Broken Blossoms

1919 film by D. W. Griffith

For the 1936 film, see Broken Blossoms (1936 film).

Broken Blossoms

Hungarian Theatrical release poster

Directed by| D. W. Griffith
Screenplay by| D. W. Griffith
Based on| "The Chink and the Child"
by Thomas Burke
Produced by| D. W. Griffith
Starring| Lillian Gish
Richard Barthelmess
Donald Crisp
Cinematography| G.W. Bitzer
Edited by| James Smith
Distributed by| United Artists

Release dates

* May 13, 1919 (1919-05-13) (New York City, premiere)
* October 20, 1919 (1919-10-20) (US)

Running time

| 90 minutes
Country| United States
Language| Silent (English intertitles)
Budget| $88,000[1] or $115,000[2]
Box office| $600,000 (US)[1] or $1.25 million[2]

Broken Blossoms or The Yellow Man and the Girl, often referred to simply as Broken Blossoms, is a 1919 American silent melodrama film[3] directed by D. W. Griffith. It was distributed by United Artists and premiered on May 13, 1919. It stars Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess, and Donald Crisp, and tells the story of young girl, Lucy Burrows, who is abused by her alcoholic prizefighting father, Battling Burrows, and meets Cheng Huan, a kind-hearted Chinese man who falls in love with her. It was the first film distributed by United Artists. It is based on Thomas Burke's short story "The Chink and the Child" from the 1916 collection Limehouse Nights. In 1996, Broken Blossoms was included in the annual selection of 25 motion pictures to be added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.[4]

## Plot

[edit]

Broken Blossoms

Cheng Huan leaves his native China because he "dreams to spread the gentle message of Buddha to the Anglo-Saxon lands." His idealism fades as he is faced with the brutal reality of London's gritty inner-city. However, his mission is finally realized in his devotion to the "broken blossom" Lucy Burrows, the beautiful but unwanted and abused daughter of boxer Battling Burrows.

After being beaten and discarded one evening by her raging father, Lucy finds sanctuary in Cheng's home, the beautiful and exotic room above his shop. As Cheng nurses Lucy back to health, the two form a bond as two unwanted outcasts of society. All goes astray for them when Lucy's father gets wind of his daughter's whereabouts and in a drunken rage drags her back to their home to punish her. Fearing for her life, Lucy locks herself inside a closet to escape her contemptuous father.

By the time Cheng arrives to rescue Lucy, whom he so innocently adores, it is too late. Lucy's lifeless body lies on her modest bed as Battling has a drink in the other room. As Cheng gazes at Lucy's youthful face which, in spite of the circumstances, beams with innocence and even the slightest hint of a smile, Battling enters the room to make his escape. The two stand for a long while, exchanging spiteful glances, until Battling lunges for Cheng with a hatchet, and Cheng retaliates by shooting Burrows repeatedly with his handgun. After returning to his home with Lucy's body, Cheng builds a shrine to the Buddha and takes his own life with a knife to the chest.

## Cast

[edit]

* Lillian Gish as Lucy Burrows
* Richard Barthelmess as Cheng Huan
* Donald Crisp as "Battling" Burrows
* Arthur Howard as Burrows' Manager
* Edward Peil Sr. as "Evil Eye"
* George Beranger as The Spying One
* Norman Selby (aka Kid McCoy) as A Prizefighter
* Steve Murphy as Fight Spectator

## Production and style

[edit]

Newspaper advertisement for the film

Unlike Griffith's more extravagant earlier works like The Birth of a Nation or Intolerance, Broken Blossoms is a small-scale film that uses controlled studio environments, to create a more intimate "impressionistic" effect, reminiscent of the "impressionist school of painting".[5] Shot entirely in the studio, Broken Blossoms is notable in that most of Hollywood productions at the time "relied heavily on location work to provide any kind of effective atmosphere".[6] The visual style of Broken Blossoms emphasizes the seedy Limehouse streets with their dark shadows, drug addicts, and drunkards, contrasting them with the beauty of Cheng and Lucy's innocent attachment as expressed by Cheng's decorative apartment. Conversely, the Burrows' bare cell reeks of oppression and hostility. Film critic and historian Richard Schickel goes so far as to credit this gritty realism with inspiring "the likes of Pabst, Stiller, von Sternberg, and others, [and then] re-emerging in the United States in the sound era, in the genre identified as Film Noir".[7]

