Now Playing: Broken Blossoms - a classic silent film from 1919
***SPOILERS ***Broken Blossoms is a classic film directed by D. W. Griffith, an excellent work of art that I am so glad survived the ravages of time. Granted, I missed the first part of it, and also a little bit nearer the end, but it's too good a film not to attempt to summarise. It stars Lilian Gish in a bittersweet role. Her performance is quite haunting as the waifish daughter of a boxer, Battling Burrows, (played brilliantly by Donald Crisp) who is harsh, cruel, and abusive. He's also a bigot. Richard Barthelmess plays a Chinese man, Cheng Huan, who cares for Lucy (Gish) when she falls ill outside of his small flat. He adores her, but does nothing more than tend to her, call her White Blossom, and hold her hand while she regains her strength. She likes him, too, and appreciates what he is doing for her. Later, while Chen Huang is out running errands, Battling finds Lucy at Huang's flat. Because of his prejudice against anyone who is not American, he begins to harangue her, insinuating that she has not behaved with propriety. She attempts to placate him and tells him that she has done nothing wrong, that she only fell in the doorway. He tells her "I'll learn yer!" (for befriending a foriegner) then savagely beats her (only part of that is seen onscreen). Then, as she lies dying, she lifts her hand to force her lips into a final smile. I missed a couple of minutes here, but Cheng hears that Lucy is in danger, and he goes to seek out Battling. When Cheng finds him, Battling wants to beat him for having been near his daughter. But Cheng has a gun and shoots him dead. He then returns to his flat to say good-bye to White Blossom and falls to the floor, having stabbed himself. ******************************** This is a webring that I manage
| ||||||
Posted by Mayv
at 12:32 AM CDT
Updated: Mon, 20 Jul 2009 2:13 AM CDT
