Lillian Gish photographed for "Broken Blossoms (1919) by James Abbe
52 notes
·
View notes
Broken Blossoms" Lillian Gish 1919
3 notes
·
View notes
Lillian Gish is Lucy Burrows (the girl) in D.W. Griffith's ''Broken Blossoms''
6 notes
·
View notes
Lillian Gish and Richard Barthelmess in Broken Blossoms (D.W. Griffith, 1919)
Cast: Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess, Donald Crisp, Arthur Howard, Edward Peil Sr., George Berenger, Nathan Selby. Screenplay: D.W. Griffith, based on a story by Thomas Burke. Cinematography: G.W. Bitzer. Film editing: James Smith.
The raw pathos of Broken Blossoms has probably never been equaled on film, thanks to three extraordinary performers. Lillian Gish is a known quantity, of course, but it's startling to see Donald Crisp as one of the most odious villains in film history. Crisp, whose film-acting career spanned more than fifty years, from the earliest silent shorts through his final performance in Spencer's Mountain (Delmer Daves, 1963), is best known today for fatherly and grandfatherly roles in How Green Was My Valley (John Ford, 1941), Lassie Come Home (Fred M. Wilcox, 1943), and National Velvet (Clarence Brown, 1944), but his performance as Battling Burrows is simply terrifying. As the cockney fighter, he displays a macho strut that might have influenced James Cagney. Richard Barthelmess is no less impressive as Cheng Huan, known in the film mostly as The Yellow Man. We have to make allowances for the stereotyping and the "yellowface" performance today, but Barthelmess (and Griffith) deserve some credit for ennobling the character, running counter to the widespread anti-Asian sentiments and fear of miscegenation in the era. Barthelmess, who became a matinee idol, makes The Yellow Man simultaneously creepy and sympathetic. And then there's Gish, who as usual throws herself (almost literally) into the role of the waif, Lucy. It's an astonishing performance that virtually defined film acting for at least the next decade, until sound came in and actors could rely on something other than their faces and bodies to communicate. True, some of her gestures lent themselves to parody, as when Buster Keaton steals Lucy's trick of pushing up the corners of her mouth to force a smile in Go West (1925), but parody is often the sincerest form of flattery.
3 notes
·
View notes
Lillian Gish in Broken Blossoms (1919) D. W. Griffith
22 notes
·
View notes
This movie is pretty darn racist but it's also about kindness and acceptance. We have a white guy pretending to be Chinese and squints his way through his performance and we have a director that went against the original story and didn't make it another "Yellow Peril" propaganda piece... and this is the same director that made "The Birth of a Nation"... hell of a ride and that's without mentioning the "Here's Johnny!" moment when Lillian Gish tries to escape her brutal father, locking herself in the closet while he breaks the door down with an axe, Lillian panicking in fear, acting like trapped animal with no way to escape... damn.
0 notes
I considered keeping this drawing to myself and not uploading it because it's probably too obscure for my followers to know what it's from but then I just said "Meh, fuck it."
Anyway, it's Lillian Gish doing the iconic forced smile from D.W. Griffith's 1919 film Broken Blossoms. Such a tragic role.
1 note
·
View note
Picture Show, April 24th 1920.
Full magazine scan at: https://www.babiafi.co.uk/2015/04/magazine-monday-picture-show-april-24th.html
1 note
·
View note
Lillian Gish in ''Broken Blossoms'' promo 1919 (postcard)
11 notes
·
View notes
I rewatched Infinite Realms last night and noticed something curious. When Danny meets Frostbite, Frostbite says that Danny is basically the savior of the Ghost Zone because he’s the one who sealed Pariah Dark in the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep. Which is mostly true, Danny definitely did the bulk of the fighting and defeating of Pariah, but if we’re feeling pedantic and technical (and obviously I am, since I’m writing this lol) Danny isn’t the one who actually sealed Pariah in the Sarcophagus.
Vlad is. He’s the one who actually had the key and locked Pariah up.
Which I think the show forgot about because you mean to tell me that Vlad isn’t out there taking credit for that? I don’t believe that for a second lol. Vlad would be taking credit for Pariah’s defeat at every opportunity imo, because he’s Like That(tm).
So anyway Halfa!Jazz AU Vlad has 100% taken credit for Pariah’s defeat and Jazz is totally super not bothered about it (she is incredibly bothered about it) (don’t worry she is also getting credit for the fight since she did most of the heavy lifting, Vlad’s just being annoying about it lol)
29 notes
·
View notes