Griffith was known for his willingness to collaborate with his actors and on many occasions join them in research outings.[8][9] As such, Broken Blossoms is “the fusion of directorial and acting style.”[10]

Griffith was unsure of his final product and took several months to complete the editing, saying: "I can't look at the damn thing; it depresses me so."[11]

## Box office

[edit]

The film was originally made for Famous Players–Lasky. The company sold it to the newly founded United Artists for $250,000. The film turned out to be a hit at the box office and earned a profit of $700,000.[1] It was the first film ever distributed by United Artists.[12]

## Reception

[edit]

> “The enthusiasm which Broken Blossoms awakened in 1919 can hardly be overstated; Griffith was everywhere felt to have opened up new dimensions in the cinema and raised it to a level of great tragic art.”—Edward Wagenknecht in The Movies in the Age of Innocence (1962).[13]

Lobby card for the film, showing the early scene in which drunken Western sailors fight on a street in China

Broken Blossoms premiered in May 1919, at George M. Cohan's Theatre in New York City as part of the D. W. Griffith Repertory Season.[14] According to Lillian Gish's autobiography, theaters were decorated with flowers, moon lanterns and beautiful Chinese brocaded draperies for the premiere. Critics and audiences were pleased with Griffith's follow-up film to his 1916 epic Intolerance.[15] Contrasting with Intolerance's grand story, set and length, Griffith charmed audiences by the delicacy with which Broken Blossoms handled such a complex subject.

> Reviewers found it "Surprising in its simplicity"...the acting seemed nine days' wonder – no one talked of anything but Lillian's smile, Lillian turned like a tormented animal in a trap, of Barthelmess' convincing restraint. Few pictures have enjoyed greater or more lasting succès d'estime."[16]

The scenes of child abuse nauseated backers when Griffith gave them a preview of the film; according to Lillian Gish in interviews, a Variety reporter invited to sit in on a second take left the room to vomit.[17] Today, Broken Blossoms is widely regarded as one of Griffith's finest works. In 2012, the film received five critics' votes and one director's vote in the British Film Institute's decennial Sight & Sound poll. Roger Ebert was a longtime champion of the film, having added it to his "Great Movies" series; and in 1996, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[18]

Review aggregation site They Shoot Pictures, Don't They has since found Broken Blossoms to be the 261st most acclaimed film in history.[19]

Akira Kurosawa, the legendary Japanese director, named this movie as one of his 100 favorite films.[20]

Unbroken Blossoms, a play about the making of the film told from the perspective of the two Chinese American consultants hired to work on the project, premiered at East West Players in Summer 2024. [21]

## Themes

[edit]

> "If Lillian Gish's performance in Broken Blossoms is to be counted among her greatest film roles, then the performance of Richard Barthelmess is her perfect complement. Cheng Huan is portrayed as a deeply reverent and compassionate man, whose love for peace is equaled only by his love for beauty. He finds both qualities when he shelters Lucy from the savageries of Burrows. In the end he is corrupted by the forces that surround him…Too late to save Lucy, too late to save even himself, he throws himself into an uneven struggle with determination and courage, the final and ultimate sacrifice to Lucy and their spiritual happiness."—Film historian Paul O’Dell in Griffith and the Rise of Hollywood (1970)[22]

Cruelty and injustice against the innocent are a recurring theme in Griffith's films and are graphically portrayed here. The introductory card says, "We may believe there are no Battling Burrows, striking the helpless with brutal whip — but do we not ourselves use the whip of unkind words and deeds? So, perhaps, Battling may even carry a message of warning."

