Classics of the silent screen (1959)

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of the falls, picking her up and beginning the dash back to safety even as the floe on which they are standing begins to plummet over to destruction. This sequence thrills because so much of it is obviously real. Griffith, then with studios at Mamaroneck in New York, shot many of the blizzard and ice-floe scenes along the Connecticut river, with Lillian lying freezing on the ice, thinly clad, and being revived periodically with cups of steaming tea. So expertly were these scenes cut in with one or two later studio shots, and with scenes of Niagara Falls, that is was well nigh impossible to tell the studio from the actual. In any event, it was one whale of a sequence. Way Down East was a much-needed goldmine for Griffith. Its profits enabled him to keep going on his own, and to finance other massive films— Orphans of the Storm among them. But it was the last real financial blockbuster that Griffith was to have, and only five years later he was to be forced to surrender his independence, and go to work as a contract director for Paramount. Barthelmess in a scene from the film's climax. Griffith and his great cameraman Billy Bitzer shooting the climactic scenes. It's incredible that a picture of such scope and beauty could emerge from such a crude-looking camera. 33