lugonian
With motion pictures having its share of windy film titles throughout the years, ranging from SOMETHING IN THE WIND (Universal, 1947), WRITTEN IN THE WIND (Universal, 1956), INHERIT THE WIND (United Artists, 1960), and the most famous wind title of all, GONE WITH THE WIND (Selznick, 1939), one of the last great silent movies with artistic style and motion becomes simply called THE WIND (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1928). Directed by Victor Seastrom, who earlier directed its leading players of Lillian Gish and Lars Hanson in THE SCARLET LETTER (MGM, 1926), re-teams these two here for another classic melodrama where the wind/or cyclone take precedence through parts of the story "of a woman who gave into the domain of the winds."Plot summary: Letty Mason (Lillian Gish) is a young girl from Virginia train-bound through the western prairie to stay with her cousin and family at his ranch in Sweet Water. While fearing the endless sounds of wind as seen through the train window, Letty soon makes the acquaintance of Wit Roddy (Montagu Love), a rugged fellow passenger and cattle trader who takes an interest in her. Once at her destination outside the train station, Letty is met by Ligh Hightower (Lars Hanson) and his friend, Sourdough (William Orlmond), nearest neighbors of her cousin (15 miles away) who have come to take her to the ranch by coach. While Letty gets a warm reception from her cousin, Beverly (Edward Earle), and meeting with his three children (Leon Ramon, Carmencita Johnson and Billy Kent Schaefer), she fails to get the same welcome from his bitter wife, Cora (Dorothy Cumming). During a social gathering, Letty meets with Wirt Roddy once more, who offers his hand of marriage. Because of her closeness towards her husband, the jealous Cora forces Letty to leave her ranch and get herself married. Accepting Wirt's proposal, she discovers through him that he's already married and only wants Letty as his mistress. With nowhere else to go, she chooses the marriage proposal of Ligh instead. Their wedding night is anything but pleasant, considering how both bride and groom are heavily nervous about being alone together. After Letty rejects Ligh's forced intentions, Ligh realizes Letty's hate towards him and decides to earn enough money to send her back home to Virginia. After returning home from working on the prairie, Ligh brings home an injured stranger who happens to be Wirt. Being left alone with him while her husband is out working, Letty soon finds her biggest fear is not so much the endless sounds of the wind, but the very presence of the man who's still obsessed by her.Lillian Gish has come a long way since her days under famed movie director, D.W. Griffith, that began in 1912. After leaving Griffith by 1921, he ventured over to Metro by 1923. During her MGM years, her acting style not only improved, but Gish herself matured greatly as a serious actress. In a plot that echoes her earlier success of Griffith's WAY DOWN EAST (1920), where Gish braved the forceful blizzard winds, this time she goes through extremes of forceful winds of sand, with realistic insane moments where she observes the every movement inside her cabin, and unable to move herself forward through the wind while outside making her escape. Because this is a silent movie, Swedish actor Lars Hanson gets away playing an American prairie man. Most scenes are nearly stolen by the villainous and sometimes scary performance by Montagu Love. Dorothy Cumming as the unfriendly wife also brings chills up and down one's spine in the similar manner of other actress of the time, Gladys Brockwell. William Orlamond, who sometimes resembles that of Lucien Littlefield, is around for some comedy relief as the middle- aged farmer. According to sources, THE WIND had little appeal to movie audiences back in 1928. THE WIND has fortunately aged well and stood the test of time, especially when it surfaced decades after its theatrical release. THE WIND did became a curiosity for many when the climatic windstorm segment involving Gish and Love was clipped into a segment of an 13- week, well-informed history of silent movies documentary "Hollywood" (1980) under the narration of James Mason. Availability to home video with Thames Orchestral Score conducted by Carl Davis in place of original 1928 soundtrack and sound effects went into release by 1988, with five minute introduction by Lillian Gish herself. THE WIND was soon followed by world television premiere on Turner Network Television (TNT) August 26, 1990, followed by another broadcast Christmas Eve (December 24, 1990) as part of its "Silent Night" silent movie festival. In later years THE WIND (at 77 minutes) enjoyed frequent broadcasts on Turner Classic Movies, where, through its revivals, continues to win the appreciation it lacked way back in 1928. (****)
morrigan1982
A young girl moves out from Virginia to live with her cousin at Sweet Waters. She finds out that where she is heading, it is the Land of the Winds and that the wind there always blows and the sand is carried away with it. This wind is so vicious that people tend to loose their minds by it. Its ferocity "blows" away peoples' logic and they sleigh day by day into insanity, and this applies specially to women. Lillian Gish, who plays the young girl Letty, is a great actress who can really feel her part. She has such a great performance in this film that you can't help but bond with the young girl and you can really understand how she feels in every situation in the film. Her performance is just brilliant. Lars Hanson is the lead male actor and he too has a great performance that can stand beside hers. All the other cast was good as well. The director Victor Sjöström has done an excellent work with this film. I really wish I could somehow see the original ending of this film as well. In my opinion, this film is really brilliant. Never forget what the people went trough in those times to create such magnificent films.
