Background
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 by an inexperienced writer named Lottie Blair
Parker. First performed in the late 1800s, it soon became one of
the most popular plays in the US. It barnstormed successfully across
the US for ten years, but was considered outdated by the time of
its cinematic production in 1920.
Although it was Griffith's most
expensive film to date (costing him $175,000, more than the entire
cost of his 1915 classic
The Birth of a
Nation (1915)
), it was one of his most commercially successful
films.
The film is subtitled: "A Simple Story of Plain
People," with director Griffith intending that its sweeping,
lyrical, but epic style would convey an image of a vanished, unspoiled,
pastoral America. It is a simple, timeless allegory of plain, everyday
people in a story which attacks prejudice and bigotry.
Lillian Gish's
performance as Anna Moore is superb and flawless, beautifully photographed
as having an inner light and spirituality. Moving, authentic and
intense, she expresses the full range of emotions from a young, fragile
and innocent country girl in the big city, to an ecstatically-infatuated
new bride, to a betrayed "wife," to a bereaved unwed mother,
and then into a matured woman.
Plot Synopsis
The opening title cards:
Since the beginning of time man has been polygamous
- even the saints of Biblical history - but the Son of Man gave
a new thought, and the world is growing nearer the true ideal.
He gave of One Man for One Woman. Not by laws - our Statutes are
now overburdened by ignored laws - but within the heart of man,
the truth must bloom that his greatest happiness lies in his purity
and constancy. Today Woman brought up from childhood to expect
ONE CONSTANT MATE possibly suffers more than at any other point
in the history of mankind, because not yet has the man-animal reached
this high standard - except perhaps in theory.
If there is anything in this story that brings home
to men the suffering caused by our selfishness, perhaps it will
not be in vain.
Time and place - in the story world of make-believe
Characters - nowhere - yet everywhere
Incidents - never occurred - yet always happening
The supposed setting of the film is a remote village
in New England - the scene is of a gently rolling, grassy hill, a
wooded landscape on the banks of a river, a few white farmhouses,
surrounded by hedges, vines and flowering trees. The main character
of the tale is introduced:
Anna Moore and her mother. We call her "Anna" -
we might have called her "Woman" - for is not hers the
story -
In her humble home in Greenville to the tune of "Home
Sweet Home," country girl Anna (Lillian Gish) sits with her
mother (Mrs. David Landau). "Sore need of money drives the mother
to appeal to the Tremonts, their rich relatives in Boston." Anna
replies to her mother: "Oh Mother, I hate to ask them for money," but
then after a troubled twilight, she agrees: "All right, Mother,
I'll go." Anna packs and then departs from her country home
for the city: "An errand undertaken with the tremulous footsteps
that ever mark the trail of the 'poor relation.'"
The afternoon that an innocent Anna arrives at her
cousins, the Tremonts, they are in the midst of giving a bridge whist
party. At the formal party are Aunt Emma Tremont (Josephine Bernard),
her daughter Diana Tremont (Mrs. Morgan Belmont), and Lennox Sanderson
(Lowell Sherman):
An occasional interloper in Society - the dashing
Lennox Sanderson, who depends for his living upon a rich father.
He has three specialities - ladies - Ladies - and LADIES.
At the imposing front doors of the Tremont's mansion,
Anna is dwarfed by their size. She leans backward when all of the
sudden, a rude butler opens the doors and startles her. He lets her
enter - her Aunt (Mrs. Emma Tremont) (Josephine Bernard) is not particularly
cordial: "My dear child! Whatever brought you here?" Her
courage failing her, Anna avoids the question and presents her with
a gift of a knitted hug-me-tight. Mrs. Tremont imparts the embarrassing
news of the country cousin's arrival to her daughters. One of them
suggests: "Well, get rid of her." "But to impress
their eccentric, but enormously rich aunt (Florence Short), the sisters
pretend to be nice to Anna." Her wealthy relatives condescendingly
inspect her new gloves, as Anna tells them: "Yes, I expect to
stay quite a time - that is, if we suit each other."
