Orphans Of The Storm
Encyclopedia
Orphans of the Storm is a drama film
by D. W. Griffith
set in late 18th century France
, before and during the French Revolution
.
This was the last Griffith film to feature Lillian
and Dorothy Gish
, and is often considered Griffith's last major commercial success, after boxoffice hits such as Birth of a Nation, Intolerance
, and Broken Blossoms
.
Like his earlier films, Griffith used historical events to comment on contemporary events, in this case the French Revolution
and the rise of Bolshevism. The film is about class conflict
and a plea for inter-class understanding and against destructive hatred. At one point in front of the Committee of Public Safety
a main character pleas, "Yes I am an aristocrat, but a friend of the people."
The film is a remake
of the lost
Theda Bara
film The Two Orphans
(1915).
Mother Forchard forces Louise into begging. Meanwhile, de Vaudrey visits Henriette with a proposal of marriage, and she refuses him. After expressing love for each other, he promises Henriette that Louise will be found. King Louis XVI orders Henriette to be arrested, due to his disapproval of de Vaudrey's choice of wife, and the Chevalier is also sent away, while his Aunt visits Henriette. During the meeting, Louise is heard singing outside, where Frochard has told her to walk blindly and sing. Henriette calls out from her upstairs balcony, but the panicked Louise is dragged off by Frochard and Henriette is arrested and sent to a women's prison.
Louise and Frochard's begging continues with the other two Frochards, and before long the Revolution begins. A battle between the Royalist soldiers and the people allied with the police, who are successful, results in aristocrats being killed and the prisoners of the "Tyrants" (including Henriette) being freed. A people's 'rag-tag' government is formed, and Forget-not takes his revenge against de Praille.
Robespierre and Forget-not send Henriette and her lover, the Chevalier de Vaudrey, to the guillotine, for hiding de Vaudrey, an aristocrat, who returned to Paris to find her. However, Danton manages to obtain a pardon for them. After a race through the streets of Paris he just manages to save Henriette and offers her to the Chevalier, when the two orphans unite. A doctor restores Louise's sight and a better organized Republic forms in France.
, who owned the rights to the play and had performed it hundreds of times since the 1870s.
Griffith in securing the film rights to make his movie had to wrangle with Miss Claxton, who for unknown reasons seems to have been reluctant to allow the story to be filmed a third time. When Griffith completed his film for release, a rival German version of the story had been made (Claxton owned foreign film rights as well) and was being prepared for release in the US at the same time as Griffith's version. Griffith bought out the US distribution rights to the German version so that it could not conflict with the earning potential of his own film.
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...
by D. W. Griffith
D. W. Griffith
David Llewelyn Wark Griffith was a premier pioneering American film director. He is best known as the director of the controversial and groundbreaking 1915 film The Birth of a Nation and the subsequent film Intolerance .Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation made pioneering use of advanced camera...
set in late 18th century France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, before and during the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
.
This was the last Griffith film to feature Lillian
Lillian Gish
Lillian Diana Gish was an American stage, screen and television actress whose film acting career spanned 75 years, from 1912 to 1987....
and Dorothy Gish
Dorothy Gish
Dorothy Elizabeth Gish was an American actress, and the younger sister of actress Lillian Gish.-Early life:...
, and is often considered Griffith's last major commercial success, after boxoffice hits such as Birth of a Nation, Intolerance
Intolerance (film)
Intolerance 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...
, and Broken Blossoms
Broken Blossoms
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...
.
Like his earlier films, Griffith used historical events to comment on contemporary events, in this case the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
and the rise of Bolshevism. The film is about class conflict
Class conflict
Class conflict is the tension or antagonism which exists in society due to competing socioeconomic interests between people of different classes....
and a plea for inter-class understanding and against destructive hatred. At one point in front of the Committee of Public Safety
Committee of Public Safety
The Committee of Public Safety , created in April 1793 by the National Convention and then restructured in July 1793, formed the de facto executive government in France during the Reign of Terror , a stage of the French Revolution...
a main character pleas, "Yes I am an aristocrat, but a friend of the people."
The film is a remake
Remake
A remake is a piece of media based primarily on an earlier work of the same medium.-Film:The term "remake" is generally used in reference to a movie which uses an earlier movie as the main source material, rather than in reference to a second, later movie based on the same source...
of the lost
Lost film
A lost film is a feature film or short film that is no longer known to exist in studio archives, private collections or public archives such as the Library of Congress, where at least one copy of all American films are deposited and catalogued for copyright reasons...
Theda Bara
Theda Bara
Theda Bara , born Theodosia Burr Goodman, was an American silent film actress – one of the most popular of her era, and one of cinema's earliest sex symbols. Her femme fatale roles earned her the nickname "The Vamp" . The term "vamp" soon became a popular slang term for a sexually predatory woman...
film The Two Orphans
The Two Orphans (1915 film)
The Two Orphans is a 1915 silent drama film directed by Herbert Brenon and starring Theda Bara. The film is now considered to be a lost film....
(1915).
