Arabella's Notes

An Unseen Enemy (1912) Directed By D.W.Griffith Biograph B/W

Terrified!

Oh, dear! The Gish family friends had changed their name from Smith to Pickford and they had fallen in with "flicker" people! The Gishes were aghast...until they were offered $5 a piece to be in an audience scene! Suddenly the dreadful flickers gained stature! The director changed the hair ribbons on each of the girls..Dorothy to red and Lillian to blue for identification purposes and then to see if they could act, he chased them around the room firing a gun into the ceiling.
After all, words meant nothing. Mary Gish calmed their fears by telling them "that with a Barrymore in the cast they couldn't all be crazy".

The film was a one-reeler about two young orphans in a lonely villa. They were almost never seen apart, but clinging or holding hands. Melodrama at its best! Of course the audience would never know they were siblings because Biograph didn't include the actors' names in the credits or on the publicity flyers. It was designed to keep salaries down and directors absolute.

"Murder in mind?"

The Sisters (A Duel For Love) (1914) Directed by W. Christy Cabanne Majestic B/W

This was a screenplay written especially for the Gish sisters. The story concerns a complex and emotionally charged sibling relationship. The tale has it all..jealousy, contemplated murder, the death of one child and the sharing of another. It is a reversal of roles for the two actresses with Lillian taking on the more animated persona and Dorothy choosing to be the passive sister. It is a film that deserves attention but seems to be left out of many of the books written by or about Lillian Gish.

The Birth of a Nation (1915) Directed by D.W. Griffith Epoch B/W

Elsie and the "Little Colonel"

The picture was based on Thomas Dixon Jr.'s openly racist best seller "The Clansman" depicting the Ku Klux Klan as the defender of the white race. Lillian had the leading role as Elsie Stoneman, the virginal white girl nearly raped by the mulatto, Silas Lynch (George Siegman).
All black parts in this film were played by cork-painted whites. The public explanation was that black actors were not talented enough to play these difficult parts. Lillian, on the other hand, simply said in her book "Dorothy and Lillian Gish" that there were no black actors in Hollywood.
I'm sure if they had just looked around they could have found them. This film would forever stain Griffith's image.

Some other recollections from Lillian:
. "There was no written script on "The Birth". Mr. Griffith had every scene in his head down to the last detail."
. "Much of the time we had no money to pay the company because the extras had to be paid daily."
. " We played out of doors as we had no lighted studio at that time.

Every scene in "The Birth" was made in natural daylight" (and canvas
was used over interior sets to filter light into the rooms!

. "(Henry Walthall) was supposed to fall in love with (my) picture. I posed "live" within the frame because that was the fastest way to do it."

"The hand that rocks the cradle.."

Intolerance (1916) Directed by D. W. Griffith Wark B/W

This was Griffith's second epic saga with four complete stories to tell... the fall of Babylon, the Crucifixion, the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in France and the battle between capital and labor in America. The length of the movie was its downfall. The original version was eight hours long to be seen over two days with a dinner intermission between. So the picture was cut mercilessly and ultimately ruined. Lillian played the Mother of Time whose cradle rocking scenes separated sequences..."Out of the cradle endlessly rocking" (Walt Whitman). According to Lillian: "D. W. Griffith conceived and created every aspect of this film - story, sets, costumes - even down to eyelashes for the Princess Beloved." The set itself was nearly a mile long and filled with 3000 extras!

Lucy, the heroine of the story, was only twelve and Lillian (now 26) felt she was too old and too tall for the part. But Griffith argued that no child actress could do the role properly. The movie would not only make Lillian Gish America's foremost tragedienne but it would
make melodrama an art form.

But, of course, it again gave rise to claims of racism. The story's original title was "The Chink and the Child". The "Yellow Man" was played by a white man, Richard Barthelmess even though Sessue Hayakawa, a popular Japanese leading man, was available. It was while being fitted for the costume as Lucy, that Lillian began feeling ill. She had contracted Spanish influenza, a disease that would kill more than half a million Americans. It almost killed her but she was later able to make light of it: "The only disagreeable thing was that it left me with flannel nightgowns.- I have to wear them all winter - horrible things!"

