Broken Blossoms movie review & film summary (1919)

Although the best silent comedy remains timeless and many silent films remain undated, melodrama such as "Broken Blossoms" seems old-fashioned to many viewers. Watching it involves an act of cooperation with the film--even active sympathy. You have to imagine how exotic such stories once seemed, how the foggy streets of Limehouse and the broadly drawn characters once held audiences enthralled.

In trying to imagine the film's original impact, it might help to look at Fellini's "La Strada" (1954). Pauline Kael finds many of Fellini's inspirations in "Broken Blossoms," including Zampano the strongman (Anthony Quinn), whose costume even resembles Battling Burrows'. Gelsomina (Giulietta Masina), his much-abused companion, is obviously drawn from Lucy, and Richard Basehart's Matto, who gives her shelter from the brute, fills the same function as the Yellow Man.

Griffith in 1919 was the unchallenged king of serious American movies (only C.B. DeMille rivaled him in fame), and "Broken Blossoms" was seen as brave and controversial. What remains today is the artistry of the production, the ethereal quality of Lillian Gish, the broad appeal of the melodrama, and the atmosphere of the elaborate sets (the film's budget was actually larger than that of "Birth of a Nation").

And its social impact. Films like this, naive as they seem today, helped nudge a xenophobic nation toward racial tolerance.

There is all of that, and then there is Lillian Gish's face. Was she the greatest actress of silent films? Perhaps; her face is the first I think of among the silent actresses, just as Chaplin and Keaton stand side by side among the men. When she was filming "The Whales of August" in 1987, her co-star was another legend, Bette Davis. The film's director, Lindsay Anderson, told me this story. One day after finishing a shot, he said, "Miss Gish, you have just given me the most marvelous closeup!" "She should," Bette Davis observed dryly. "She invented them."