Way Down East (1920)

89% of critics liked it
(9 reviews)
68% of users liked it
(907 ratings)

"I'm not a bad businessman", filmmaker D.W. Griffith once protested, "Honestly I'm not!" Yet industryites were certain that Griffith had taken leave of his financial senses when he paid $175,000 for the screen rights to the old Lottie Blair Parker stage play Way Down East. Considered out of date… More "I'm not a bad businessman", filmmaker D.W. Griffith once protested, "Honestly I'm not!" Yet industryites were certain that Griffith had taken leave of his financial senses when he paid $175,000 for the screen rights to the old Lottie Blair Parker stage play Way Down East. Considered out of date even in 1920, the play told the story of Anna (Lillian Gish), the efficient yet secretive serving girl for a large farm family. Anna falls in love with David Bartlett (Richard Barthelmess), the family's son, but feels unworthy of him due to her checkered past. It seems that, years earlier, Anna had been duped into a sham marriage by city slicker Lenox Sanderson (Lowell Sherman). When she became pregnant, Sandson walked out on her. Shortly afterwards, her newborn child died, and Anna was shunned by her home community. These facts come to surface when Sanderson returns to Anna's life as the local squire. David's prudish father orders Anna out of the house and into a blinding snowstorm, but David, after settling accounts with the duplicitious Sanderson, goes after Anna and claims her as his bride. In adapting Way Down East for the screen, Griffith fleshes out the characters of Anna and Sanderson by adding a prologue, which included one of those poignant scenes ever filmed: Anna's tearful insistence that her dying baby be baptized. He also injected the weary old property with a jolt of sheer showmanship, added a "last minute rescue" sequences wherein Anna, lying exhausted on an ice floe, is rescued by David seconds before plunging over a precipitous waterfall. Even today's audiences, armed with the foreknowledge that Lillian Gish enjoyed 73 hale and hearty years after the completion of Way Down East, invariably gasp in fright and urge Richard Barthelmess to "hurry! hurry!"during the climactic scene. Far from becoming Griffith's Folly as predicted, Way Down East was a huge moneymaker. There is no better of Griffith's artistry than the fact that the 1930 talkie remake of Way Down East, though directed by the formidable Henry King, failed to match the pathos and power of the 1920 version. Our own quibble: why did Griffith retain so much of the original play's wheezy comedy relief, and why did he put that relief in the hands of the relentlessly unfunny Creighton Hale? ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Rating, Runtime: Unrated, 1 hr. 47 min.
Directed By: D.W. Griffith
Written By: Anthony Paul Kelly, Joseph R. Grismer, D.W. Griffith
Genres: Drama, Classics

In Theaters: Sep 3, 1920 Wide
On DVD: Sep 28, 2004

Critic Reviews

Jeffrey M. Anderson, Combustible Celluloid
This is melodramatic soap opera at its most blatant and at its very best.
Joseph Jon Lanthier, Slant Magazine
As my girlfriend pointed out, it's all about the last 40 minutes. But what 40 minutes!
Paul Brenner, Filmcritic.com
If you are not moved at the scene of Gish baptizing her dead baby, then you should check the obituaries of your local paper to see if you are listed.
Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews
Old-fashioned bucolic soap opera doesn't translate well to modern-times.
Michael E. Grost, Classic Film and Television
Classic feminist film
Tim Dirks, Tim Dirks' The Greatest Films
Way Down East (1920) is D. W. Griffith's classic, silent melodramatic film. He bought the film rights to the story, originally a stage play of the same name

Read all 6 critic reviews

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Featured Audience Ratings

Jim H

A rake seduces a woman into a sham marriage then leaves her pregnant to fend for herself. Politically and ideologically, I am diametrically opposed to D.W. Griffith, but when a borderline feminist message about positively treating women began Way Down East, I was… More
A rake seduces a woman into a sham marriage then leaves her pregnant to fend for herself. Politically and ideologically, I am diametrically opposed to D.W. Griffith, but when a borderline feminist message about positively treating women began Way Down East, I was briefly optimistic. Then, as I watched the plot unfold, I realized that Griffith's message was confined to not socially ruining women by rakish behavior; the social conventions that confine women remain secure and intact. Women should still be brood mares for the state and men. Griffith's anti-intellectualism is also on display as the mawkish principal dances like an epileptic who doesn't have a roadmap and won't ask for directions. And I don't understand why this man is revered, but his film is so diegetic. Almost incessantly we get title cards judging the characters and introducing the action we're about to see. The captions don't lead us into the scene or make up for the lack of sound; rather, they tell the story twice, once in images and once in text. This is especially true of the unnecessary horse stuck in the road scene. Lillian Gish, Griffith's stalwart champion, does a fine job, but I couldn't help but wonder if she realized how her arch conservatism meant was so tied to a sexist agenda in this film that even if she upheld these values, they would eventually bring her down. Overall, during Way Down East I found myself delighting in watching old silent films because I could be sure that all of the people who worked on it were dead -- even the kitty cat.
Anthony L

Is D W Griffith sexist? No he's not! Reading the many misconceptions on here and on imdb is quite astonishing. Way Down East is a beautiful story of Anna, a young girl who has been wronged and seeks a means of escape. I'm not sure if it was intended as a women's rights… More
Is D W Griffith sexist? No he's not! Reading the many misconceptions on here and on imdb is quite astonishing. Way Down East is a beautiful story of Anna, a young girl who has been wronged and seeks a means of escape. I'm not sure if it was intended as a women's rights statement, I think it was a story that suggested, like many of his other films, that before you understand, you must first listen. Everyone needs help from time to time and for anyone to suggest it is sexist due to the 'Damsel in distress' situation towards the end could say the same about thousands of films made since. They would also be overlooking one of the most impressive bits of cinema of all time, the breaking ice scene is unforgettable and truly brilliant! One of my favourites of all time - by far my favourite by Griffith.
Drew S

D.W. Fucking Griffith. This idiot. An ass-backwards racist and, here, an attempted champion of women's rights who ends up being even more sexist than possibly imaginable. This and Birth of a Nation are the maddening products of an innovator who just doesn't know what the… More
D.W. Fucking Griffith. This idiot. An ass-backwards racist and, here, an attempted champion of women's rights who ends up being even more sexist than possibly imaginable. This and Birth of a Nation are the maddening products of an innovator who just doesn't know what the hell he's writing about. This, obviously, is not quite the technical spectacle that Birth of a Nation was, but it's a very ambitious (if completely failed) precursor to the cinematic melodrama. It's probably only notable now for the scene where Lillian Gish floats down a river. So yeah, if you want to throw two and a half hours of your life to the wind for that kind of excitement, be my guest. Just know what you're getting into - a tale of woman's suffering where she is completely and totally inactive, a maddeningly passive prisoner to her own cruel fate.