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Broken Blossoms (1919) (Silent) (B&W) [VHS] (2019)

Starring: Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess Director: D.W. Griffith Rating: NR (Not Rated) Format: VHS Tape

4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (29 customer reviews)

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Product Details

Actors: Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess, Donald Crisp, Arthur Howard, Edward Peil Sr.
Directors: D.W. Griffith
Format: Black & White, Color, Silent, NTSC
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Number of tapes: 1
Studio: Kino Video
VHS Release Date: November 11, 1998
Run Time: 90 minutes

Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (29 customer reviews)

ASIN: 6302730775
Amazon.com Sales Rank: #51,013 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)
Popular in this category: (What's this?)
#45 in Video > Classics > Silent Films > Drama

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com essential video
D.W. Griffith was many things: movie innovator, maker of grand statements (The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance being among the biggest of all silent films), the first American superstar director--the Steven Spielberg of his era. Griffith was also very much a conscious artist, a man who did not think of movies as a mere medium for entertainment but as an art form. The mute evidence of this can be found on ample display in Griffith's 1919 drama Broken Blossoms, a tragic and completely uncommercial project that proved to be hugely popular. The director's most favored leading lady, Lillian Gish, plays an adolescent girl in London's rough Limehouse district; abused by her father (Donald Crisp), a crude boxer, she is cared for by a poetic Chinese man (Richard Barthelmess). Gish, who had doubts about playing a child (and was not yet fully recovered from a brush with the deadly Spanish flu epidemic), delivers a magnificent performance. Justly famous for her hysterical meltdown while trapped in a closet, she also brings off the smaller moments: her hesitation while gazing at a flower she can't possibly afford to buy is a heartbreaking piece of pantomime. Griffith's delicacy of touch extends to matters of race, as he clearly sides with the refined man from China, who must endure the prattle of white men boasting about traveling to the Orient and converting "the heathen." Small in scale compared to Griffith's mightier projects, Broken Blossoms is nevertheless one of his most beautiful films, and a landmark of the silent era. --Robert Horton

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Customer Reviews

29 Reviews

5 star:		(23)
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4.6 out of 5 stars (29 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Landmark Film, and So Beautiful Too, December 2, 2001

By	Rivkah Maccaby "Rivkah Maccaby" (Bloomington, IN United States) - See all my reviews

I've loved this film since I was a teenager. I've even read the bizarre short story that inspired it. Lillian Gish's character, Lucy, is supposed to be twelve in the story, but D.W. Griffith thought the horror of the abuse Lucy endures would traumatize a child actress, so Griffith changed Lucy's age to sixteen, and cast twenty-two year old Gish, who at five-foot-two, about ninety lbs., and in pancake make-up, manages to pull it off.

Child abuse was a new concept when this film was made. The first child abuse case in the US had been prosecuted during Griffith's lifetime (under animal cruelty laws). In order to play to audiences of 1918, when whipping children was acceptable punishment for minor violations, the abuse of Lucy, has to be severe.

Griffith doesn't need to look far. According to the original story, Lucy's boxer father isn't permitted to "strike" his "manager or to throw chairs at him," "but to use a dog-whip on a small child is permissible and quite as satisfying." So Lucy's bruised body "crept about Poplar and Limehouse. Always the white face was scarred." (I have seen Griffith's copy of the book, with his marginal notes, as well as a monograph by the author of the particular story, with signed thanks from Griffith and Gish.)

There are many ironies in this film. This is the first film treatment of child abuse, and it shows horror, because only vicious horror will convince an audience of 1918 that a child is better off away from her father.

The film also shows scenes in an opium den, at a time when this drug is perfectly legal. Our hero is a user, with no intent of quitting. The hero, played beautifully by Richard Barthelmess, is a white man in Asian make-up, because he kisses his under-age girlfriend. That he is an adult in love, and building a shrine to his sixteen year old love, makes no one blink. But to kiss the girl, he can't be a real Chinaman; people have to know that under the make-up, there's not actually any miscegenation.

This film couldn't be made today. For this alone, it is fascinating.

But beyond its historical fascination, this is a beautiful film. It is a romance unlike any other. It's emotionally wrenching, all told, yet there are some moments that are so touching, and so satisfying, they are worth everything it takes to get ahold of this film.

Many people call the film melodramatic, but often silent films are shown at the wrong speed; they're too fast, and this has to do with the way they were filmed opposed to the way sound films are made. If you have a choice among different copies, look at the run time, and pick the longest one. At the right speed, this film is well-paced and poignant. Dramatic, sad, but not melodramatic.

This film reaches in a seizes your heart; you'll never forget it.

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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A New Doll For a Broken Blossom, May 2, 2006

By	Bobby Underwood "starlighthotel" (Bakersfield, California United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Broken Blossoms (Deluxe Edition) (DVD)

As WWI was ending, it seemed the world had lost its innocence. The director who himself would become outdated within another decade, decided to tackle the subject of child abuse. D.W. Griffith, one of the true pioneers of American film, did so in tender fashion with one of his most simple yet most beautiful films.

The Great War may have ended, but something far worse was sweeping the globe and it would take more lives than the war had. Lillian Gish came down with the Spanish flu before filming began but, rather than remain in bed waiting to die, she donned a surgical mask and went to rehearsals for "Broken Blossoms." She would survive, but not before the film itself almost suffered the fate she had feared.

