New-York tribune., 1920-09-12
By Harriette Underhill

sway Down East" was nine months
in the filming and cost more than $780,
900, but we doubt if these figures i'm
press any one very much. Usually the
more picture costs the less we like
it, for vast fortunes are squandered on
these huge spectacle things, whore all
the critics come out the next day and
say that it was historically correct, or
that it wasn't historically correct, and
that dancing girls in Nero's time did
or did not wear tunics.
But Way Down East" is reassuring
because you know that Mr.. Griffith did
not, could not have spent any of that
$S5o,000 in strings of beads for Neros
favorte, for palace walls to crumble
up later, nor for Roman armies.
Even after you see the picture you
wonder what makes it so expensive.
OF course, as the young man from
Boston who goes to the movies with US
says, at is thrillin', excitin' and grip
pin,'" in fact more so than any picture
we ever saw, but none of those things
makes it a gorgeous spectacle" nor
we> decided to talk 60 Mr.. Griffith and
find out all about it. "Way Down
East" is a picture every one should
see three times: the first time to see
how perfect it is in every detail; the
second time for the ice scenes and the
third time for the ice scenes.
The second time we saw it was with
the producer himself, and after the
three brides had been kissed by their
respective husbands and the people
had stopped cheering we went up to the
Office of the Forty-fourth Street The
-ster to talk it over. Mr.. Griffith is one
of the persons in whose presence we
thrill. The others are Charlie Chaplin
and Elsie Ferguson.
will you tell us the truth and will
you answer any questions we want to
ask about the picture
"Yes," answered the greatest director
in the world, "if you don't ask me
something don't want you to know"
WELL" we said, starting off easy,
what makes Way Down East so ex-
pensivc?"
principally the ice." We gasped as
though we had received dash Of cold
water in our face.
"Oh, the ice:-you had to buy it?
Wasn't it rcal?" And we had visions
Of each refrigerator giving up its
chunk and of property men dumping
them into the river, perhaps nice
peaceful summer river, and all of our
illusions were destroyed. We felt as
was no Santa Claus.
"Oh, yes, of course the ice was real
too real. That is why it was so dam
gerous and cost so much money"
And was it so dangerous >" we asked
breathless1y, feeling almost as we felt
when we watched Lillian Gish hang
ing off cake of ice which was float
ing over the falls and Dick Barthel-
mess trying to grab her from another
pitching cake of ice. WAS it as dan
gerous as it looked?"
We'll" began Mr.. Griffith, perhaps
not"&
Was it almost as dangerous as it
looked?" we interrupted
Il guess l can safely say that it was
that, all right. Why, you know that was
a real river. and real ice and real
falls and that was really Lillian Gish
on the ice"
And no doubles and no dummies,
honestly? And was that Dick Bar
thelmess who did all of that ice jump
ing that would make the most agile
Eliza look like a piker? And were
they really hanging on the edge of
the falls like that and Barthelmess
loaping from chunk to chunk with Miss
Gish in his arms ?"
at al happened just as you saw it.
There were no doubles and no dunn
mics. but of course it all had to be
timed and that is why it took so long
and was so expensive. We used five
different rivers to get the effect, for
after the ice breaks up it disappears
very quickly. And we had to build
dams to keep the water from flowing
too fast and we had to use dynamite
to change the coursA Of the river al
times, and we had to build bridges 70,