Featured Audience Ratings

• AJ V

  
  A fantastic, yet much too long, melodrama from the famous silent director D.W. Griffith. Forget about Birth of a Nation, this is the film to see. It stars the fabulous Gish sisters and they just melt your heart. The story is brilliant, the movie doesn't even look very old, it… More
  A fantastic, yet much too long, melodrama from the famous silent director D.W. Griffith. Forget about Birth of a Nation, this is the film to see. It stars the fabulous Gish sisters and they just melt your heart. The story is brilliant, the movie doesn't even look very old, it has heart and drama. I recommend it.

• Anthony L

  
  A beautiful melodrama following two sisters on a journey of loss and recovery during the French Revolution. Historically impeccable and based on the novel by Adolphe d'Ennery & Eugène Cormon, Orphans of the storm could easily be made today to great success but finding a pair… More
  A beautiful melodrama following two sisters on a journey of loss and recovery during the French Revolution. Historically impeccable and based on the novel by Adolphe d'Ennery & Eugène Cormon, Orphans of the storm could easily be made today to great success but finding a pair of sisters as wonderful as Lillian Gish & Dorothy Gish would be a much harder task. The set is amazing, it's hard to believe it was all filmed on a New York set. My favourite scene was when the peasant woman gets run over and killed by a carriage and the aristocrat that gets out pays her husband a penny and apologises for the inconvenience. It reminds me of Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin in many ways although I should point out that Battleship Potemkin came out three years later but this must have been an influence. I watched the Alpha video version on DVD and while the visual quality is good, the music they have put to it is awful, although their soundtrack to Way Down East is much worse.

• Cassandra M

  
  Story takes place in France before and after the Revolution. Louise (Dorothy Gish) and Henriette (Lillian Gish) are brought up together but are not really sisters--Louise was left on church steps as a baby and Henriette's parents took her in. Both are orphaned when their parents… More
  Story takes place in France before and after the Revolution. Louise (Dorothy Gish) and Henriette (Lillian Gish) are brought up together but are not really sisters--Louise was left on church steps as a baby and Henriette's parents took her in. Both are orphaned when their parents die and Louise is struck blind. Henriette takes her to Paris in hope of finding a cure. There they are separated--Louise is forced to work with villainous beggars and Henriette falls in love with Chevalier de Vaudrey (drop dead handsome Joseph Schildkraut). The story is wildly implausible with some twists that had me smirking. It's also overlong and VERY melodramatic...but it still works. It was made on a large scale with beautiful settings, costumes and a cast of hundreds. D.W. Griffith did a wonderful job of directing--especially when the peasants revolt and overthrow the government. I usually hate historical movies but I loved this one! The cast overacts wildly (especially Monte Blue as Danton) except for Schildkraut who underplays--and it works. Throroughly engrossing and highly recommended