Out in the snow!

Way Down East (1920) Directed by D. W. Griffith United Artists B/W

The play by Lottie Blair Parker had been a hit in 1896. The story deals with Anna Moore, tricked into marriage by a cad, is abandoned when she becomes pregnant. Her infant dies. She falls in love with her employer's son, but the old man finds out about her past and throws her out in a blizzard. Her lover saves her from an icy death.

While working on this film, Lillian learned what "suffering for your art" really meant. They rehearsed ten hours a day for eight weeks before shooting ever began. Then nature provided Griffith with a real, raging blizzard in plenty of time for filming. Lillian was costumed in a thin dress and cloak for the scene and was truly freezing. Icicles hung from her eyelashes, her face and hands were blue. The frozen river was really frozen and although they used a plywood
"ice floe", the cold was bitter. Lillian recalls "We lost several members of our crew from pneumonia. Clarine Seymour died ten days after we worked in a blizzard throughout the night." Later Richard Barthlemess (who played the hero) said: "There isn't enough money in the world to make me do that again".

Orphans of the Storm (1921) Directed by D. W. Griffith United Artists B/W

"All alone together"

Dorothy Gish plays blind Louise in this film adapted from "The Two Orphans" a play that had been done forty languages. Frank Puglia, from the Italian company, would reprise his role as crippled Pierre in the movie. It tells the story of two young girls, Louise and Henriette (Lillian) during the time of the French Revolution. Add mob scenes, duels, executions, horses and cannons and that perennial peril-rescue scene and ...viola!..a Griffith melodrama! Joseph
Schildkraut is the leading man and the scuttlebutt on the set is that he was so nervous to be working with Lillian that they had to reshoot the love scene three times. Also they filmed the movie on Sundays so that the residents were glad to take part! To add to the attraction, they were given lunch and $1,.25 for the day. Lillian said "How Mr. Griffith managed to make so many look French and hungry at the same time, I will never know"..

This was Lillian Gish's last film with D. W. Griffith

Serenity at last

The White Sister (1923) Directed by Henry King Inspiration B/W

Both Lillian and King took credit for bringing this story to the screen. Adapted from Francis Marion Crawford's 1901 novel, it had been a successful stage play and a 1915 film with Viola Acton. The locale of the story was Naples so the movie was shot in Italy. Angela was a rich girl disinherited when a vengeful half-sister destroys her father's will and takes it all for herself.
When Giovanni, the soldier she loves, is reported dead in Algiers, she falls ill with grief,
and enters a convent. Her lover escapes his captors and returns but she will not forsake her vows. He is later killed in a volcanic eruption. To help her portray the cloistered life, Lillian falls back on her sojourn with the Ursuline nuns when she was in school. Ronald Colman plays Giovanni in his first major role.

La Boheme (1926) Directed by King Vidor MGM B/W

Mimi and Rudolphe)

This was the movie version of Puccini's opera if you can imagine it as a soundless saga. Lillian as Mimi shows flashes of comedic talent but is sensational in the last half of the movie as she portrays Mimi in decline.

She uses tremendous strength and emotion in the scene where Mimi stumbles through the streets and finally the extended suffering and death. Again the public applauded her performance by going to see the film in droves. The New York critics heaped high praise on her and it
was one of the most profitable releases for MGM in their 1926-1927 season. Lillian Gish overpowered all the other female stars at MGM with only one serious competitor on her horizon...the Swedish import, Greta Garbo!

Notes:
. Since Puccini died before the film's wrap and his estate in litigation,
the opera's score could not be used and a original libretto was
composed.
. Lillian had a major run-in with Erte, the costume designer.
She refused to wear his calico dresses on the grounds they were too
stiff and new to be authentic. She had her own costumes made
out of old, worn silk. Erte told reporters" Miss Gish will not wear
the dress of poor La Boheme unless the rags are all silk lined!".
Lillian retorted "Monsieur is a small dainty man and he seemed
to have designed them (the costumes) for himself!"

In the Shadow of Evil!