Broken Blossoms was released during a period of strong anti-Chinese feeling in the U.S., a fear known as the Yellow Peril. The phrase "Yellow Peril" was common in the U.S. newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst.[23] It was also the title of a popular book by an influential U.S. religious figure, G. G. Rupert, who published The Yellow Peril; or, Orient vs. Occident in 1911. Griffith changed Burke's original story to promote a message of tolerance. In Burke's story, the Chinese protagonist is a sordid young Shanghai drifter pressed into naval service, who frequents opium dens and brothels; in the film, he becomes a Buddhist missionary whose initial goal is to spread the word of Buddha and peace (although he is also shown frequenting opium dens when he is depressed). Even at his lowest point, he still prevents his gambling companions from fighting.

Literary critic Edward Wagenknecht places Broken Blossoms thematically among the works of  Shakespeare and the ancient  Greek dramatists, “who wrought their material out of sordid material.”[24]

> Broken Blossom might have been merely a subtly lighted, skillfully directed slum melodrama [but] was lifted into a world of aesthetic purity and clarity, so that the audience went away uplifted as well as terrified.[25]

## The "closet scene"

[edit]

The most-discussed scene in Broken Blossoms is Lillian Gish's "closet" scene. Here Gish performs Lucy's horror by writhing in the claustrophobic space like a tortured animal who knows there is no escape.[26] There is more than one anecdote about the filming of the "closet" scene, Richard Schickel writes:

> It is heartbreaking – yet for the most part quite delicately controlled by the actress. Barthelmess reports that her hysteria was induced by Griffith's taunting of her. Gish, on her part, claims that she improvised the child's tortured movements on the spot and that when she finished the scene there was a hush on stage, broken finally by Griffith's exclamation, "My God, why didn't you warn me you were going to do that?"[26]

The scene is also used to demonstrate Griffith's uncanny ability to create an aural effect with only an image.[27] Gish's screams apparently attracted such a crowd outside the studio that people needed to be held back.[28]

## Remakes

[edit]

A UK remake, also titled Broken Blossoms, followed in 1936. It was remade in Japan twice, both set in Yokohama's Chinatown.[29] A 1959 version was known as 戦場のなでしこ (Senjō no Nadeshiko, Nadeshiko on the Battlefield), directed by Teruo Ishii for Shintoho.

## References

[edit]

