Thoughts on: “Way Down East”

When Griffith told his company that he was going to film the well-known–and old-fashioned–stage play Way Down East, they reportedly all thought he was insane. As Lillian Gish would later recall, “Way Down East was a horse-and-buggy melodrama, familiar on the rural circuit for more than twenty years. As I read the play, I could hardly keep from laughing.”