Lillian Gish

ORPHANS OF THE STORM

United Artists, 1921. Directed by D.W. Griffith.  Camera:  Paul Allen, G.W. Bitzer, Hendrik Sartov.  With Lillian Gish, Dorothy Gish, Joseph Schildkraut, Creighton Hale, Monte Blue, Flora Finch, Louis Wolheim.

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Henriette and Louise, a foundling, are raised together as sisters.  When Louise goes blind, Henriette swears to take care of her forever.  They go to Paris to see if Louise's blindness can be cured, but are separated when an aristocrat lusts after Henriette and abducts her.

Only Chevalier de Vaudrey is kind to her, and they fall in love.

The French Revolution replaces the corrupt Aristocracy with the equally corrupt Robespierre.  De Vaudrey, who has always been good to peasants, is condemned to death for being an aristocrat, and Henriette for harboring him.

Will revolutionary hero Danton, the only voice for mercy in the new regime, be able to save them from the guillotine?

Notes
Based on the play Les deux orphelines by Adolphe Philippe Dennery and Eugene Cormon (1875), as adapted by N. Hart Jackson and Albert Marshman.

The working title of this film was The Two Orphans.  Additional material for this film was apparently drawn from Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities and Thomas Carlyle's The French Revolution.  According to contemporary sources a 12 reel, 12,000 ft. version of the film was released 30 Apr 1922.  An earlier adaptation of the play Les deux orphelines was produced by Fox in 1915 under the title The Two Orphans , directed by Herbert Brenon and starring Theda Bara and Jean Sothern

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