Plot
Just before the French Revolution, Henriette takes her close stepsister Louise to Paris in the hope of finding a cure for her blindness. Lustful aristocrat de Praille (whose carriage kills a child, enraging peasant father, Forget-not) meets the two outside Paris. Taken by the virginal Henriette's beauty, he has her abducted and brought to his estate where a lavish party is being held, leaving Louise helpless in the big city. An honorable aristocrat, the Chevalier de Vaudrey helps Henriette to escape de Praille and his guests by successfully fighting a duel with him. The scoundrel Mother Frochard, seeing an opportunity to make money, tricks Louise into her underground house to be kept prisoner. Unable to find Louise with the help of the Chevalier, Henriette rents a room, but before leaving her de Vaudrey comforts and kisses the distressed woman. Later, Henriette gives shelter to admirable politician Danton, who after an attack by Royalist spies following a public speech falls for her. As a result, she runs foul of the radical revolutionary Robespierre, a friend of Danton.Mother Forchard forces Louise into begging. Meanwhile, de Vaudrey visits Henriette with a proposal of marriage, and she refuses him. After expressing love for each other, he promises Henriette that Louise will be found. King Louis XVI orders Henriette to be arrested, due to his disapproval of de Vaudrey's choice of wife, and the Chevalier is also sent away, while his Aunt visits Henriette. During the meeting, Louise is heard singing outside, where Frochard has told her to walk blindly and sing. Henriette calls out from her upstairs balcony, but the panicked Louise is dragged off by Frochard and Henriette is arrested and sent to a women's prison.
Louise and Frochard's begging continues with the other two Frochards, and before long the Revolution begins. A battle between the Royalist soldiers and the people allied with the police, who are successful, results in aristocrats being killed and the prisoners of the "Tyrants" (including Henriette) being freed. A people's 'rag-tag' government is formed, and Forget-not takes his revenge against de Praille.
Robespierre and Forget-not send Henriette and her lover, the Chevalier de Vaudrey, to the guillotine, for hiding de Vaudrey, an aristocrat, who returned to Paris to find her. However, Danton manages to obtain a pardon for them. After a race through the streets of Paris he just manages to save Henriette and offers her to the Chevalier, when the two orphans unite. A doctor restores Louise's sight and a better organized Republic forms in France.
Visual effects
The movie uses several visual effects throughout to capture the emotion of its story, using monochromic filters of red, blue, green, yellow and sepia to show feeling with the silent action which is acompanied by music; the movie also uses fade-ins to achieve this effect, expressing the distinct class divide and captivating the attention of viewers for a two-and-a-half-hour film.Background
As mentioned, The Two Orphans, the play upon which the movie is based, had been filmed before in the silent era, at least twice by 1920. The play had been a staple of the actress Kate ClaxtonKate Claxton
Kate Claxton was an American actress, born Kate Elizabeth Cone at Somerville, New Jersey to Spencer Wallace Cone and Josephine Martinez. She made her first appearance on the stage in Chicago with Lotta Crabtree in 1870, and in the same year joined Augustin Daly's Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York....
, who owned the rights to the play and had performed it hundreds of times since the 1870s.
Griffith in securing the film rights to make his movie had to wrangle with Miss Claxton, who for unknown reasons seems to have been reluctant to allow the story to be filmed a third time. When Griffith completed his film for release, a rival German version of the story had been made (Claxton owned foreign film rights as well) and was being prepared for release in the US at the same time as Griffith's version. Griffith bought out the US distribution rights to the German version so that it could not conflict with the earning potential of his own film.
Cast
- Lillian GishLillian GishLillian Diana Gish was an American stage, screen and television actress whose film acting career spanned 75 years, from 1912 to 1987....
as Henriette Girard - Dorothy GishDorothy GishDorothy Elizabeth Gish was an American actress, and the younger sister of actress Lillian Gish.-Early life:...
as Louise - Joseph SchildkrautJoseph SchildkrautJoseph Schildkraut was an Austrian stage and film actor.-Early life:Born in Vienna, Austria, Schildkraut was the son of stage actor Rudolph Schildkraut. The younger Schildkraut moved to the United States in the early 1900s. He appeared in many Broadway productions...
as Chevalier de Vaudrey - Frank Losee as Count de Linières
- Catherine Emmet as Countess de Linières
- Morgan WallaceMorgan WallaceMorgan Wallace , was an American actor. He appeared in 28 films between 1914 and 1946, including It's a Gift and My Little Chickadee starring W.C. Fields and Mae West....
as Marquis de Praille - Lucille La VerneLucille La VerneLucille La Verne was an American actress known for her appearances in silent, scolding, and vengeful roles in early color films, as well as for her triumphs on the American stage....
as Mother Frochard - Frank PugliaFrank PugliaFrank Puglia was an Italian film actor. Puglia had small but memorable roles in films including Casablanca and 1942's The Jungle Book. Born in Sicily, the actor started his career as a teen on stage in Italian operas. He emigrated to the U.S...
as Pierre Frochard - Sheldon LewisSheldon LewisSheldon Lewis was an American actor of the silent era best known for his antagonistic roles. He appeared in 93 films between 1914 and 1936.He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and died in San Gabriel, California...
as Jacques Frochard - Creighton HaleCreighton HaleCreighton Hale was an Irish-born American movie actor who worked in the silent film era.-Career:While starring in Charles Frohman's Broadway production of Indian Summer, Hale was spotted by a representative of the Pathe Film Company...
as Picard - Leslie King as Jacques-Forget-Not
- Monte BlueMonte BlueMonte Blue was a movie actor who began his career as a romantic leading man in the silent film era, and later progressed to character roles....
as Danton - Sidney Herbert as Robespierre
- Lee KohlmarLee KohlmarLee Kohlmar was a German film actor and director. He appeared in 52 films between 1916 and 1941. He also directed nine films between 1916 and 1921....
as Louis XVI - Louis WolheimLouis WolheimLouis Wolheim was an American character actor.His trademark broken nose was the result of an injury sustained while playing football for Cornell University. Despite his rugged visage, Wolheim was intelligent and cultivated, speaking French, German, Spanish, and Yiddish. He was also a mathematics...
as Executioner