Way Down East

D.W. Griffith's 1920 classic was self-consciously old-fashioned even for its day, with a radiant Lillian Gish playing Anna Moore, the innocent country girl who is seduced, impregnated, and betrayed by mustache-twirling cad Lennox Sanderson (future director Lowell Sherman), and then protected by all-American David Bartlett (Richard Barthelmess), a good boy from a proud family that looks down on the despoiled young woman with a child born out of wedlock. Based on a sentimental 19th-century stage melodrama by Lottie Blair Parker, the story is made larger than life with Griffith's Dickensian approach, flair for spectacle (in particular, a thrilling race across ice floes), and use of cross-cutting and orchestrated pacing to turn the climactic moments into nail-biting action. Griffith was still one of the masters of American filmmaking at the time, and this is one of his best works, despite the theatrical clichés and corny Victorian morality. And while Way Down East may not be as iconic or historically essential as The Birth of a Nation, it's also neither as controversial nor potentially offensive to viewers. Newly remastered for Blu-ray from the Museum of Modern Art's 35mm restoration—with color tints and a score by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra—extras include a clip from the Edison Studio's 1903 version of Uncle Tom's Cabin (featuring the floating-ice sequence that inspired Griffith's scene), documents and notes on the film, and stills galleries. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)