This lot will be auctioned on Friday, October 10th. The auction will begin at 9:30am PDT and lots are sold sequentially via live auctioneer; tune in to the live streaming broadcast on auction day to follow the pace. Note other lots in the auction may close on Saturday, October 11th or Sunday, October 12th in the timed online portion of the sale.
Half Sheet (22" x 28") ;
Fine+ Rolled
United Artists, 1920
Silent film legend Lillian Gish finds herself in a dire situation when she is tricked into a mock marriage. In a dramatic scene directed by D.W. Griffith, she hangs her head in shame as she is thrown out of her lodgings and into a raging snowstorm at night, after the Squire (played by Burr McIntosh) discovers that she is an unwed mother. This classic melodrama features one of silent cinema's most exciting finales. The beautiful color-tinted half sheet poster, which has never been folded, is unrestored and shows some signs of wear, including pinholes, sporadic small circular stains around some of the pinholes, edge wear, corner creases, and several light vertical creases that are not folds, along with crimping. The scene showcases some of Griffith's stalwart actors, including (left to right) Burr McIntosh, Kate Bruce, Vivia Ogden, Lowell Sherman, Lillian Gish, Mary Hay, Creighton Hale, George Neville, Richard Barthelmess, and Edgar Nelson. "Way Down East," along with Griffith's subsequent production "Orphans of the Storm" (1921), is considered one of his last great films before he began to lose touch with audiences due to themes that no longer resonated with contemporary viewers
"Way Down East" is a silent film melodrama directed by D. W. Griffith and starring Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess, and Lowell Sherman. It is one of four film adaptations of Lottie Blair Parker's 19th-century play of the same name, following two earlier silent versions and a 1935 sound remake featuring Henry Fonda. Griffith's adaptation is especially famous for its dramatic climax, where Gish's character is heroically saved from peril on a frozen river as her unconscious body is about to go over a raging waterfall. Although "Way Down East" was Griffith's most costly production at the time, it also proved to be one of his biggest box office successes. Earning over $4.5 million in 1920, it became the fourth-highest-grossing silent film in history and ranked just behind his 1915 epic, "The Birth of a Nation" (1915), in terms of revenue.
Estimate: $1,200 - 2,400