1. ^ a b c Balio, Tino (2009). United Artists: The Company Built by the Stars. University of Wisconsin Press. pp. 30–31\. ISBN 978-0-299-23004-3.
2. ^ a b "Griffith's 20 Year Record". Variety. 5 September 1928. p. 12. Retrieved 21 March 2023.
3. ^ Schatz, Thomas (1981). Hollywood Genres: Formulas, Filmmaking, and the Studio System. New York: Random House. p. 222\. ISBN 0-394-32255-X.
4. ^ "Complete National Film Registry Listing". Library of Congress. Retrieved May 20, 2020.
5. ^ O’Dell, 1970 p. 123-124
6. ^ O’Dell, 1970 p. 123: On "atmosphere" And p. 124: "...the film's great atmospherics..." And p. 127: Quoted above
7. ^ Schickel, D.W. Griffith: an American Film Life, 1984, p. 394.
8. ^ Schickel, Richard. D.W. Griffith: an American Film Life. New York: Proscenium Publishers Inc, 1984. ISBN 0-87910-080-X, p. 391.
9. ^ Williams, Martin. Griffith: First Artist of the Movies. Oxford, Oxford University Press. 1980. ISBN 0-19-502685-3, 112.
10. ^ O’Dell, 1970 p. 123
11. ^ Schickel, D.W. Griffith: an American Film Life, 1984, p. 395.
12. ^ Schickel, Richard. D.W. Griffith: an American Film Life. New York: Proscenium Publishers Inc, 1984. ISBN 0-87910-080-X, p. 406.
13. ^ Wagenknecht, 1962 p. 123
14. ^ Barry, Iris. D.W. Griffith: American Film Master. New York: Museum of Modern Art Press, 2002. ISBN 0-87070-683-7, p.
15. ^ O'Dell, Paul. Griffith and the Rise of Hollywood. Manchester: Castle Books, 1970. ISBN 0-498-07718-7, p. 127.
16. ^ Barry, D.W. Griffith: American Film Master, 2002, p. 28.
17. ^ Affron, Charles, Lillian Gish, Her Legend, Her Life (Scribner, 2002), p. 129.
18. ^ Stern, Christopher (December 3, 1996). "National Film Registry taps 25 more pix". Variety. Retrieved April 23, 2020.
19. ^ "1,000 Greatest Films (Full List)". theyshootpictures.com. Retrieved January 16, 2016.
20. ^ Thomas-Mason, Lee (12 January 2021). "From Stanley Kubrick to Martin Scorsese: Akira Kurosawa once named his top 100 favourite films of all time". Far Out Magazine. Retrieved 23 January 2023.
21. ^ "Cast Set for UNBROKEN BLOSSOMS at East West Players".
22. ^ O’Dell, 1970 p. 125-127
23. ^ "Foreign News: Again, Yellow Peril". Time. September 11, 1933. Archived from the original on September 7, 2008. Retrieved April 27, 2010.
24. ^ Wagenknecht, 1962 p. 124
25. ^ Wagenknecht, 1962 p. 123-124 And p. 119: “...an immense and brooding film…”
26. ^ a b Schickel, D.W. Griffith: an American Film Life, 1984, p. 392.
27. ^ O'Dell, Griffith and the Rise of Hollywood, 1970, p. 125.
28. ^ Williams, Griffith: First Artist of the Movies, 1980, p. 114.
29. ^ Joseph L. Anderson and Donald Richie. The Japanese Film: Art and Industry. New York: Grove Press, 1960, 330.

## Sources

[edit]

* O’Dell, Paul (1970). Griffith and the Rise of Hollywood (1970 ed.). New York: A. S. Barnes & Co. p. 163\. ISBN 0-498-07718-7.
* Wagenknecht, Edward. 1962\. The Movies in the Age of Innocence. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Oklahoma. OCLC: 305160

## External links

[edit]

English Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Broken Blossoms

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Broken Blossoms.

* Broken Blossoms or The Yellow Man and the Girl (1919) on YouTube
* Broken Blossoms essay by Ed Gonzalez at National Film Registry. [1]
* Broken Blossoms essay by Daniel Eagan in America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, A&C Black, 2010 ISBN 0826429777, pp. 63–64 [2]
* Broken Blossoms at IMDb
* Broken Blossoms at the TCM Movie Database
* Broken Blossoms is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive
* In-depth analysis of Broken Blossoms at filmsite.org
* Film Review - Broken Blossoms, Toronto World, November 7, 1919, p. 10.
* The review of Broken Blossoms from Current Opinion Magazine (1919)

* v
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Films directed by D. W. Griffith

1908|

* The Adventures of Dollie
* The Fight for Freedom
* The Tavern Keeper's Daughter
* The Black Viper
* The Red Man and the Child
* Deceived Slumming Party
* The Bandit's Waterloo
* A Calamitous Elopement
* The Greaser's Gauntlet
* The Man and the Woman
* The Fatal Hour
* For Love of Gold
* Balked at the Altar
* For a Wife's Honor
* Betrayed by a Handprint
* Monday Morning in a Coney Island Police Court
* The Girl and the Outlaw
* Behind the Scenes
* The Red Girl
* The Heart of O'Yama
* Where the Breakers Roar
* A Smoked Husband
* The Stolen Jewels
* The Devil
* The Zulu's Heart
* Father Gets in the Game
* Ingomar, the Barbarian
* The Vaquero's Vow
* The Planter's Wife
* Romance of a Jewess
* The Call of the Wild
* Concealing a Burglar
* After Many Years
* The Pirate's Gold
* The Taming of the Shrew
* The Guerrilla
* The Song of the Shirt
* The Ingrate
* A Woman's Way
* The Clubman and the Tramp
* Money Mad
* The Valet's Wife
* The Feud and the Turkey
* The Reckoning
* The Test of Friendship
* An Awful Moment
* The Christmas Burglars
* Mr. Jones at the Ball
* The Helping Hand

