Orphans of the Storm (1921)

Director:

D.W. Griffith

Writers:

Adolphe d'Ennery (novel) &
Eugène Cormon (novel) ...
(more)

Release Date:

28 December 1921 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Henriette and Louise, a foundling, are raised together as sisters. When Louise goes blind, Henriette swears to take care of her forever...

Plot Keywords:

Blindness | Guillotine | Aristocracy | French Revolution | Knife Fight

Cast

Lillian Gish	...	Henriette Girard
Dorothy Gish	...	Louise Girard
Joseph Schildkraut	...	Chevalier de Vaudrey
Frank Losee	...	Count de Linieres
Katherine Emmet	...	Countess de Linieres
Morgan Wallace	...	Marquis de Praille
Lucille La Verne	...	Mother Frochard
Sheldon Lewis	...	Jacques Frochard
Frank Puglia	...	Pierre Frochard
Creighton Hale	...	Picard
Leslie King	...	Jacques-Forget-Not
Monte Blue	...	Danton
Sidney Herbert	...	Robespierre
Lee Kohlmar	...	King Louis XVI
Marcia Harris	...	Henriette's landlady
Adolph Lestina	...	Doctor
Kate Bruce	...	Sister Genevieve
Flora Finch	...	Starving peasant
Louis Wolheim	...	Executioner
Kenny Delmar	...	The Chevalier, as a boy
James Smith	...	Dancer
Herbert Sutch	...	Meat carver at fete
Rose Smith	...	Dancer
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Nellie Battipaglia	...	(uncredited)
Ruth Cleaver	...	(uncredited)
Tove Danor	...	(uncredited)
Dorothy McConnell	...	(uncredited)
Frank O'Connor	...	Party guest (uncredited)
William J. Walsh	...	(uncredited)

Directed by
D.W. Griffith

Writing credits
Adolphe d'Ennery		(novel "Les deux orphelines") &
Eugène Cormon		(novel "Les deux orphelines")
D.W. Griffith		writer (as Gaston de Tolignac)

Produced by
D.W. Griffith	....	producer

Original Music by
Brian Benison		(1996)
Louis F. Gottschalk
John Lanchbery
William Frederick Peters		(as William F. Peters)

Cinematography by
Paul H. Allen
G.W. Bitzer
Hendrik Sartov

Film Editing by
James Smith
Rose Smith

Art Direction by
Charles M. Kirk

Costume Design by
Herman Patrick Tappe		(uncredited)

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Herbert Sutch	....	assistant director

Art Department
Charles E. Boss	....	stand-by painter
Edward Scholl	....	set designer
Frank Wortman	....	set builder
Joe Dibuono	....	carpenter (uncredited)

Special Effects by
Edward Scholl	....	special effects

Camera and Electrical Department
Paul H. Allen	....	assistant camera

Editorial Department
Margaret Booth	....	cutter

Other crew
Anatole Danashaw	....	laboratory supervisor

Production Companies

• D.W. Griffith Productions

Distributors

• United Artists (1921) (USA) (theatrical)
• Universum Film (UFA) (1923) (Germany) (theatrical)
• Sfinks (1922) (Poland) (theatrical)
• Alpha Video Distributors (2003) (USA) (DVD)
• Delta Expedition (2004) (USA) (DVD)
• Grapevine Video (????) (USA) (VHS)
• Image Entertainment (1997) (USA) (laserdisc)
• Image Entertainment (1998) (USA) (DVD)
• Kino Video (1996) (USA) (VHS)
• Kino Video (2002) (USA) (DVD)
• Punto Zero (2007) (Italy) (DVD)
• Reel Media International (2004) (worldwide) (VHS)
• Reel Media International (2007) (worldwide) (all media)
• Republic Pictures Home Video (1991) (USA) (laserdisc)

Other Companies

• Western Costume Company  costumes (uncredited)

Also Known As:

Órfas da Tempestade (Brazil) (DVD title) [pt]
Ai dyo orfanai (Greece) [el]
As Duas Orfãs (Portugal) [pt]
Dwie sieroty (Poland) [pl]
Las dos huérfanas (Spain) [es]
Le due orfanelle (Italy) [it]
Les deux orphelines (France) [fr]
Myrskyn lapset (Finland) (informal literal title) [fi]
Orpolapset (Finland) [fi]
Zwei Waisen im Sturm (Germany) [de]
Zwei Waisen im Sturm der Zeiten (Austria) [de]

Runtime:

150 min | Germany:152 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Silent

Filming Locations:

Mamaroneck, New York, USA

Company:

D.W. Griffith Productions

Trivia:

D.W. Griffith decided to enlarge the scope of the melodrama by weaving in historical details from the French Revolution including the historical figures Danton and Robespierre. He made every effort to be true to real events and took additional inspiration from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens and History of the French Revolution by Thomas Carlyle, which Lillian Gish noted every major player in the film studied. Carlyle's book was, in fact, also a major influence on Dickens, who took the incident of an aristocrat's carriage running over a small child from Carlyle's book

Movie Connections:

Featured in The Cutting Edge: The Magic of Movie Editing (2004)

Silent Spectacle

Two ORPHANS OF THE STORM caused by the French Revolution desperately search for each other in the violent chaos of Paris.

History's sweeping drama comes alive in this powerful epic film from legendary silent movie genius D. W. Griffith. Although much happens on a broad canvas, the director never loses sight of the intimate details of the heroines' pitiful plight. In denouncing tyranny, Griffith always manages to keep the viewer engrossed in how the State's insidious evil affects the individual.

Much of the film's success is due to the remarkable acting of the Gish Sisters, Lillian & Dorothy. Acclaimed for her comedic talents, Dorothy here gives an almost completely serious performance, portraying a blind girl cruelly separated from her beloved sister and forced to beg in the streets. Lillian, her classic face mirroring a myriad of emotions, plays the sibling persecuted by both lecherous aristocrats and rapacious revolutionaries. The scene in which Lillian, in an upper chamber, hears Dorothy singing in the alley below but is unable to reach her, is almost unbearable in its emotional intensity.

A young Joseph Schildkraut plays Lillian's blue-blooded suitor, giving the viewer an intimation of the very fine character actor he would become with the advent of talking pictures. Lucille LaVerne steals more than a few scenes as the filthy harridan who enslaves and terrorizes Dorothy. Frank Puglia makes a poignant mark as Miss LaVerne's pathetic, downtrodden son. Comic actor Creighton Hale gives a lively performance in a small role as a mischievous, periwiged servant.

A fascinating aspect of the film is its vivid rendering of two historical characters of great significance in the history of France. Georges Danton was probably not as noble as he is portrayed by Monte Blue, nor was Maximilien Robespierre necessarily as evil as Sidney Herbert depicts him. What is certain is that both men were responsible for the deaths of thousands of individuals during the Reign of Terror. Fittingly, each man had his own rendezvous with Madame Le Guillotine in 1794.

Movie mavens will recognize an unbilled Louis Wolheim as the executioner awaiting Miss Lillian on the scaffold.

Griffith handles the sequences involving surging masses of extras with admirable dexterity. He also freely borrows a few plot elements from Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. In fact Miss LaVerne, with scarcely a costume change, would play the role of The Vengeance in MGM's 1935 version of that classic, violent novel.