Way down east [DVD]

United States, 1920

Film
Please note

Sorry, we aren't able to make images or video for this item available to the public online.

Source: Some information on this page may have been sourced as part of the 2023 Wikimedia Australia Partnership Projects grant, with the purpose of improving and expanding the use of Wikidata on our website. Wikidata is a free and open knowledge base that can be read and edited by both humans and machines. Read more about this project here.

A country girl is tricked into a fake marriage by a lecherous playboy. He deserts her when she becomes pregnant. After the death of the baby she seeks refuge in the house of a puritanical squire. The melodramatic cliche of the original play is transformed, suffused with the timelessness of myth by Griffith and the principal players. The extraordinary delicacy and intensity of Gish is well complemented by the playing of Barthelmess as the country boy. The final scenes of fragility against the elements in the blizzard and on the icefloe (filmed at some risk to Gish and Barthelmess) is a tour-de-force of staging, composition and editing. Based on the play by Lottie Blair Parker, William Brady and Joseph R. Grisner. Cast includes Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess and Lowell Sherman. With musical soundtrack recorded in 1928 by Louis Silvers. This version was fully restored by film historian David Shepard.

Content notification

Our collection comprises over 40,000 moving image works, acquired and catalogued between the 1940s and early 2000s. As a result, some items may reflect outdated, offensive and possibly harmful views and opinions. ACMI is working to identify and redress such usages.

Learn more about our collection and our collection policy here. If you come across harmful content on our website that you would like to report, let us know.

How to watch

Stream, rent or buy via Just Watch Logo

Collection

In ACMI's collection

Credits

producer/director

D.W. Griffith

Duration

02:25:00:00

Production places
United States
Production dates
1920

Collection metadata

ACMI Identifier

316830

Sound/audio

Silent

Colour

Black and White

Holdings

DVD; Access Print (Section 1)

Wikidata

Q1187189

Please note: this archive is an ongoing body of work. Sometimes the credit information (director, year etc) isn’t available so these fields may be left blank; we are progressively filling these in with further research.

Cite this work on Wikipedia

If you would like to cite this item, please use the following template: {{cite web |url=https://acmi.net.au/works/93402--way-down-east-dvd/ |title=Way down east [DVD] |author=Australian Centre for the Moving Image |access-date=28 March 2025 |publisher=Australian Centre for the Moving Image}}