1909|

* One Touch of Nature
* The Maniac Cook
* Mrs. Jones Entertains
* The Honor of Thieves
* Love Finds a Way
* The Sacrifice
* A Rural Elopement
* Those Boys!
* The Criminal Hypnotist
* The Fascinating Mrs. Francis
* Mr. Jones Has a Card Party
* Those Awful Hats
* The Welcome Burglar
* The Cord of Life
* The Girls and Daddy
* The Brahma Diamond
* Edgar Allen Poe
* A Wreath in Time
* Tragic Love
* The Curtain Pole
* His Ward's Love
* The Joneses Have Amateur Theatricals
* The Hindoo Dagger
* The Politician's Love Story
* The Golden Louis
* At the Altar
* The Prussian Spy
* His Wife's Mother
* A Fool's Revenge
* The Wooden Leg
* The Roue's Heart
* The Salvation Army Lass
* The Lure of the Gown
* I Did It
* The Voice of the Violin
* The Deception
* And a Little Child Shall Lead Them
* A Burglar's Mistake (lost)
* The Medicine Bottle
* Jones and His New Neighbors
* A Drunkard's Reformation
* Trying to Get Arrested
* The Road to the Heart
* A Rude Hostess
* Schneider's Anti-Noise Crusade
* A Sound Sleeper
* Lady Helen's Escapade
* Lucky Jim
* Jones and the Lady Book Agent
* Resurrection
* Two Memories
* Eloping with Auntie
* The Cricket on the Hearth
* The Violin Maker of Cremona
* A New Trick
* The Lonely Villa
* The Son's Return
* Her First Biscuits
* The Country Doctor
* The Cardinal's Conspiracy
* Tender Hearts
* The Friend of the Family
* The Renunciation
* The Mended Lute
* The Sealed Room
* The Little Darling
* The Hessian Renegades
* Comata, the Sioux
* Getting Even
* In Old Kentucky
* Leather Stocking
* Pippa Passes or The Song of Conscience
* Fools of Fate
* His Lost Love
* The Gibson Goddess
* Nursing a Viper
* The Death Disc: A Story of the Cromwellian Period
* Through the Breakers
* The Red Man's View
* A Corner in Wheat
* A Trap for Santa Claus
* In Little Italy
* To Save Her Soul
* The Day After
* Choosing a Husband
* Bill Sharkey's Last Game

1910|

* The Rocky Road
* The Woman from Mellon's
* The Englishman and the Girl
* In Old California
* Faithful
* The Two Brothers
* As It Is In Life
* A Romance of the Western Hills
* The Unchanging Sea
* Ramona
* In the Season of Buds
* A Child of the Ghetto
* In the Border States
* What the Daisy Said
* A Flash of Light
* An Arcadian Maid
* The House with Closed Shutters
* Wilful Peggy
* The Modern Prodigal
* A Mohawk's Way
* The Oath and the Man
* Rose O'Salem-Town
* The Fugitive
* Winning Back His Love

1911|

* The Two Paths
* The Italian Barber
* His Trust
* His Trust Fulfilled
* Fate's Turning
* Heart Beats of Long Ago
* What Shall We Do with Our Old?
* Fisher Folks
* His Daughter
* The Lily of the Tenements
* A Decree of Destiny
* Was He a Coward?
* The Lonedale Operator
* The Spanish Gypsy
* The Broken Cross
* How She Triumphed
* The New Dress
* The Crooked Road
* The White Rose of the Wilds
* The Smile of a Child
* Enoch Arden: Part I
* Enoch Arden: Part II
* The Primal Call
* Fighting Blood
* The Indian Brothers
* A Country Cupid
* The Last Drop of Water
* Out from the Shadow
* The Blind Princess and the Poet
* Swords and Hearts
* The Stuff Heroes Are Made Of
* Her Awakening
* The Making of a Man
* The Adventures of Billy
* The Long Road
* Love in the Hills
* The Battle
* Through Darkened Vales
* The Miser's Heart
* A Woman Scorned
* The Voice of the Child

