Way Down East

Anna, a poor country girl, is tricked into a false wedding by a rich man, becomes pregnant and is abandoned. When her baby dies she moves from town to town and finds work on a farm, where she is accepted until her past comes out. D. W. Griffith adapted a stage play considered outdated at the time and paid a high price for the rights. What still holds is the way it shows the cost that moral enforcement puts on the woman. The ice sequence at the end is among the most dangerous shooting in film history: Lillian Gish worked on real floes in a real river and the hand she trailed in the water was permanently damaged. It became one of Griffith's most profitable productions. Who it is for: anyone curious about silent melodrama and film history. Who it is not for: viewers who will find the period's morality and pacing hard going.