The Scarlet Letter (1926) Directed by Victor Seastrom MGM B/W

Hawthorne's classic tale of adultery in New England almost wasn't filmed. The Hays Office had put it on their blacklist as too sensual and unsuitable for film adaptation. Lillian wanted to do this story and persisted. Finally Frances Marion, considered to be one of the best scriptwriters of the period, agreed to try and write a script that would pass muster at the Hays Office. Lars Hanson, called the Nordic John Barrymore, was given the plum male role of the Rev. Dimmesdale.
He spoke no English so he did his part in Swedish. Only Director Seastrom (Sjostrom) could understand him but it didn't seem to be a problem with Lillian. Henry Walthall, who played the "Little Colonel" in "The Birth..." rejoined Lillian as her husband only to find she had grown up 5 inches. Henry had to stand on a crate for every scene with her.

Note:
. Lillian was very surprised to find that at MGM , musicians went on location with them to supply music to the cast. It distracted Lillian but the other actors couldn't work without it.

The Wind (1928) Directed by Victor Seastrom MGM B/W

The howling wind..!)

The picture began filming and wrapped in 1927 but wasn't released until November 1928. Lillian had already abandoned MGM and was in New York to do "Uncle Vanya" on Broadway.

The story involves Letty, a penniless Virgina gal who goes west to join her cousin's family . Lillian has the starring role but she has to compete against the wind and dust for attention. Letty finds no hospitality from her cousin's jealous wife and is almost seduced by Roddy (Montagu Love), a married dandy. She weds and then rejects Lige (Lars Hanson) a rough-mannered rancher. Roddy rapes her during a violent windstorm so Letty kills him. But Lige comes to her
and she goes into his arms The movie was shot in the Texas desert where it was 120F and already blowing sand. But the studio wanted more so they concocted a blend of sand and sawdust, then added eight airplane propellers and smoke pots to blow it all on the actors. The cast and Lillian again suffered mightily for their art.

Frances Marion did the screenplay but wanted the film to end with Letty who, driven mad by the wind, runs out into the storm and disappears. Studio head Irving Thalberg disagreed and the happier ending was shot. This was Lillian Gish's last silent movie.

Lillian speaks for the first time...reluctantly! Let's face it...Lillian Gish believed talking should be confined to the stage, not "a tin box"! According to Lillian, it not only prevented audiences of other countriesfrom participating because of language constrictions, sound also hampered the actor's freedom of expression. It made gesture and facial interpretations of emotion almost
irrelevant. When this picture was over, she returned to New York and the stage for the next ten years!

The movie was based on Ferenc Molnar's "The Swan" and Mary Pickford told Lillian it was much too whimsical to be a hit. Mary had something because the film made only a small flurry and died on the vine.

Duel in the Sun (1946) Directed by King Vidor Vanguard Color

A family portrait!

Talk about hype! David O. Selznick cornered the market on hype for his epic Western. Five thousand parachutes were dropped over the Kentucky Derby with "Duel in the Sun" parimutuel tickets attached...lollipops. Ashtrays, T-shirts and even mens' toiletries (aptly named
"Saddle Up") flooded the countryside. Someone should have told Dave that the censors' protest over Jennifer Jones' decolletage and that rape scene was enough!

Lillian played Laura Belle, matriarch of the McCandless family, and her performance won her a Best Supporting Actress nod (Anne Baxter won it for "The Razor's Edge"). But the film didn't bring her the acclaim she deserved even though Selznick himself sent her a congratulatory telegram. He was deeply impressed by her performance in the death scene.
This was Lillian's first picture in Technicolor!

Biding her time

The Night of the Hunter (1955) Directed by Charles Laughton United Artists B/W

Only black and white cinematogaphy could do this film justice. Its stark theme would have been diluted by color. Lillian plays Rachel Cooper into whose care abandoned children had been placed. Her voice is the first one heard . She was strong and sensible and loving. Two of the children who had found their way there were being stalked by a psychotic preacher played so convincingly by Robert Mitchum. Who can forget that scene where Rachel sits and rocks on the front porch, rifle across her lap, parrying verses of a gospel song with the killer at her gate. Then Rachel shoots him to protect her charges. To me this is the best performance she ever gave and she deserved an Oscar for it.