Way Down East was one of D.W.Griffith's strangest films. It was a remake of an
old stage melodrama, already outdated by 1920, at least in story content. It was
the tale of Anna, a poor and honest country girl tricked into a fake marriage by a
callous city playboy. After (for her), a few days of deliriously happy married life,
he begins to neglect her. When she announces she is going to have a baby, he tells
her the truth about their marriage and promptly deserts her. Anna has her baby
shortly afterwards, but the baby is sickly and dies. Ostracized by the community she
takes to the road and finally finds work as a serving girl with a family of prosperous
but puritanical farmers from whom she conceals her past. She finds herself falling in
love with their son, but also tries to hide this from him too. Her former "husband"
moves into the neighbourhood as the local squire and he reveals her secret to the
family. For the plays climax, she is driven out into the snow, only to be rescued by
the son after he has had a fist fight with the squire to settle the account.

Nobody could quite understand why Griffith paid $175,000 for this old tale, but as
usual, he knew exactly what he was doing. For some reason, possibly because he
didn't want the audience familiar with the plot to find some of the original ingredients
missing, Griffith kept rather too much of the plays "cornball" comedy content. It
was never one of his strong points as a director, and it is definitely one of the films
weakest ingredients The story does seem amazingly fresh due to Griffith's imaginative directing and Lillian Gish's flawless performance. There is also an unusually good cast
and beautiful camera work. Of course there is the Griffith last minute rescue at the
end, a sequence he devised and not found in the original.

The films subtitle "Simple Story Of Plain People" was set in New England of the
20's, but Griffith gave it a timeless quality, overcoming most of the Victorianism of
the story as an attack on bigotry and prejudice. The characters become more three dimensional than in the play. Even the wonderfully lecherous villain, just before the
seduction scene, has a twinge of conscience which almost holds him back. In the
end he does, belatedly, offer to marry Anna. Lillian Gish's performance is dynamic,
any thoughts of stereotype in her role is instantly dispelled. As the happy country girl
in the early scenes, pleasantly bemused by the wonders of the big city, as the
ecstatically rapturous wife, and then the suddenly matured, tragically bereaved
mother, she gives one of her very best and most moving performances. Visually she
is given a great deal of help from Griffith's two ace cameramen, Hendrick Sartov
and Billy (G.W.)Bitzer. Sartov was Gish's favourite cameraman and he does some
wonderful shots of her wondering, forlorn down a long country road and standing
by a well at dusk with a white dove nestling against her cheek.

Despite it's fine acting and lyric photography, the film is best remembered for it's
spectacular climax. Gish rushing distraught, into the blizzard, collapsing on the
frozen river, and then being trapped on an icefloe as the ice breaks and rushes
towards the falls. This is so expertly handled by Griffith that it has audiences on
the edge of their seats, bursting into enthusiastic applause when the rescue is finally accomplished. Barthelmess in pursuit, runs across the treacherous ice-packed river,
jumping from floe to floe, reaching Lillian ultimately at the very brink of the falls,
picking her up and beginning to dash to safety as the flow on which they are standing
begins to go over the falls. What makes this sequence so suspenseful is that so much
of it is obviously for real. Griffith, who had his studio at that time, in Mamaroneck,
New York, shot many of the blizzard and ice-floe scenes along the Connecticut river,
with Gish lying, freezing on the ice, thinly dressed and being 'revived' with cups of
hot tea. So brilliantly were these scenes edited together with one or two studio shots
made later, and with scenes of the Niagara Falls, that it is practically impossible to
tell the studio shots from the real thing.