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..

Ian (Flash Review)One thing I learned was that the "why did the chicken cross the road" joke is at least 96 years old as it was used in this film. Ha! On to more important points. The underlying theme of this film is to treat women well, marriage is important and sacred so don't cheat. The sprawling tale begins with a poor country girl who travels to the big city in hopes of improving their financial situation. A wealthy man, with a fondness for 'the ladies', becomes smitten with her and the only way he can 'have' her is to marry her. So he tricks her into a false marriage and she later has his child. Later that story point will be a crux that drives drama to the end. Really good acting, good pacing (dragged at times: 2:45 runtime) and a long but intricate and interesting story. I didn't know this til after but the ending is one of the most famous cinematic moments of the silent era. Not really a spoiler but there was a long rescue on REAL ice chunks actually flowing down a brisk river. No special effects, no stunt doubles. The actual actors were jumping on frozen ice sheets that were breaking away and heading down a rapids! Occasionally falling in and getting back out. The man actually carried a woman while hopping like a frog from ice sheet to ice sheet. It was very tense because it was real. Amazing and thrilling.

Jackson Booth-Millard From director D.W. Griffith (The Birth of a Nation, Orphans of the Storm), this is one of the first few silent films to be listed in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, I am obviously keen to complete as much of it as possible, and it was easy to get the chance to see this title. Basically Lennox Sanderson (Lowell Sherman) is the rich, handsome man-about-town, but he is amongst those that are exceptionally selfish and think only of themselves and their own pleasure, and he has found himself a vulnerable victim to be part of his inconsiderate scheme. Anna Moore (Intolerance's Lillian Gish) is the innocent poor country girl who meets Lennox, who convinces her he has feelings, and she is tricked into believing a fake wedding, and he just he just uses her, has his way with her, and then he leaves her when he finds out she is pregnant with his baby. The child is born and named Trust Lennox, but she has no choice but to care for the baby herself, and after some time tragedy strikes when the baby dies, and in deep despair she wanders the streets trying to find work and ways to get by. Anna eventually finds a job working with Squire Bartlett (Burr McIntosh), and she meets his son David (Richard Barthelmess), he falls in love with her but she rejects any attempted advances towards her because her traumatic past, and worse comes when Lennox returns. He is seen lusting after local girl Kate Brewster - the Squire's Niece (Mary Hay), and when he sees his former wife he tries to convince her to leave, possibly with him, she refuses but does promise that she won't reveal anything to anyone about the past with him. Eventually though Squire Bartlett learns from Martha Perkins (Vivia Ogden), the town gossip, about Anna's past, and in anger he throws her out into a snow storm, but before leaving she does tell about Lennox, respected by all, about what he did to her and being the father to her dead baby. While she is getting lost in the storm which rages on, a search party is formed by leader David, she is unconscious and floating down the icy river towards the waterfall, but at the last moment she is rescued by David, and in the final scene Anna and him get married. Also starring Mrs. David Landau as Anna Moore's Mother, Josephine Bernard as Mrs. Emma Tremont, Mrs. Morgan Belmont as Diana Tremont and Norma Shearer as Barn Dancer. Gish gives an eloquent and engaging performance as the young woman who goes through trauma and heartache and you can feel a lot of sympathy for, the other cast members act very well also, the visual elements definitely make the film distinctive, I admit the story without any sound was a little hard to follow at times, and the film could have been shortened somewhat, nearly lasting three hours, but with memorably watchable moments it is a worthwhile silent melodrama. Very good!

wes-connors Lillian Gish (as Anna Moore) lives with her poor mother in Greenville, a remote New England village. A sore need for money demands Ms. Gish leave for Boston, to appeal to some wealthy relatives, the Tremonts. Richard Barthelmess (as David Bartlett) lives elsewhere; "though of plain stock, he has been tutored by poets and visions wide as the world." In the city, Gish meets Lowell Sherman (as Lennox Sanderson). Mr. Sherman's hobby is "ladies, Ladies, LADIES!"; specifically, he is interested in the sexual conquest of virginal young women. Gish's delicate beauty is "a whip to Sherman's jaded appetite"; and, she innocently enters his clutches. Sherman tricks Gish into a mock marriage, and leaves her pregnant… Deceptively subtitled "A Simple Story of Plain People"; possibly, director D.W. Griffith was seeking to enhance his film's dramatic twists and turns; since, while Gish's "Anna" could be considered of "plain" stock, what happens her could not be called "simple". This film reunites Lillian Gish and Richard Barthelmess, after the successful "Broken Blossoms" (1919); their "Way Down East" performances are also stunning, though Barthelmess has less to do this time around. The spectacular ending is still riveting after all these years; but, it works best after you've seen the preceding story of degradation and love.The flaw in "Way Down East" may be Griffith's overindulgence in ludicrous "slapstick"-type humor; this is most explicit in Edgar Nelson's "Hi Holler" character, which really lays an egg. The silliness also rears its ugly head on Creighton Hale's occasionally cow-licked crown. Neither "True Heart Susie" (1919) nor "The Greatest Question" (1919) veered so wildly into this form of lunacy. But, in the end, these indulgences cannot diminish the great performances, and spectacular ending of "Way Down East". The "great ice-break" is absolutely indispensable. ********** Way Down East (9/3/20) D.W. Griffith ~ Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess, Lowell Sherman, Creighton Hale