am commenting on this movie after only seeing once it years ago on TCM. What made me think to comment was just this, I was watching a documentary the other day on Silent Film History and saw some clips from "The Wind". Now I never thought about what I am about to mention before, probably because the last time I saw "The Wind" I didn't own every Hitchcock DVD and box set there is as I do now (On Hitchcock: I both own and recommend Warner Bros 9dvd Signature Box, Universals 15dvd Masterpiece Collection Box, The New MGM/UA Premiere Collection Box and then to assemble the rest of his early films you can do it a few different ways also you have to buy To Catch A Thief and a few others as individual dvds).POSSIBLE SPOILERS...OK now what I want to ask is: Does "The Wind" contain Hitchcockian elements?? I haven't seen the film in some time and only recently have I seen clips. Also the time I did see the film it was already a few minutes into the story. Only one year after Hitchcock's "The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog" (1927), and some decades before the term "Hitchcockian" would come to be, I believe that The Wind does have Hitchcockian elements. As for these elements some may say that just because a film contains elements of great suspense or the use of an average(everyman/woman), innocent character being plunged into events that are almost unexpected if not definitely unwanted doesn't mean that this film is inspired by or can be coined as Hitchcockian. The term seems to be most widely used these days to describe certain films that seem to have been inspired by or that contain obvious elements of Hitchcock design such as the ever popular plot device "The MacGuffin"(or McGuffin if you prefer). While I am no film expert and mainly just a huge film collector/nut that happens to love classic cinema both silent and sound, I am interested in whether or not Victor Sjöström could have possibly seen one of Hitchcock's 6 or 7 films that had been released prior to "The Wind" in 1928.. Surely living in the UK he would have heard of Alfred Hitchcock at that time. While Sjöström was from Sweden and may have seen one or more of Hitchcock's films prior to filming "The Wind" I am sure that the Hitchcockian elements that I felt I saw in "The Wind" were just elements of another great director; Victor Sjöström.I guess being such a die hard Hitchcock fan I see elements of his genius in many other films, especially if they have any great moments of suspense such as the moment when Gish stares out that window (already maddened by the sand blowing and what had just occurred) only to see the horrible wind uncovering her most recent discarded item...The Wind is a Great film and I give it an easy 9/10!