Way Down East - videos, teasers and stills from filming

All videos, teasers and footage from the filming of the film "Way Down East"

Way Down East (1920)

Timing: 2:30 (150 min)

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All about film

Video 0

Photo 14

Actors and characters

During the filming of the scenes with ice floes, a fire had to be lit under the camera to warm it up and allow it to function.
The film has no opening or closing credits. Moviegoers were given programs listing all the key characters in descending order of their importance to the plot.
The scene in the finale with ice floes floating on the surface and falling from the waterfall was filmed in warm weather, so the ice floes were props made of wood. The waterfall itself was only a few feet high.
A long shot in the film shows Niagara Falls, which has nothing to do with the location where the scenes with ice floes were filmed.
Clarine Seymour regularly worked with D.W. Griffith during those years, and she was initially cast as Kate here. Seymour played almost all of her character's scenes, but towards the end of filming, she fell ill and died of pneumonia on April 25, 1920. Griffith replaced her with Mary Hay.
Lillian Gish later recounted that during the filming of the final scene on the river, her hair froze and broke after being in the icy water, and her hand, which was also submerged, ached constantly afterward.

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