After the two tropical island ‘quickies’ I wrote about in my last post, D.W. Griffith took his next project far more seriously. In making Way Down East he returned to the high level of care and effort he usually bestowed upon his productions. He was prepared to spend the time and money required to make a ‘serious film’, and began with the purchase of a hit play.
Way Down East was a melodrama about small town life that had been successful on Broadway for many years. It tells the story of an innocent country girl who is deceived and abandoned by a rich playboy. She finds a new life and a new love, but her past threatens to ruin all chance at happiness.
It was exactly the kind of moralistic melodrama that movie studios had been churning out since their earliest days.
While it had been very popular, Way Down East premiered in 1898. By 1920 it was regarded as an old-fashioned relic of a bygone era, and a poor choice for a motion picture. Griffith, however, was an old-fashioned guy.
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