The Silver Screen Oasis

moirafinnie wrote:One thing that Robert Osborne mentioned at the beginning of Broken Blossoms was that Miss Gish was very reluctant to play her character as originally written, since she was meant to be a 12 year old.

Maybe he should have called Mary Pickford.

I think "Broken Blossoms" is my favorite film from D. W. Griffith. I find Gish's "smile" a little hard to take, but basically this film has a direct, straightforward plot (unlike "Way Down East," which seems to take forever to get started for real.) and three great performances.

Last summer, I watched the 1920 "Last of the Mohicans," directed by Maurice Tourneur, on DVD. I kept thinking of "Broken Blossoms" as I watched, and I think the Cora-Uncas relationship in the movie was strongly influenced by Griffith's film.

I would love to see this "Lost of the Mohicans" on the big screen. It was far better than the Michael Mann version.

Everyone,

Uhg!!! Yucky-Poo! With no prior warning, BROKEN BLOSSOMS is airing right now with a hideous new score by the accursed Alloy Orchestra! Just awful!!! Boy am I ever glad I have the Thames version on DVD-R! What a downer after a very fine Robert Israel score to THE CHEAT earlier. But why doesn't TCM run the Tinted print of this film? The Image Entertainment DVD is tinted throughout? Star Fanny Ward was a Cutie.

BROKEN BLOSSOMS is a film that should never be given a new score. It had one composed for it when first released in 1919! Both the Image and Thames versions present new recordings of that vintage score! A good print is running, better than last fall, but the Music is unconscionable!

MR. WU is an excellent film, but Maria Newman's score isn't much better, I am very sorry to say! Yipes! Oh well, you will get to see Renee Adoree, and Anna Mae Wong! To bad the final scene is missing.

OLD SAN FRANCISCO is underrated, and Delores Costello is so beautiful. Thankfully, this film still has it's original Vita-phone scoring intact!

I agree the music was AWFUL but terrific performance by Lillian Gish and Richard Barthelmess in one of DWG's best films.

It's okay to reinterpret silents with new scores, I guess, but I would disagree with this particular choice, since the current score fits so perfectly. I think this is one of D. W. Griffith's best films. The music score is a very important aspect of the experience, just like with modern movies.

Gagman 66 wrote:MR. WU is an excellent film, but Maria Newman's score isn't much better, I am very sorry to say! Yipes! Oh well, you will get to see Renee Adoree, and Anna Mae Wong! To bad the final scene is missing.

I recall quite an uproar back in 2000 when"Mr. Wu" was shown on TCM with this new Maria Newman score. To date I have yet to find someone who enjoyed the score. However, I was told she did the score for "Daddy Long Legs" which has met with more approval.