Chapter II:
Near the country estate of the Sanderson
family is Bartlett Village. It is also the home of Squire Bartlett
(Burr McIntosh), the richest farmer in the neighborhood. At the Bartlett
farm, springtime is "awakening" - flowers and trees blossom,
newborn birds in a nest crane their necks for food, baby chicks are
wrapped in a blanket, cows graze, and the Bartletts sit in rocking
chairs on the front lawn.
David Bartlett (Richard Barthelmess), though of plain
stock, has been tutored by poets and visions wide as the world.
At the well, David is first seen stroking the head
of a tamed wild dove. His father, Squire Bartlett, is "a stern
old puritan, who lives according to his own conception of the Scriptures,
particularly the 'Thou Shalt Nots'." Mrs. Bartlett (Kate Bruce)
is a "gentle soul...as sweet as her beloved Scriptures." At
twenty-one years of age, David often daydreams.
Back in Boston, the Tremonts hold their great ball, "the
climax of the social season." Well-attired guests arrive as
Anna wears a plain dress "that she and her mother had made in
case she should go out in Society." In an upstairs dressing
room, one of the Tremont girls snobbishly remarks to Anna about her
dress: "It's quite all right - and from the balcony you can
see us dancing." "Solely to pique the sisters of whom she
is not over-fond, the eccentric aunt makes different arrangements
for Anna." After her dress is made to look more appealing, Anna
is led downstairs, where "beneath the alcove lights' golden
glow...Anna's delicate beauty [is] a whip to Sanderson's jaded appetite." Looking
elegant, Anna is immediately the center of attention - to the young
Tremonts' dismay.
Anna particularly appeals to the fancy of Lennox Sanderson,
and he quickly flatters her beauty with an idyllic image:
In your beauty lives again Elaine, the lily maid,
love dreaming at Astolat.
With the light glowing around her head, the naively-innocent,
coquettish Anna requests: "Tell me more." "Perhaps
in fear of her own daughters being outshone...Cousin Emma hurries
Anna off to bed." "Susceptible" Sanderson, the callous
city playboy, is "obsessed by a new desire" for Anna. Back
in her bedroom, Anna has been emotionally affected by the attention
she has received from Sanderson.
"After managing several meetings," Sanderson "finally
lures Anna to [his] apartment to meet a mythical aunt." There,
Anna is dwarfed by the vastness of his lavish place - he presses
a hidden button to automatically play a record on his phonograph
player. When he makes a physical advance, she hurries to leave. Then
he proposes:
You don't understand...I mean - I want you to - to
marry me.
Immediately overwhelmed and overcome, great big tears
well up in Anna's eyes - "Anna's inexperienced heart caught
in a tide of infatuation." She hugs him, and then delightedly
tells him: "Oh, I'm just going to tell everybody." But
Sanderson persuades Anna to promise secrecy - "dreading to cross
the wishes of his rich father, upon whom he is dependent."
Sanderson belongs to a class which, if it cannot
get what it wants in one way, it will go to any length to get it
in another...Evil plans -...Passion's urge knows no conscience
and various its ways to betrayal. Sanderson induces Anna to marry
secretly before going home.
In a mock/faked marriage ceremony, the city slicker
dupes the virtuous heroine into believing that they are married.
At the same moment, "far away, it happens that David Bartlett
is dreaming a troubled dream." During the mock ceremony when
the wedding ring is dropped, David awakens abruptly and sits bolt
upright in his bed, wondering amusedly what caused him to be so disturbed.
After the ring is retrieved, Sanderson assures his "bride":
Don't worry - everything's all right. Don't you trust
me?
After their sham "marriage," their horse-drawn
carriage takes them for their honeymoon to their "bridal suite
at Rose Tree Inn" where he despoils her.
To her it is the fulfillment of the dreams of girlhood
- to him but another adventure...Here conscience knocks at the
door - perhaps the slightest interruption might still avert this
tragedy, but...
After he kisses her hand and she calls him: "My,
my husband," his eyes are averted to the right. He hesitates
- a momentary ethical twinge of conscience knocking at the door.
But when he glances down at her intimately-exposed ankles (below
the lace hem which is underneath her silk dress), he continues with
the seduction in order to sleep with her. As they stand to go to
the bedroom, the camera fades.
