The Washington herald., 1921-02-06
The Griffith
OfBiograph Days
Really Returned?
Way Down East" Shows Many
Glimpses of Style that Made
Screen Genius Famous.
BY EARLE DORSEY.

HERE Is something always hiIariousIy funny
the spectacle offered by the usually analyst
Of the drama the moment he undertakes
critical discussion Of major product of the D.
W. Griffith camera
Given. a rule. to the orderly assembly and
calm restraint of his adjectives. average critic
will, nine times of ten toss. his circumspection
10 the winds. blush with ncoherent, schoo-grlish
hysteria and give himself a -maudlin
delirium of superatives which rise, months after
ward to hiss gleefully at his embarrassed memory
Personally speaking, have never yet won bat
tie against the surocattng dynamics of Grinith's
style and Pm not alone by long shot 1t makes
little difference how contemptuous or low-spirited
toward the current dramatic your critic ha-
otually may be- set him in front of Griffith screen
and instantly he lets out a wild. hoydenish whoop,
slorying in his own seduction and prasing Heaven,
as a rule for no greater weakness
Generally speaking there may be raving
Grifath's Way Down East" than is customary. Part
Of this be due to the fact that Grifith's Way
Down East comedy is sufficiently Sennett-ike in
spots to restore ones faculties and ones orentaon;
but it is likely due chiefly
the human race is getting used to Griffths emo
tionaI artillery lust as it gets used to being in
love or paying income tax.
In some quarters, Grifith unconsciousy started
dissenting cult whose chief doctrine is find fault
with what he does There's some reason in that ap-
parent madness man who intelligently hnd
fault with Gririths work within days seeing
it is superior person indeed and the very act of
putting struggle against the Griffith hypnosis
denotes a superior quality of mind.
make doubt that legions of disciples of
this cult will pick Way Down East" full of holes in
course Of time, but prefer to rave through the
years, calling him the greatest of them all and
blitheIv ignoring alecks who
stantTy finding 5O-cent picture that has Grihth
stopped by city block.
Generally speaking, that universal tendency of
Griffith spectators and analysts to approach-yea to
embrace-the semi maudlin in their praise, is in
variable concoEnitant of Grifths completed work and
it is at LEASH OF the neradicable indications Of
the heights of the eighth art this man has scaled
alone.
Way Down Eeast.' Notwithstanding certain short
tba al ouos in
the spscta9r 9 TIE same tS old GTiih hyPn9ss is
sdapaton It's not the cometRer Of Belasco, with his
5e NOT @ ya not to all Subtle dps to
tom it's that odd unduPlicated and intangibIe
"steTeoscoPic qualIty-a 9ualitT as distinctly part
Of the Griffith physiognOmy
"NYTAY Down 1a. East t. is 5smsEkabIe arst for its
" discussion a week ago but further refer.
S the in a 62 get h6 rid is Of not the abdSe d
you to S try to Swsks hrOugh the
svey sly and excessively practical joke on the film
for more months than I care to remember With a
@ made 9d to c0nb the = Of nf two
for screen stories and while the work goes on.
and knocks everyone crOss-eyed with the finished
This new GEinth hlm must be for its climax
strokes his tension to
oossible but absolutely necessary to sustain the
Of the m And %hn M
than even the ride OF the clansmen The Birth Of
Gish episode in Hearts Of the World vastly more in.
tense tH nyonorfiopateIV !nsakinp tba9 tbc W
.tha Red-Aitksn pig-pen feud in THE Battle of Ell
new one? By no means!, Simply, very good
Haps I have the title wrong No matter. Watham
mo1ntaincer Villain whom you loved with an inten2
sity at the end that ecPsed the initial inten-
There's for hard thinking in that reference
well say that Grhth has built up sharper more
a% Down than in 2ny picture of hs pTe
since the BiGgraph era He strung out the eli
mag IN With the ride the CLAN snd %th
R:aSGfy Ct An 06 four Wnn in
big dey9s tS REhy eRH
RS59d satisfying revenge was Ssd in snticpated
sb G an rom Se EnRs e Of % 5
East on .bdeny a f6cu m S mn i
e given US in Way Down -sss Esst" picture happily
into @ ra 6 %0Fa s1 s bn but
start % the TO assertion that Gh hs ne may 5eDed eS
Original script abOupded but it is s9ftened. min
% it's S % h2G %
thtRg thi2gtS that is sheer story
That saST s6SnsSed BogpS IS So h
He today far s sfGry teller & ss9 f Ss ne ey G
9R sEan told bst story G t . ad s Bss
tbat priestcratt has its drawbacks He has, in "Way
TIoIVn East" a of the eyangest's snort and
- sWay Down East" means definite 5eturn to the
Tiograph manner-amplihed, glorthed ahd polished
~ one Is to see pictures and mistake
/" There is One odd thing about ''Way Down East"
- that Is its comedy. Much of 1t is very to
sapstick Somewhere along the line the obsolete at
sssasDbere of Way Down East" must have overcome,
,smporary, the Griffith effort at modernization; for
its S.He1opmen the old Ssosh thriller rinS
tb1oagh in all it's 1870 trappngs. However, one
Ias rot die hard over the comedy for the tension
outs one in need of raw comedy meat and Griffith
sbrows il at by chunks and hind-quarters
N Another slight disappointment that comes only
a. an afterthought is the definite decline from the
.s,sth standard the captions The best captoning
IN ever done on a Grifhth picture done in The
ySfrtb- OF q Nation" There's nothing in Way Down
Basta to compare TO that former epic and its cap
tjons though I nearly lost equipose at The
Temptation of Napoleon" in which an old grey