Viewed today, this is a somewhat dated but lovely and atmospheric film of great tenderness. It was not met with enthusiasm, however, by Adolph Zukor. He was not interested in art but profits and, perhaps rightly, felt that such a depressing film with such a sad ending would not go over well with the public. Griffith would borrow the money to purchase the film back from him and release it through United Artist. It would be a huge commercial and critical success and prove Zukor wrong.

Lillian Gish would have many poignant moments as a girl never shown kindness or love. Left with an abusive father (Donald Crisp) who beats her on a regular basis, her youth is stolen and full of despair. Both Gish and Mary Pickford would continue to play younger than their actual age, and Gish loses herself as a 12 year old with a heart full of hurt.

Richard Barthelmess is the Oriental shopkeeper who loves her and will help her escape her dreary lot in life. Once full of hope himself, he has long since abandoned his efforts to bring the ways of peace to this side of the world and lost himself in the opium dens of the Limehouse district where they reside.

There is a true tenderness here as he will come out of his haze long enough to show Lucy what love is, while not taking advantage of her. Griffith makes it clear with a couple of "almost" kisses that he loves her but respects her purity. It is ironic that scenes like those, which were the very ones that made him suddenly "out of date," are also the ones which have made films like "Broken Blossoms" survive as art.

Gish is really special as a young waif warned against marriage by those afflicted, and warned against free love by those girls in the profession. It leaves her with no place to turn except towards Battling Burrows and the humiliation and pain that comes with him.

A hidden ribbon is the closest thing to love Lucy has ever known until she is cared for by Barthelmess after one of her beatings. A scene where she does not have enough tin foil to purchase a flower is not easily forgotten.

Donald Crisp is somewhat exaggerated as was the custom in many silents, but it does not detract from the beauty of the film itself. When news gets to Battling Burrows that Lucy is with the Chinaman, tragedy will soon follow.

The HBO version has a specially tinted print from the Rohhauer Collection and a new recording of the original score. There is also a brief introduction from Lillian Gish herself in this presentation from David Gill and Kevin Brownlow. The Kino version is quite excellent also from what I have been told and is still in print for purchase as new. Film buffs, and silent film buffs in particular, cannot go wrong with this film. It is a restful and gentle painting of a heartbreaking scene.

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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A simple but incredibly sentimental classic, September 1, 1999

By A Customer

"Broken Blossoms" is one of the most sentimental and heartrending films I have ever seen. It couldn't be more uncommercial. Lillian Gish gives such a strong, convincing performance as a frail girl who has struggled under an abusive boxer father and finds true love and compassion through a poor Chinese storekeeper (Richard Barthelmess). Donald Crisp as the father gives reliably strong contrast from Lillian Gish and Richard Barthelmess's characters, which adds to the already strong credibility they give. The scene when Gish being trapped in a closet while Crisp tries to get her out is very intense. Even more intense is the end. But what touched me most was when the Chinese man went out of his way to decorate the girl's room like a princess's, and gave her beautiful clothes to wear. This film is so sentimental it seemed like a dream. I highly recommend it.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars The Movie Where DW Griffith Really Addressed Intolerance!
Broken Blossoms actually addressed intolerance better than Intolerance did. It is a smaller film which deals with one story on a heartfelt level. Read more

Published 6 months ago by Lynn Ellingwood

5.0 out of 5 stars The Greatest tearjerker of all time
I always thought that Imitation of Life was the greatest tearjerker of all time until I seen "Broken Blossums. Read more

Published 9 months ago by John Crawford

5.0 out of 5 stars A towering pastoral epic

"Broken blossoms" was the film which conveyed me to fall in love with this expressive and sensual actress: Lillian Gilsh. Read more

Published on June 15, 2007 by Hiram Gomez Pardo

5.0 out of 5 stars The bitter-sweet story of two lost souls
This film stands out as one of the most beautiful and heart-rending stories ever directed by `the Father of Film', D.W. Read more

Published on May 9, 2007 by Barbara Burkowsky

5.0 out of 5 stars My Favorite D.W. Griffith Film...
...and one of my favorite films period. It's not D. W.'s best, that distinction belongs to ISN'T LIFE WONDERFUL (not yet on DVD). Read more

Published on April 25, 2007 by Chip Kaufmann

5.0 out of 5 stars i think this might be griffiths masterpiece
how does one assess this film today? almost a century after its premiere, modern audiences would (mostly) find it either racist or quaint or both. but it is not! Read more

Published on April 6, 2007 by Jonathan Lapin

5.0 out of 5 stars Broken Blossoms
Everyone who watches this movie no doubt knows why it was made.
D.W. Griffith, one of the most important filmmakers of all time, made a film called "Intolerance" and then... Read more

Published on November 17, 2006 by Joshua Miller

5.0 out of 5 stars Forbidden love.
D.W. Griffith's silent feature Broken Blossoms was a film I was assigned to watch for my film class in College. Read more

Published on May 30, 2006 by ADRIENNE MILLER

5.0 out of 5 stars Great silent screen atmosphere

One of D.W. Griffith's last masterpieces, and America's first "art" film. Richard Barthelmess plays a Chinese man living in the slum section of London; there he falls in... Read more

Published on April 8, 2006 by Bomojaz

5.0 out of 5 stars Broken Blossoms is a Timeless Classic
This movie is over 85 years old and it continues to amaze me! I first saw it in a repertory cinema in the early eighties, and has since become one of my all-time favourite... Read more

Published on March 23, 2006 by Raymond Scholz

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