In Bartlett village one afternoon, the post office
is robbed, and caricatures of the townspeople are introduced. The
dread minion of the Law - Reuben 'Rube' Whipple (George Neville)
is the Constable. Another townsperson Seth Holcomb (Porter Strong)
waits for Martha Perkins (Vivia Ogden), whom he has been following
around for twenty years. Seth takes his liquor under the name of
'Long Life Bitters.' Martha is "a relic" - nobody needs
a newspaper when she is around. The Constable is on a leisurely "man
hunt," pulled in his open buggy by his fiery steed Napoleon,
but his horse lazily refuses to climb a hill. Tempting his horse
with a handful of grass, the country bumpkin Constable lures his
horse-drawn carriage up the hill. He announces the post office robbery: "Great
news! Postoffice bin robbed! Dollar eighty-two cents in postage stamps,
eighteen postal cards! Heavy loss to the gov'ment!"
Chapter IV:
One day of honeymoon before Anna
starts home with her great secret. She asks Sanderson to promise
to be in contact soon: "Promise now - only two days!" After
returning home to her mother, Anna relieves her mother's anxiety
with happy, mysterious hints of wealth to come. But for playboy Sanderson,
the old ways are "too pleasant to give up" and he flirts
with ladies in the city for long periods of time. Less and less frequent
are their secret meetings until at last...she writes an urgent letter
to him from her home to come and visit.
Anna is ecstatic to see Lennox, but his first question
to her is: "You haven't told anyone about our marriage?" She
tells him of a tender new reason why the secret cannot be kept any
longer. To the tune of "Rock-a-bye Baby," Anna cannot hide
her secret any longer, and demurely tells him that she is pregnant
- and that their secret marriage must be revealed. But Lennox demands: "You
musn't tell
anyone
!" and then he tells her the truth
about their marriage:
Well - if you
must
know the truth - because
we aren't married at all!
With a look of disbelief and shock, Anna responds: "You're
just joking - tell me, aren't you joking?" From a string around
her neck (kept concealed under her dress), Anna shows him her wedding
ring: "WE MUST be married - see - see - our ring..." With
tears welling up in her eyes, Anna becomes hysterical, getting on
her knees and throwing her arms around his neck. He pushes her aside
and coldly explains:
Marriage would have meant my losing everything -
I intended to make it right - but - ...For Heaven's sake, don't
make a scene! I'll let you have lots of money and you can go away.
The duplicitious scoundrel Sanderson abandons her,
walking out on her. Anna cries out: "Mother! MOTHER!" and
then collapses on the floor. When her mother returns, Anna is revived,
and she shows her mother her wedding ring while explaining the deception.
Some time afterwards - left alone by her mother's death
- Anna hides away with her shame in the village of Belden. Maternity
is "Woman's Gethesemane." The ruined girl has a nameless,
illegitimate baby: "Shadows across the time dial. The baby without
a name." The doctor informs her that her newborn baby is "very
sick" and prescribes "ten drops of this in a little water
every hour until I return." The stern-faced Belden landlady
Maria Poole (Emily Fitzroy) towers over Anna and demands to know: "Where's
your husband?" Anna hesitates and nervously responds: "Oh,
he's - he's away." The landlady solemnly reminds Anna that if
the baby dies without being baptized, it will never see God.
Holding her dying baby close to her breast, at the
beginning of one of the film's most emotionally and poignantly-acted
scenes, Anna is "helpless and alone in the dreadful hours of
the night, and stricken with a terrible fear for her baby's soul...she
herself performs the sacred rite." Placing the baby on a chair,
she tearfully insists that her baby receive a proper baptism, sprinkling
water on its head:
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, - and
of the Holy Ghost. I baptize thee TRUST LENNOX.
Melodramatically, Anna expresses sadness, prayerful
caring, and utter submission to her God. Shortly thereafter, during
a vigil with her newborn baby in her arms (in a familiar Madonna
image), when "the little hands grow cold upon her breast," she
warms the baby's hands with her breath and mouth. The doctor diagnoses
the end of the baby's life: "My child, your baby is dead." With
open-mouthed despair and a look of dumbfounded shock, Anna's face
registers an unreserved reaction of fright to the news. She faints
backward in her chair.
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