The Wind
Encyclopedia
The Wind is a 1928 American dramatic silent film
directed by Victor Sjöström
. The movie was adapted by Frances Marion
from the novel The Wind
written by Dorothy Scarborough
. It features Lillian Gish
, Lars Hanson
, Montagu Love
, Dorothy Cumming
, and others. It was one of the last silent films released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
) who lives in the East in Virginia and moves to West Texas
to live at her cousin Beverly's ranch at Sweet Water. On her way, she is constantly bothered by the never stopping blowing wind. Wirt Roddy (Montagu Love
) notices and seduces her in the train. He scares her by saying the wind usually drives women crazy. After her arrival, she is picked up by Beverly's closest neighbour Lige Hightower (Lars Hanson
), who lives 15 miles from her cousin. Letty is afraid of him, but Roddy assures her he will visit her sometimes to look how she is doing. After endless miles in sand and wind, they arrive at the ranch. Beverly (Edward Earle
) is delighted with her arrival, but his wife Cora (Dorothy Cumming
) is only jealous, despite Letty saying she and Beverly are like brother and sister. Her grudge against Letty becomes even worse when her children have an immediate connection with her, while they all seem to dislike their mother.
At a party, Mr Sourdough (William Orlamond
) reveals he intends proposing to Letty. Lige stops him and explains he wants to propose to her himself. Letty is accompanied by Roddy when a cyclone
interrupts the party. The guests all hide in a shelter and Roddy declares his love to Letty and begs her to run off with him. After the cyclone is over, both Lige and Mr. Sourdough propose to her, but Letty thinks it's a joke. Cora comes in and demands that she leave Beverly alone.
Letty is shocked but Cora tells her that she has to leave the ranch. Because she has neither money nor a place to go, she decides to go away with Roddy, but Roddy tells her quite openly that he is already married. Cora agrees that Letty can stay for just one more night at the ranch but tells her that she has to accept one of the two marriage proposals she has received. She eventually marries Lige after he and Mr.Sourdough toss a coin to win her hand. He is delighted to marry her, but Letty is not interested in him. When she admits she doesn't want to be around him, Lige is hurt and promises her he will never touch her. He also agrees that he will try to make enough money to send her back to Virginia. Letty remains living with him and keeps household, but is constantly annoyed by the wind. One day, Lige tells her he is going to a meeting of a few cattlemen. Letty, bored with the household and driven insane by the wind, begs to go with him but despite initially refusing, he takes Letty with him. Letty is hurt in a severe sand storm. Lige rescues her and orders Mr Sourdough to bring her back home. After the cattlemen return with a severely injured Roddy, she is forced to nurse him. He forces himself upon her, but she rejects him. Lige, returns and interrupts them. A fearful Letty is now happy to see him and they kiss. Lige soon leaves again for the meeting.
That night, a bad storm makes the house shake. Letty is driven insane and loses her mind, before fainting. Roddy saves her, but she demands that he go away. He becomes aggressive, which results in Letty shooting him to death. Afraid, Letty decides to bury him. However, while digging, the wind makes her lose her mind yet again. She is driven mad, believing that the dead body of Roddy has returned to haunt her. But Lige returns. She admits she has killed and buried Roddy. Lige realizes the wind has made her like this and promises her she will be out of the wind soon as he has now made enough money to send her away. However, Letty declares her love to him and tells Lige that she no longer wants to leave, is no longer afraid and they kiss.
immediately gave her permission to do so. Gish recalled wanting Lars Hanson
as her leading man after having him seen in a Swedish film with Greta Garbo
. She also assigned Victor Sjöström
as the director herself. Sjöström directed Gish before in the 1926 movie
The Scarlet Letter
.
The film was shot partially near Bakersfield
and the Mojave Desert
, California
. The off-key happy ending of the film that was released was added at the insistence of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, who refused to approve the novel's logical ending in which Gish's character wandered into a windstorm and died.
, recently reviewed the work of director Victor Sjöström and they wrote, "And in America his three most famous works - He Who Gets Slapped
(1924), The Scarlet Letter
(1926) and The Wind (1928) - each dealt with human suffering. The Wind is almost certainly the best - a silent classic, revived in recent years by producer/ director Kevin Brownlow
with a Carl Davis
score, which gave the great Lillian Gish one of the finest parts of her career...Sjostrom treats the inevitable clash between Letty and her new surroundings with considerable realism and detail, allowing Gish as much leeway as possible to develop her performance. The entire film was shot in the Mojave Desert
under conditions of great hardship and difficulty and this was probably the first 'Western' that tried for truth as well as dramatic poetry. One of its masterstrokes, which looks far less self-conscious than any description of it may seem, is the moment
when Letty hallucinates in terror at the sight of the partially buried body of her attacker."
