Lillian Gish

WAY DOWN EAST

United Artists, 1920. Directed by D.W. Griffith. Camera:  B.W. Bitzer. With Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess, Lowell Sherman, Burr McIntosh, Kate Bruce, Mary Hay, Creighton Hale, Emily Fitzroy, Porter Strong, George Neville, Edgar Nelson, Mrs. David Landau, Josephine Bernard, Mrs. Morgan Belmont, Patricia Fruen, Florence Short, Viva Ogden, Norma Shearer.

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Faced with financial difficulties, innocent country girl Anna Moore goes to visit her rich Boston relatives, the Tremonts, to seek aid.  There, she becomes the victim of a false marriage to playboy Lennox Sanderson.

Deserted by the man she thought was her husband, Anna is left penniless and alone to face the birth of her nameless child.  After her mother's death, Anna takes refuge in a rooming house in Belden where her baby dies.

Turned out by an unsympathetic landlady, the brokenhearted mother finds employment at the farm of Squire Bartlett, a stern but just man, who believes in a strict accounting for sin.

The squire's son David falls in love with Anna, and she is about to accept her new found happiness when Sanderson appears and the squire learns that Anna had lived with him in sin.  He turns the girl from the house in a blinding snow storm, and hysterical, she stumbles onto the frozen river where she faints.  Her rescue by David from the drifting ice and certain death brings about their union after the squire and his wife learn Anna's true story.

Notes
Based on the play Way Down East by Lottie Blair Parker as elaborated by Joseph R. Grismer (New York, 14 Dec 1903).

Following the opening title card and a title for D.W. Griffith's credit, the following statement appears:  "A simple story of plain people."  Before the story begins, the following written prologue is presented:  "Since the beginning of time, man has been polygamous—even the saints of Biblical history—but today a better ideal is growing—an ideal of one man for one woman.  Today woman brought up from childhood to expect one constant mate possibly suffers more than at any period in the history of mankind, because not yet has the man reached this high standard—except perhaps in theory."  A brief written statement reading:  "A remote village in New England some few years ago" appears as the action begins.

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The play Way Down East was based on a play by Parker entitled Annie Laurie which had been produced in Chicago in 1897.  D.W. Griffith reportedly paid a record sum of $175,000 to William Brady for the rights to Way Down East which initially was to be made into a film by Brady's own company.  Burr McIntosh played the role of Squire Bartlett in the Broadway production of Way Down East.

The film was produced at the D.W. Griffith studio in Mamaroneck, Long Island. Some scenes were shot at White River Junction, Vermont.  According to modern sources, Elmer Clifton directed some of these scenes; Leigh Smith and Herbert Sutch assisted in the production of these scenes and Lillian Gish's gowns were designed by Madame Lisette.  The role of Kate Brewster was originally portrayed by Clarine Seymour, but Seymour died during the film's production and no footage of her appears in the completed version.

Way Down East was originally released on a road show basis with twenty companies, including symphonic orchestras and effects touring the first class theaters in the U.S.  The film was shown in two parts with an intermission.  Gish appeared in some performances in a staged prologue.  Subsequent to the road show release, the film was released nationally by United Artists.  Richard Barthelmess and Mary Hay married subsequent to the production of this film.  According to modern sources, the climactic ice floe scene was shot at Orient Point, Long Island.  The film was re-released in 1931 with synchronized sound added.  Twentieth Century-Fox produced a film based on the same source in 1935; it was directed by Henry King and starred Rochelle Hudson and Henry Fonda.

American Film Institute Catalog