Customer Reviews

The Wind [VHS]

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Filmed at the end of the silent era, this movie is considered to be one of the last of the great silents. It's ironic that the genre was perfected just when sound was ready to take over.

Lillian Gish, though she faces stiff competition, is generally regarded as the finest actress of the silent era and this film is an ideal way to see her at her best. She plays Lettie, a sheltered girl who is forced to move to her cousin's home on the windswept prairie. Beverly is thrilled to see her but his wife, Cora, is instantly jealous of the dainty Gish. In her few scenes, Dorothy Cummings does a good job of portraying Cora's unfair but understandable jealousy.

Finally, Cora expels Lettie from her home. Since the seemingly kind man she met on the train is already married, Lettie weds Lige, a somewhat silly but friendly local man who is pleased and flattered to have such a pretty bride. Swedish actor Lars Hanson is great in a very difficult role. He manages to come across as likable but one still understands why Lettie is not in love with him.

All the while, the persistent wind blows and starts to drive Lettie insane. Director Victor Seastrom creates a marvelous atmosphere of despair.

The MGM presentation features an introduction by Lillian Gish and has an excellent orchestral score that is both appropriate and enjoyable. The print quality is good. Too bad it's out of print, maybe it will be released on DVD soon.

Good if: You are a fan of Lillian Gish, Lars Hanson or Victor Seastrom (or Sjostrom in Sweden) If you love a good silent film. If you like desert films. (This was filmed in the Mojave Desert, California) If you like psychological drama

Not good if: You dislike silent films, you don't like westerns, you don't like the ending.

On that note, since the relative merits of the ending have long been debated, I will discuss it. This contains SPOILERS so stop reading if you want to be surprised:

The original ending of the book had Lettie going mad, wandering into the desert and dying after she has murdered the man who assaulted her. One can easily see why this would appeal to Gish who was an accomplished tragedienne. However, the ending was changed (there is some debate as to who changed it) and the new ending has Gish hide the body and overcome her fear of the wind and be reunited with Lige in grand Hollywood style. Now, I don't judge endings as happy or sad, just as appropriate and inappropriate. Having Lettie wander off to die would have left quite a few loose ends although it would have been highly dramatic. However there is a point when I as the viewer think "Hasn't this poor woman been through enough?" Overly tragic is just as unrealistic as overly sappy. The happy ending answered a few more questions (will she leave Lige or stay and put up with the wind) but it did seem rather contrived. I personally wish that Frances Marion, the scenario writer, had split the difference but that is my opinion. While the ending does not in any way damage the impact of the film, I do wish that it had been slightly more realistic.

Truly one of the last great classics of the silent era, "The Wind" is an outstanding film throughout helped by an excellent cast (Lillian Gish and Lars Hanson), the legendary director Victor Seastrom and an intelligent and very dynamic script which tells of a young woman facing a hostile environment in the old west, a recurring theme in American silent movies of those days. The movie is further given a special treatment by Miss Lillian Gish (probably silent cinema`s most beautiful and gracious actress), especially in the dramatic climax which almost contains a certain element of horror. Anyway this is one of MGM`s greatest silent films (in the same category as "Greed") and the restoration by "silent" experts Brownlow and Gill is very good (plus the dramatic Carl Davis score) .... oh, this were the times when the lion roared ...

A young girl from Virginia must live with distant relatives in Texas until she is married. The drastic change of culture eventually becomes more than she can handle.Anyone who has experienced such a change, or anyone who lives in Texas or like areas, can appreciate what she must endure. The story is captivating and suspenseful. The book's ending varies drastically from the movie.

In perhaps her greatest performance in silent film, Lillian Gish is at her peak in this unnerving drama of a Virginian woman who finds herself being driven slowly mad by the combination of a loveless marriage and an incredibly hostile environment. Haunting and memorable.

Other reviewers have more expertise concerning silent cinema, and state succinctly the background of this film. So I shall add only one small opinion to the others. Simply this: Lettie wandering off into the desert would have been the better conclusion. The author of the original book understood this, and wrote it into his novel. Here's a poor dear that's had so much on her plate: loveless marriage, murder, distate from relatives, horrible weather, jealousy, culture shock, &tc. Such high drama would dent most anyone's armour. The sweet tied-up ending might have allowed audiences to leave the theaters relieved and all in smiles, but it doesn't fit. This is melodrama! Pull out all the stops and do it correctly. Be that as it may, Miss Gish is outstanding in her role, a consummate tragedienne, as mentioned by another reviewer. And so beautiful to look at, pure pleasure to watch on the screen. Wrong-ended and all, this film belongs in your collection if you have any interest in silents whatsoever.

