D W Griffith's Intolerance 1916

Intolerance: Love's Struggle Through the Ages is a 1916 American silent film directed by D. W. Griffith and is considered one of the great masterpieces of the Silent Era. The three-and-a-half hour epic intercuts four parallel storylines each separated by several centuries: A contemporary melodrama of crime and redemption; a Judean story: Christ’s mission and death; a French story: the events surrounding the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of 1572; and a Babylonian story: the fall of the Babylonian Empire to Persia in 539 BC.

Intolerance was made partly in response to critics who protested against Griffith's previous film, The Birth of a Nation (1915), charging that it had overt racist content, characterizing racism as people's intolerance of other people's views. Read more on Wikipedia

Lowry refers to the film several times; in his film script for Fitzgerald's Tender Is The Night; "Abe gives his own background in movies: "I saw Buster Keaton in Seven Chances - I saw Intolerance." (The Cinema of Malcolm Lowry: a scholarly edition of Lowry's "Tender is the Night" Pg.73 ); later in October Ferry to Gabriola; "No, but what's really funny, it was a D.W. Griffith film, Intolerance — or maybe Way Down East." Or perhaps (and ah, the eerie significance of cinemas in our life, Ethan thought, as if they related to the afterlife, as if we knew." (Pg.29) and in a letter to Downie Kirk dated 13 December 1950; "We went to see the old silent film Intolerance - played straight through without any music at all - a great mistake, since Griffith wrote his own score." (Collected Letters Vol 2 Pg.307 )

D.W. Griffith's Broken Blossoms 1919

This was one of the first films Lowry ever saw as a child leaving a lasting impression (Bowker Pursued By Furies Pg.16). Lowry refers to the film in a letter to Frank Taylor dated  29 September 1949 discussing his film script for Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night; "I see it as one of the greatest and most moving films of all time, one that is also a return to a great tradition of the movies, something that should combine the emotional impact of Griffith's Broken Blossoms and Isn't Life Wonderful with Citizen Kane. (Collected Letters Vol 2 Pg.171).

Broken Blossoms or The Yellow Man and the Girl is a 1919 silent film directed by D.W. Griffith. It was distributed by United Artists and premiered on May 13, 1919. It stars Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess and Donald Crisp, and tells the story of young girl, Lucy Burrows, who is abused by her alcoholic prizefighting father, Battling Burrows, and meets Cheng Huan, a kind-hearted Chinese man who falls in love with her. It is based on Thomas Burke's The Chink and the Child. Read more on Wikipedia

Broken Blossoms 1919

Broken Blossoms or The Yellow Man and the Girl is a 1919 silent film directed by D.W. Griffith. It was distributed by United Artists and premiered on May 13, 1919. It stars Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess and Donald Crisp, and tells the story of young girl, Lucy Burrows, who is abused by her alcoholic prizefighting father, Battling Burrows, and meets Cheng Huan, a kind-hearted Chinese man who falls in love with her. It is based on Thomas Burke's short story 'The Chink and the Child' from the 1916 collection Limehouse Nights.

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Lowry held this film in high esteem; "I see it as one of the greatest and most moving films of all time, one that is also a return to a great tradition of the movies, something that should combine the emotional impact of Griffith's Broken Blossoms and Isn't Life Wonderful." Collected Letters Vol 2 Pg. 171 ; "Signs along the street mocked at him: Business as usual during alterations: Broken Blossoms: Dead End: No cover at any time. World's loveliest girls. Larger, more modern. He waved them aside" Lunar Caustic. 


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