Way Down East

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.