Way Down East

1920

Action / Drama / Romance

12
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Certified Fresh 96% · 25 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 70% · 1K ratings
IMDb Rating 7.3/10 10 5863 5.9K

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Plot summary

A naive country girl is tricked into a sham marriage by a wealthy womanizer, then must rebuild her life despite the taint of having borne a child out of wedlock.


Uploaded by: OTTO
March 04, 2014 at 10:35 AM

Director

Top cast

Richard Barthelmess as David Bartlett
Lillian Gish as Anna Moore
Norma Shearer as Barn Dancer
720p.BLU 1080p.BLU
989.34 MB
1280*720
English 2.0
NR
19.973 fps
2 hr 25 min
Seeds 1
2.06 GB
1920*1080
English 2.0
NR
19.973 fps
2 hr 25 min
Seeds 4

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by utgard14 8 / 10

"And then the storm."

D.W. Griffith's lengthy silent melodrama about a naive young woman from the country who is taken advantage of by a cad. Later she finds love with a nice, sweet boy but her past comes back to haunt her. Never one to shy away from expressing his personal beliefs in his films, Griffith uses this simple story to sermonize about the moral character of men (basically they're all either doe-eyed innocents or total bastards) while also finding time to criticize the idle rich and prop up women as madonna figures. The opening title cards inform us men were never meant to be monogamous but we should try to be because Jesus said so...or something like that. Show that to your grandma's church group.

Star Lillian Gish is terrific at expressing emotions with her face and body. Few actresses, silent era or since, have been able to convey so much without words. Then we have her performance in the climax. Watching Gish fling herself about in the ice and snow, knowing it caused permanent physical damage to her hand...well it's a disturbingly impressive dedication to one's craft. She really is one of the all-time greats. Babyfaced Richard Barthelmess and the rest of the cast are also good.

On the negative side it is slow-going, particularly in the first half, with a lot of drawing room stuff and side visits through the local corn. As the film goes along, it becomes darker and more interesting, culminating in the justifiably famous snow storm finale with special effects provided by Mother Nature. Definitely worth a look for anyone who wants to see the best of the silent era, but I would advise against starting here. This is the type of film you need to be used to the silent movie pros & cons before attempting to watch it. That first hour or so is likely to drive away impatient viewers.

Reviewed by gavin6942 7 / 10

Another Griffith Epic

A naive country girl (Lillian Gish) is tricked into a sham marriage by a wealthy womanizer, then must rebuild her life despite the taint of having borne a child out of wedlock.

Although it was Griffith's most expensive film to date, it was also one of his most commercially successful. "Way Down East" is the fourth highest grossing silent film in cinema history, taking in more than $4.5 million at the box office in 1920. That is an astounding number, and to be ranked fourth... it would probably today not be considered Griffith's best, and to think it easily out-performed Chaplin and Keaton...

Similar to other Griffith productions, "Way Down East" was subjected to censorship by some American state film censor boards. For example, the Pennsylvania film board required over 60 cuts in the film, removing the mock marriage and honeymoon between Lennox and Anna as well as any hints of her pregnancy, effectively destroying the film's integral conflict. Exactly how the film could make any sense without the core of its plot is beyond me.

Reviewed by MartinHafer 8 / 10

A very good film for 1920.

The reason I say that WAY DOWN EAST is a very good film for 1920 is that even by the mid-1920s, the style film this is would probably have seemed a bit old fashioned. So, compared to late silents it's not a great movie by any stretch but it is a decent movie nonetheless and better than most films of the day. So why is it old fashioned? Well, like the characters in many of the earlier D.W. Griffith films, the peopleof in the movie often seem very one-dimensional--like a 19th century morality play. For example, Lillian Gish plays a wonderful virginal sort, there is the town tattletale, the judgmental man, the cad and the professor--all stereotypes instead of real people. But despite all this, it still is a very good film.

WAY DOWN EAST begins with a poor cousin (Lillian Gish) going to the big city to spend time with her rich relatives. At this home, she is spotted by a total cad (Lowell Sherman) and he eventually asks her to marry him. However, the marriage is fake--and Gish has no idea it's not legal. After getting her pregnant, Sherman runs away--leaving her to have the baby on her own. Soon the baby dies and Gish is forced to go look for work in another town. There she gets work as a maid and becomes a beloved member of the family--that is, until word gets to the townsfolk that Gish is "that kind of woman"! This leads to an amazingly climactic scene on the ice (reminscent of the video game "Frogger") that you just have to see to believe and it's one of the best scenes Griffith ever filmed---very tense and amazing even when seen almost 90 years later.

What's to like about the film? Well, the biggest star of the movie are the special effects and camera work. As mentioned above, the ice scene is simply amazing, though the snow storm is also very realistic and well done. Also, there were some very lovely camera shots--such as the scene by the lake. All these made this a first-class project.

Overall, this is an important film but one that I would recommend mostly to people who already love silents. They will enjoy it considerably. However, for people not accustomed to and appreciative of the silents, it's probably one to hold off on--as you may be too quick to dismiss it because of the preachy plot and one-dimensional characters. For 1920, it was quite the accomplishment.

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