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D.W. Griffith, 1920, from Lottie Blair Parker’s play. Lillian Gish is Anna, tricked into a fake marriage by Lennox Sanderson, left with a dead child, taken in by the Bartlett farm. Richard Barthelmess is David. The ice-floe finish was shot at White River Junction, Vermont; the long drop is Niagara. Gish lay on real ice in a thin dress and put her hand in the water, her idea. No doubles. Bitzer kept a fire under the camera so the oil would not freeze. Griffith paid $175,000 for the play, a figure the trades repeated. She does not go over the falls.
In two programmes
Wanting used as a trick: a fake wedding, a dead child, a town that punishes the woman. Gish on real ice with her hand in the water was her own idea. Watch who pays. The film is furious about the answer, and the ice floe is the fury made physical.
The ice was real, the river was real, the hand in the water was her idea, and it never fully recovered. Anna tricked into a fake wedding and cast out by a town. Watch the baptism before the ice: Gish alone with a dying child is the smaller motion the big one is built on.
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