In a retrospective of silent films, the Museum of Modern Art
screened The Wind and included a review of the film in their program. They wrote, "What makes The Wind such an eloquent coda to its dying medium is Seastrom's and Gish's distillation of their art forms to the simplest, most elemental form: there are no frills. Seastrom was always at his best as a visual poet of natural forces impinging on human drama; in his films, natural forces convey drama and control human destiny. Gish, superficially fragile and innocent, could plumb the depths of her steely soul and find the will to prevail. The genius of both Seastrom and Gish comes to a climactic confluence in The Wind. Gish is Everywoman, subject to the most basic male brutality and yet freshly open to the possibility of romance. As a result, the film offers a quintessential cinematic moment of the rarest and most transcendentally pure art."
When the film first opened in 1928, however, the press was not as kind. Mordaunt Hall
, film critic for The New York Times
, for example, was very critical of the film and he found it difficult to suspend his disbelief regarding the special effects and Lillian Gish's acting. He wrote, "Yesterday afternoon's rain was far more interesting than...The Wind,...The rain was real, and in spite of the lowering skies there was life and color around you. In the picture, the wind, whether it is a breeze or a cyclone, invariably seems a sham, and Lillian Gish, the stellar light in this new film, frequently poses where the wind is strongest; during one of the early episodes she does her bit to accentuate the artificiality of this tale by wearing the worst kind of hat for a wind. Victor Seastrom hammers home his points until one longs for just a suggestion of subtlety. The villain's sinister smile appears to last until his dying breath."
by the Library of Congress
as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
directed by Victor Sjöström
Victor Sjöström
Victor Sjöström was a Swedish actor, screenwriter, and film director.- Biography:Born in Silbodal, in the Värmland region of Sweden, he was only a year old when his father, Olof Adolf Sjöström, moved the family to Brooklyn, New York. His mother died when he was seven years old in 1886...
. The movie was adapted by Frances Marion
Frances Marion
Frances Marion was an American journalist, author, and screenwriter often cited as the most renowned female screenwriter of the twentieth century alongside June Mathis and Anita Loos.-Career:...
from the novel The Wind
The Wind (novel)
The Wind, a supernatural novel by Dorothy Scarborough depicts the loneliness of life in a small Texas town during the 1880's. It was later made into a film called The Wind starring Lilian Gish. She originally published this novel anonymously anticipating a rough reception in Texas.According to...
written by Dorothy Scarborough
Dorothy Scarborough
Dorothy Scarborough was an American writer who wrote about Texas, folk culture, cotton farming, ghost stories and a woman's life in the Southwest.-Early life:...
. It features Lillian Gish
Lillian Gish
Lillian Diana Gish was an American stage, screen and television actress whose film acting career spanned 75 years, from 1912 to 1987....
, Lars Hanson
Lars Hanson
Lars Hanson was a Swedish film and stage actor, internationally mostly remembered for his motion picture roles during the silent film era.-Biography:...
, Montagu Love
Montagu Love
Montagu Love , also known as Montague Love, was an English screen, stage and vaudeville actor.Born Harry Montague Love in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England, and educated in Great Britain, Love began his career as an artist and military correspondent. His first important job was as a London newspaper...
, Dorothy Cumming
Dorothy Cumming
Dorothy G. Cumming was an actress of the silent film era. She appeared in 39 American, English, and Australian films between 1915 and 1929, notably appearing as the Virgin Mary in Cecil B. DeMille's 1927 film The King of Kings and the jealous wife in Lillian Gish's 1928 The Wind. She also appeared...
, and others. It was one of the last silent films released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Plot
The silent tells the story of a sheltered woman named Letty (Lillian GishLillian Gish
Lillian Diana Gish was an American stage, screen and television actress whose film acting career spanned 75 years, from 1912 to 1987....
) who lives in the East in Virginia and moves to West Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
to live at her cousin Beverly's ranch at Sweet Water. On her way, she is constantly bothered by the never stopping blowing wind. Wirt Roddy (Montagu Love
Montagu Love
Montagu Love , also known as Montague Love, was an English screen, stage and vaudeville actor.Born Harry Montague Love in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England, and educated in Great Britain, Love began his career as an artist and military correspondent. His first important job was as a London newspaper...
) notices and seduces her in the train. He scares her by saying the wind usually drives women crazy. After her arrival, she is picked up by Beverly's closest neighbour Lige Hightower (Lars Hanson
Lars Hanson
Lars Hanson was a Swedish film and stage actor, internationally mostly remembered for his motion picture roles during the silent film era.-Biography:...
), who lives 15 miles from her cousin. Letty is afraid of him, but Roddy assures her he will visit her sometimes to look how she is doing. After endless miles in sand and wind, they arrive at the ranch. Beverly (Edward Earle
Edward Earle
Edward Earle was a Canadian film actor. He appeared in almost 400 films between 1914 and 1956.He was born in Toronto and died in Los Angeles, California, aged 90.-Selected filmography:* The Purple Dress...
