kerrydragon Terrible beginning in a story of a naive girl being hoodwinked into a sham marriage by the worst kind of pariah.Many lessons here about Money,Betrayal,Love,and Life being unfair.Musical score is too similar to a lot of Silents and Lillian Gish looks too much the same in her movies.The comical faces are too funny in this movie and I enjoyed the Party Scene where they all danced to old time tunes.For an early silent it is worth watching..

CJBx7 WAY DOWN EAST (1920) is considered one of DW Griffith's best movies. The story revolves around Anna Moore (Lillian Gish), an innocent country girl who goes to the city when she and her mother need money. During her stay with her rich relations, she meets Lennox Sanderson (Lowell Sherman), an amoral cad who dupes her into a sham marriage and dumps her when he learns that she's pregnant. She gives birth, but the baby dies. Anna eventually winds up working on the Bartlett family's farm, hoping to make a new start. She falls in love with the son, David (Richard Barthelmess), but an unexpected development causes Anna's past to catch up with her…Following is my review.SCRIPT: The story is complex and for the most part very involving. Griffith does succumb to his weakness for preachy and flowery intertitles once again, and I found some of them groan inducing. I wish that Griffith had used the visual means at his disposal rather than using his title cards to telegraph plot developments or the feelings of the characters. In spite of that, the story was enjoyable. The story attacks the sexual double standard that lets men play and makes women pay, as well as the emotional damage caused by self-righteousness without mercy and meddlesome gossip. Anna is a well-developed character, and the love that arises between her and David Bartlett is believable. There is also a love triangle that seems irrelevant at first, but helps to build up to the climax. However, the dated and corny country bumpkin humor that pops up every so often detracts from the story and slows the movie's momentum. SCORE: 7.5/10ACTING: Without a doubt, this is Lillian Gish's vehicle, and she shows why she is so highly regarded. Her performance is dramatic without being exaggerated, and she conveys all of the Anna's many emotional states with a seeming minimum of effort. Gish looks like she was made to play this role. Richard Barthelmess was a dependably likable and naturalistic actor, and he complements Gish beautifully in his playing of the understanding, sensitive David Bartlett. Lowell Sherman was a revelation to me. I had never heard of him before, but he played the part of the suave ladies' man exceptionally well. Sherman acts in a realistic manner and occasionally gets us to feel a twinge of sympathy for Sanderson on the few occasions when the character feels his conscience affecting him. Also worth noting is Mary Hay, who plays the elder Bartlett's niece and is involved in the above love triangle; she is charming without being cloying or cutesy. Many of the numerous supporting players, though, provide rather broad performances for comic relief that contrast badly with the main protagonists. For me, the three leads and Mary Hay provided the bulk of the acting interest in this movie. ACTING: 7.5/10 CINEMATOGRAPHY/PRODUCTION: Griffith shows his considerable skills in this film. Billy Bitzer again shows why he is such an influential cinematographer with well-composed medium and long shots, intimate close-ups, and occasional use of tracking and panning. The scenery in the countryside is lush and beautiful, and is captured superbly by Bitzer's lens. Tinting is used to great expressive effect to convey time, place, and mood. The scene on the ice floes is justly regarded as one of the most dramatic and exciting sequences of silent cinema, and it is very well paced. Unfortunately, it's hard to completely assess the film in this regard because some sequences are lost now, and have been replaced on the Kino version by title cards and still photographs. Some of the editing is a little awkward, with actions being repeated in a few frames. SCORE: 9/10 SUMMARY: WAY DOWN EAST boasts fine performances and an involving story, centered around a heroine very well portrayed by Lillian Gish. The cinematography is first-rate, taking full advantage of the beautiful scenery. However, the "comic relief" elements are corny and broadly played, and add unnecessary padding to the running time. In spite of that, though, the central story is still moving and powerful. SCORE: 8/10

