BROKEN BLOSSOMS

By 1919 Lillian Gish and D.W. Griffith had been working together as director and muse for nearly a decade. Don't let the date turn you away from this movie: it is one of the most poetic, tenderest love stories ever put on film. A tragic romance. Gish plays an abused girl of the London ghetto taken in by a kindly, young "Yellow Man" played by Richard Barthelmess. Unfortunately his love and care is not enough to save her from her sadistic father played by Donald Crisp. Despite being ill with Spanish influenza right before rehearsals were underway for the movie's production, Lillian Gish gives one of her iconic performances as a frail, virginal waif who is almost too pure and good for this world. Gish was reticent about assaying the role but Griffith forbid her to say no; he was a powerful influence on Gish's professional life. In her later years, when speaking of Griffith, she always referred to him as "Mr.Griffith, the Father of film."

Broken Blossoms is the reason it's hard to label Griffith racist. The movie is an interracial love story, and the Chinese man is the only decent man in the movie.