1912|

* The Eternal Mother
* The Old Bookkeeper
* For His Son
* The Transformation of Mike
* A Sister's Love
* Under Burning Skies
* The Sunbeam
* A String of Pearls
* The Girl and Her Trust
* The Root of Evil
* The Goddess of Sagebrush Gulch
* The Punishment
* The Female of the Species
* Just Like a Woman
* One Is Business, the Other Crime
* The Lesser Evil
* A Beast at Bay
* An Outcast Among Outcasts
* Home Folks
* A Temporary Truce
* The Spirit Awakened
* Man's Lust for Gold
* Man's Genesis
* The Sands of Dee
* The Narrow Road
* The Inner Circle
* A Change of Spirit
* An Unseen Enemy
* Blind Love
* The Massacre
* Two Daughters of Eve
* Friends
* So Near, yet So Far
* A Feud in the Kentucky Hills
* The Chief's Blanket
* In the Aisles of the Wild
* The One She Loved
* The Painted Lady
* The Musketeers of Pig Alley
* Heredity
* Gold and Glitter
* My Baby
* The Informer
* Brutality
* The New York Hat
* My Hero
* The Burglar's Dilemma
* A Cry for Help
* The God Within

1913|

* Three Friends
* The Telephone Girl and the Lady
* An Adventure in the Autumn Woods
* The Tender Hearted Boy
* A Misappropriated Turkey
* Brothers
* Oil and Water
* A Chance Deception
* Love in an Apartment Hotel
* Broken Ways
* A Girl's Stratagem
* The Unwelcome Guest
* Near to Earth
* Fate
* A Welcome Intruder
* The Sheriff's Baby
* The Hero of Little Italy
* The Perfidy of Mary
* The Little Tease
* A Misunderstood Boy
* The Left-Handed Man
* The Lady and the Mouse
* If We Only Knew
* The Wanderer
* The Stolen Loaf
* The House of Darkness
* The Yaqui Cur
* Just Gold
* The Ranchero's Revenge
* A Timely Interception
* Death's Marathon
* The Mothering Heart
* The Sorrowful Shore
* The Enemy's Baby
* The Mistake
* Two Men of the Desert (lost)
* Madonna of the Storm
* The Battle at Elderbush Gulch
* The Conscience of Hassan Bey

1914–1931|

* Judith of Bethulia (1914)
* Battle of the Sexes (1914, lost)
* Brute Force (1914)
* Home, Sweet Home (1914)
* The Escape (1914, lost)
* The Avenging Conscience: or "Thou Shalt Not Kill" (1914)
* The Birth of a Nation (1915)
* Intolerance (1916)
* Hearts of the World (1918)
* The Great Love (1918, lost)
* Lillian Gish in a Liberty Loan Appeal (1918, lost)
* The Greatest Thing in Life (1918, lost)
* A Romance of Happy Valley (1919)
* The Girl Who Stayed at Home (1919)
* Broken Blossoms (1919)
* True Heart Susie (1919)
* Scarlet Days (1919)
* The Greatest Question (1919)
* The Idol Dancer (1920)
* Remodeling Her Husband (1920, lost)
* The Love Flower (1920)
* Way Down East (1920)
* Dream Street (1921)
* Orphans of the Storm (1921)
* One Exciting Night (1922)
* The White Rose (1923)
* America (1924)
* Isn't Life Wonderful (1924)
* Sally of the Sawdust (1925)
* That Royle Girl (1925, lost)
* The Sorrows of Satan (1926)
* Drums of Love (1928)
* The Battle of the Sexes (1928)
* Lady of the Pavements (1929)
* Abraham Lincoln (1930)
* The Struggle (1931)

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