I wonder if you would be good enough to thank Miss Gish from all of us who are trying to do the best we know how in the theatre.
Believe me,
Yours very sincerely,
John Barrymore
Mrs. Gish, who was not a motion-picture enthusiast, made a single comment:
“Well, young lady,” she said, “you’ve set quite a high mark for yourself. How are you going to live up to it?”
THE RIVER SCENE IN “WAY DOWN EAST”
“Way Down East” was one of the most popular and profitable pictures ever made. Net returns from it ran into the millions. It has had several revivals, and at the present writing (Winter, 1931), is being shown at the Cameo Theatre, New York, “with sound.” Its day, however, is over. Taste has changed—has become what an older generation might regard as unduly sophisticated, depraved. This, with mechanical advancement—the talking feature, for instance—tells the story. A picture of even ten years ago—five years ago—is without a public.
“Way Down East” is a melodrama, but one that at moments rises to considerable heights. Putting aside the spectacular features of the picture—the blizzard and the ice-drift, where melodrama is raised to the nth degree—the scene where the villain reveals to his victim that their marriage was a mockery, the scene where Anna Moore, about to be turned out into the storm, denounces her betrayer, and the baptismal scene, already mentioned, are drama, and, as Lillian Gish gave them, worthy.