The Wind is one of the last truly great silent films made. Gish's performance, as usual, is remarkable. The viewer is quickly enveloped in her own internal drama and we live her horror through her expressive and beautiful face. Sadly, they just don't make 'em like this anymore. An absolute must-see if you've never had the pleasure of seeing a silent film. You certainly won't have an opportunity to miss the Spoken Word in this film -- the drama is just that engaging.

Lillian Gish plays her usual virginal character thrown into adverse and unjust circumstances, but here she does so much with the part as we watch her slowly unravel and lose her mind. She plays Letty, a girl from Virginia who comes to live with relatives in a dust bowl town. The atmosphere into which she travels doesn't make sense in many ways. The people there supposedly make their living from cattle ranching, but with the constant sandstorms I don't see how anything is supposed to survive in such an environment. However, that is not really the point. The constant wind and storms are just metaphors for Letty's own mental state and feeling of entrapment. Her cousin's wife is hostile to her from the start, convinced that Letty wants to take her husband away from her, and eventually forces her out of the home. As a result she marries a man she doesn't love, and once this is clear to him he accepts the situation and makes it a goal to raise enough money to send Letty back to Virginia where she will be happy. On top of this there is the constant spectre of a wealthy married man who wants to take Letty's virtue for the recreation of it all.

The visual work on this film is spectacular, much like Murnau's "Sunrise" except in reverse - this film starts out on an upbeat note with Letty looking forward to the new direction her life has turned, and it being all downhill from there. Thus we come to the familiar topic of the abrupt upbeat ending and how it didn't make any sense in the context of the rest of the film. It was an early example of studio suits interfering with the artistic vision of the filmmakers, and so upset director Victor Sjostrom that he never directed another film in America.

Like Murnau's "Sunrise" and "The Crowd", 1928's "The Wind" is an example of silent filmmaking at its peak. This level of art in movies would be lost at the dawn of sound until the problems with the static camera could be overcome and the novelty of sound wore off to the extent that plot and meaningful dialogue became important. The first problem - technical - was remedied much more quickly than the second problem, which was largely a matter of psychology and experience.

It's a shame such a masterpiece is not out on DVD. I believe that Warner Home Video retains the rights to this film as they do to a host of other silent masterpieces. I hope that they use their rights in a timely fashion and give us a DVD release of this film worthy of the wait we silent film buffs have endured.

Lillian Gish was quite the actress; in this film she pulls out all the stops, as she slowly goes crazy out in the plains (unnamed, but creepy all the more); a very slow-moving film, but one that gets under your skin, just as it does to Ms. Gish's character.

The climax is truly a tour de force for Seastrom, the director, and Gish. The implacable and relentless wind is more than a metaphor, it is one of the main characters, and overcomes everything--except love. It stands up very well to the 21st century.

The score by Carl Davis is first rate, and really makes this film be even better. Don't miss it.

Letty Mason (Lillian Gish) came from Virginia to live with her cousin's family in the Sweet Water desert that--unbeknownst to her when she made her plans--is constantly plagued be horrific winds. The winds, she is told, can drive a woman crazy. Once she reaches her new home she meets her cousin's jealous wife who reminds me of the Almira Gulch character in the Wizard of Oz. Letty is soon caught between several suitors: Lige, the handsome yet somewhat goofy local (played by the Swedish silent star Lars Hanson, who also played Gish's leading man in the Scarlet Letter) along with his not so handsome and even goofier partner Sourdough, and a cattle swindling codger she met on the train. Her cousin's obsessive wife threatens Letty to choose a husband and move out or else. If Letty tangles with the cattle swindling cad she may find herself in more danger than a Sweet Water cyclone.

This film offers spectacular special effects. In this version, you get a 3-minute introduction by Lillian Gish during which she explains how they achieved the terrific wind storms. I agree with Gish that the ending to this film is very weak. The ending was changed drastically from that of the novel on which it was based. The movie writers didn't do the film any favors. The ending just doesn't seem to follow from the preceding story line. It seems like they just quickly threw together the new ending without much forethought. Due to the weak ending, I cannot give the film 5 stars. The movie is about 80 minutes in length.

The four stars are for this particular VHS release, which turns out to be nothing but a picture of the middle part of the frame. Heads are cut off and intertitles partly disappear at the margins. This is a wonderful, artful film that needs to be seen as it was made, with the full composition of shots exposed to view, not in the claustrophobic way presented here. The musical score is wonderful. Gish and Hanson are fantastic, and every second they are on screen is precious. The wind is like another character in the story. The black-and-white color scheme makes it seem even more menacing and dirty. All we need is to see the whole picture!