Steffi_P You can't keep a good story down. DW Griffith's film of Way Down East was an adaptation of a popular play of the late 19th century, but that play was itself a rather flagrant rip-off of the Robert Hardy novel Tess of the D'Urbervilles. True, the ending was substantially altered, and Way Down East's conclusions were fustily moralist compared with Hardy's bold progressiveness, but this in a way just goes to show how almost identical situations and characters can be adapted to suit a variety of means. Griffith keeps the moral sentiments of the play, but for this "elaboration" (the word used in the picture's publicity material at the time) he craftily sheers it of its staginess to produce a work of pure cinema.Technically Griffith may by now have been overtaken by his peers, but he has lost none of his ability to show character and intention through meaningful staging and encouragement of naturalistic acting. For example, when Lillian Gish turns up at her rich relatives' home, no title card reveals her sense of being out of her depth, but Griffith often keeps her in long shot, emphasising the isolating vastness of the house, and this has an impact on how we view the scene. We then realise Mrs Tremont's embarrassment at having this poor cousin walk into her life by the distance the woman keeps from Gish and her awkward attempts to avoid eye contact. One of the most nicely done scenes is the one of Gish's wedding to Lowell Sherman. Unconventionally, he keeps the camera behind the pastor, obscuring the couple, and keeping a cold empty space in the foreground. This really gives us the impression that something is not right here, even though we haven't been explicitly told so yet.What really impresses about Way Down East is its beauty, which suffuses almost every frame – exquisite countryside vistas, painterly shot compositions, not to mention many radiant close-ups of Ms Gish. Griffith always liked to make his pictures pleasing to the eye, but there is method in all this gorgeousness. Griffith uses natural beauty to emphasise the idyll of the Bartlett farm, and it's no coincidence that this is at its most striking in the shots when Gish first arrives there. And Griffith continually flatters Gish with the camera, framing her tenderly and often in soft focus, creating a visual metaphor for her delicacy and purity.Gish's acting is of top standard, far better than the hysterical hamming she displayed in the previous year's Broken Blossoms. It's also nice to see her in a proper adult role rather than the disturbingly odd little girl figure she was in that earlier picture. Richard Barthelmess is also excellent, and like Gish he is capable of expressing a lot by doing very little. Together Gish and Barthelmess give what are probably the best lead performances of any of Griffith's features. No-one else in this cast makes an exceptional impact, but none of them is outstandingly bad either.A fair few of those supporting players appear mainly for comic relief, and there are by Griffith's standards an unusually large number of comedic interludes in Way Down East. This unfortunately was one of Griffith's biggest weak spots. Some of these gags look like they might be fairly funny in themselves, but they don't look it because Griffith keeps hammering them home with close-ups, making them seem forced and predictable. He should have taken a leaf from his pal Chaplin's book, and shown a series of jokes in a continuous shot, giving them a more natural flow and getting more laughs as a result.Watching Way Down East also makes me wish Griffith the writer had more confidence in Griffith the director, as well as in his cast and his audience. This picture has far more intertitles than it really needs. There are several which reveal Lennox to be a bounder, but these are superfluous because there are enough clues in the way he scenes are staged and the way Lowell Sherman plays him. It would be far more satisfying for the audience if they were allowed to figure out for themselves that he is up to no good. Still, this is a comparatively small blight on what is one of DW Griffith's most visually lovely, deeply engaging and marvellously acted pictures.

Boba_Fett1138 When the young country girl Anna Moore, played by early big movie star Lillian Gish, for the first time goes to the big 'moder'n town, things go from bad to worse for her. She gets tricked into a fake marriage, gets pregnant, her fake husband leaves her, the baby dies, in other words, this is a melodramatic movie alright.Lillian Gish definitely shines in this movie. I'm not her biggest fan, guess I'm more of a Mae Marsh person but I have to admit that she was totally great in this movie. The movie is filled with many more great and strong written and played characters, with also especially some great roles from Richard Barthelmess and Creighton Hale.It was surprising to see how actually humor filled this movie was, despite its melodramatic undertone and story. D.W. Griffith also had comical moments in it but this movie is almost a comedy at times. Especially the middle is mostly filled purely with humor. Quite in contrast with the melodramatic beginning and spectacular ending. It certainly goes at the expense of the drama at times.It's a well written movie, in which always something is happening. Especially the drama gets well developed and always keep things close to home, with real sensible emotions and feelings. It keeps both the characters and emotions always real, even when they're being over-the-top. It's also one of the many reasons why the ending works out so well.Definitely true that the last 20 minutes, or so, are the reason why this is an absolute classic and memorable movie. The breaking ice sequence, with a drifting Lillian Gish heading towards a waterfall is probably better known than the actual movie itself.The movie is great looking visually, with its sets and costumes but also with its camera-work and environments. The movie has some good looking establishment-shots, set in the beautiful nature.Not among D.W. Griffith's best works but in 1920 perspective this is an absolutely brilliant- and also really enjoyable movie, nevertheless.8/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/