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.

Hollywood: A Celebration of the American Silent Film (1980)

Hollywood is eminent movie historian Kevin Brownlow's blockbuster miniseries about the American silent movie era. It is one the finest and most informative documentaries about silent Hollywood or any period in Hollywood in terms of the scope and history it covers. The documentary is a movie lover's dream and essential viewing. Over the course of four years in the mid-to-late 1970's Brownlow interviewed hundreds of silent movie stars, directors, producers, technicians, journalists and writers who were employed in Hollywood during the first fifteen to twenty years of the movie business  British produced, shamefully this documentary never received proper distribution in the U.S., but now can viewed on Youtube. Here is the link.

The genesis of Hollywood started with the publication of Brownlow's The Parade's Gone By.. in 1968. The book is considered a classic among movie buffs, and with Hollywood being the standard bearer of movie documentaries, Parade is the definitive book about silent era Hollywood. Thames television produced the series Hollywood and according to Brownlow spent about $1 million making it, big money back then especially for British television. Though reluctant at first to work in television, Brownlow was also a filmmaker, he decided to do it after being impressed by the company. In some instances Brownlow had to pay film stars like Gish and Swanson, and a few stars like Alice Terry were interviewed but didn't want to appear on camera after 50 odd years. Most, however, were open with Brownlow, sharing their memories of this early golden era in movies.

In an interview with UPI in 1980 when Hollywood aired Brownlow stated: "Hollywood is not a history of the silent screen era. It is a homage - but clear eyed and realistic - of the 15 dramatic years in the life of an industry whose films are the closest we will get to H.G. Wells' Time Machine."

The movie has 13 episodes:

PIONEERS
IN THE BEGINNING
SINGLE BEDS AND DOUBLE STANDARDS
HOLLYWOOD GOES TO WAR
HAZARD OF THE GAME
SWANSON AND VALENTINO
THE AUTOCRATS
COMEDY - A SERIOUS BUSINESS
OUT WEST
THE MAN WITH THE MEGAPHONE
TRICK OF THE LIGHT
STAR TREATMENT
END OF AN ERA

Pollyanna (1920)

Mary Pickford plays the title role in the first adaptation of Eleanor H. Porter's book which Pickford produced herself through her production company. It's about an optimistic orphan who goes and lives with her wealthy spinster aunt after her father passes away. Everyone remembers the 1960 version with Hayley Mills as Pollyanna and Jane Wyman as the aunt, but this version has much to recommend it, foremost being Pickford's adorable performance as a twelve year old girl. She was twenty-seven at the time! This movie was one of her major hits, and Pollyanna is the type of character Pickford often played in movies: adolescent girls. At barely five feet, it was easy for audiences to accept Pickford as a little girl.

This movie is a lean 57 minutes; not unusual for a feature film in that day and age. The scenario is credited to pioneering female screenwriter Frances Marion, who collaborated with Pickford on several of her key films. Pickford helped Marion become established in the movie industry - for she wielded great power during this period. Hollywood was just becoming established and she, along with Griffith, Chaplin, Fairbanks, contributed a great deal to it's foundation. Eventually, perversely, sadly, shockingly, the business they all gave so much to would, with each in a different way, come to neglect them.

You can watch Pollyanna here via Internet Archive http://archive.org/details/Pollyanna