lyrast
In 1995 I saw a screening of The Wind as part of a TV celebration of 100 years of cinema and it was a great experience. Since then, I've only managed to see clips. However, I just recently got a copy of this film with the Carl Davis score and viewing it again was wonderful. Of course, I remembered some of the great scenes such as the face in the sand, but this is a film that gains enormously on repeated viewings and I got a great deal more out of it this time around. What follows represents my own impressions of this marvellous film. It is personal and not meant to be exhaustive—indeed the film is worth a book! The elemental setting of the desert with its perpetual wind acts as a stage for the struggles, external and internal, which the characters must undergo. They have their own interior winds of passion which they are only barely able to control, just as they physically live on the edge of survival in the external world. Cora {Dorothy Cumming} wields a knife menacingly in the presence of Letty (memorably, magnificently played by Lilian Gish} and even screams in a fury "I'd like to kill you". But Cora is not evil. She deeply loves her children and her husband and can't bear the presence of someone she considers a rival. Love is terribly valuable in this desolate world and is defended with terrible tenacity.Lige {Lars Hanson} tries to win the love of his new wife, Letty, in his bumbling but honest way. At one moment he tries to force himself on her. Her rejection of him allows us to see a supreme moment of Gish's command of powerful emotional facial expressions which convey fear, disgust, hurt, horror, and anguish. It is moments like this which convince me that Lilian is the greatest silent actress of all. Again, Lige is not a bad person. What he wanted and needed was a helpmate, someone to share his trials and struggles with a shared love. She can't give him that. Hence, he tells Letty he'll not touch her again and will work to send her back home.The great finale is one of the most magnificent moments in cinematic history. Letty must finally face her repressed sexual feelings for Wirt Roddy {Montagu Love—in another wonderful performance in a film filled with them} All the psychological tension is conveyed by the power of the irresistible wind. The surreal swaying of the objects is mirrored by the swaying of Letty's body as her mind approaches disintegration. We feel that "the centre cannot hold". The Mythically powerful image of the great horse galloping in the midst of the wind is something never to be forgotten and touches us so deeply, so profoundly, that it terrifies us as much as Letty. Here are forces deeper than the civilised paraphernalia of the world around us. Here is something at the root of the soul.The symbolism of the wind and the great mythic horse is multi-layered and I think that many would enjoy exploring this area. There are some really excellent comments elsewhere on this board which are certainly worth examination and which will provide some good sign posts for that journey.For myself? I found the film wonderful and I just cannot help being excited about how wonderful it is!
Michael_Elliott
Wind, The (1928) **** (out of 4) Victor Sjostrom's haunting, masterful and claustrophobic film has been called the last great Silent film and I must agree with that and much more. Lillian Gish plays a young woman from Virginia who travels to the West to stay with family members but she's eventually kicked out and forced to marry a man (Lars Hanson) she doesn't love. The only thing worse is the gusting winds, which are slowly causing the woman to lose her mind. This is without question one of the greatest films I've ever seen and I'd probably go a bit further by saying it's the most suspenseful film I've ever seen. I started with all my fingernails but as I write this I have none left and in fact my fingers are hurting from where I've bitten them down so badly. The Carl Davis score perfectly captures the haunting setting of the dessert and Sjostrom's direction is so masterful that the film manages to be haunting and poetic at the same time. There are numerous great scenes in this film but I suppose to final wind storm is probably the most famous and it remains one of the greatest scenes from any movie I've watched. The brilliant lighting and haunting score really pack a terrific punch as the suspense continues to grow as the young woman fights for her life from not only the wind but another stranger. The special effects are still brilliantly done and look so much more realistic than that crap, which we call CGI today. The studio forced them to shoot and use a new ending, which probably isn't as good as the original but I still think it works quite well and doesn't ruin the picture at all.Gish turns in one of her many great performances and it's still rather amazing at how she could display innocence, horror and desperation just with a simple look. She's terrific in the film and perfectly sales her abused and tortured character. Lars Hanson is equally good as his character shifts a lot of gears throughout the film. Montagu Love is perfect as the villain who wishes to do Gish more harm than anything else. I read a little on this film and noticed that in 1928, a year after the release of The Jazz Singer, people used this film as proof that you didn't need sound to make a film work and I think this still holds very true. I've seen countless silent movies but this here is certainly among the greatest and this film is proof that you don't need sound to build any type of emotion. Movies are to be watched and the visuals are always the most important thing and you aren't going to find many movies that top this one in the visual side. The scenes of the wind blowing the sand onto the windows is perfectly done as are the moments with the "ghost horse". As I think more about the film the more I'm wanting to call it flawless and it's certainly earned a spot in my top ten or fifteen of all time. A truly remarkable piece of work that shows the power of the format.