) is delighted with her arrival, but his wife Cora (Dorothy Cumming
Dorothy Cumming
Dorothy G. Cumming was an actress of the silent film era. She appeared in 39 American, English, and Australian films between 1915 and 1929, notably appearing as the Virgin Mary in Cecil B. DeMille's 1927 film The King of Kings and the jealous wife in Lillian Gish's 1928 The Wind. She also appeared...
) is only jealous, despite Letty saying she and Beverly are like brother and sister. Her grudge against Letty becomes even worse when her children have an immediate connection with her, while they all seem to dislike their mother.
At a party, Mr Sourdough (William Orlamond
William Orlamond
William Orlamond was an American film actor.Orlamond appeared in 81 films between 1912 and 1938. He was born in Copenhagen, Denmark and died in Los Angeles, California, United States.-Selected filmography:...
) reveals he intends proposing to Letty. Lige stops him and explains he wants to propose to her himself. Letty is accompanied by Roddy when a cyclone
Cyclone
In meteorology, a cyclone is an area of closed, circular fluid motion rotating in the same direction as the Earth. This is usually characterized by inward spiraling winds that rotate anticlockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere of the Earth. Most large-scale...
interrupts the party. The guests all hide in a shelter and Roddy declares his love to Letty and begs her to run off with him. After the cyclone is over, both Lige and Mr. Sourdough propose to her, but Letty thinks it's a joke. Cora comes in and demands that she leave Beverly alone.
Letty is shocked but Cora tells her that she has to leave the ranch. Because she has neither money nor a place to go, she decides to go away with Roddy, but Roddy tells her quite openly that he is already married. Cora agrees that Letty can stay for just one more night at the ranch but tells her that she has to accept one of the two marriage proposals she has received. She eventually marries Lige after he and Mr.Sourdough toss a coin to win her hand. He is delighted to marry her, but Letty is not interested in him. When she admits she doesn't want to be around him, Lige is hurt and promises her he will never touch her. He also agrees that he will try to make enough money to send her back to Virginia. Letty remains living with him and keeps household, but is constantly annoyed by the wind. One day, Lige tells her he is going to a meeting of a few cattlemen. Letty, bored with the household and driven insane by the wind, begs to go with him but despite initially refusing, he takes Letty with him. Letty is hurt in a severe sand storm. Lige rescues her and orders Mr Sourdough to bring her back home. After the cattlemen return with a severely injured Roddy, she is forced to nurse him. He forces himself upon her, but she rejects him. Lige, returns and interrupts them. A fearful Letty is now happy to see him and they kiss. Lige soon leaves again for the meeting.
That night, a bad storm makes the house shake. Letty is driven insane and loses her mind, before fainting. Roddy saves her, but she demands that he go away. He becomes aggressive, which results in Letty shooting him to death. Afraid, Letty decides to bury him. However, while digging, the wind makes her lose her mind yet again. She is driven mad, believing that the dead body of Roddy has returned to haunt her. But Lige returns. She admits she has killed and buried Roddy. Lige realizes the wind has made her like this and promises her she will be out of the wind soon as he has now made enough money to send her away. However, Letty declares her love to him and tells Lige that she no longer wants to leave, is no longer afraid and they kiss.
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 Letty Mason - Lars HansonLars HansonLars Hanson was a Swedish film and stage actor, internationally mostly remembered for his motion picture roles during the silent film era.-Biography:...
as Lige Hightower - Montagu LoveMontagu LoveMontagu Love , also known as Montague Love, was an English screen, stage and vaudeville actor.Born Harry Montague Love in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England, and educated in Great Britain, Love began his career as an artist and military correspondent. His first important job was as a London newspaper...
as Wirt Roddy - Dorothy CummingDorothy CummingDorothy G. Cumming was an actress of the silent film era. She appeared in 39 American, English, and Australian films between 1915 and 1929, notably appearing as the Virgin Mary in Cecil B. DeMille's 1927 film The King of Kings and the jealous wife in Lillian Gish's 1928 The Wind. She also appeared...
as Cora - Edward EarleEdward EarleEdward Earle was a Canadian film actor. He appeared in almost 400 films between 1914 and 1956.He was born in Toronto and died in Los Angeles, California, aged 90.-Selected filmography:* The Purple Dress...
as Beverly - William OrlamondWilliam OrlamondWilliam Orlamond was an American film actor.Orlamond appeared in 81 films between 1912 and 1938. He was born in Copenhagen, Denmark and died in Los Angeles, California, United States.-Selected filmography:...
as Sourdough - Carmencita Johnson as Cora's Child
- Leon Janney as Cora's Child
- Billy Kent Schaefer as Cora's Child
Background
Gish came with the idea of making a film adaption of the novel of the same name. Irving ThalbergIrving Thalberg
Irving Grant Thalberg was an American film producer during the early years of motion pictures. He was called "The Boy Wonder" for his youth and his extraordinary ability to select the right scripts, choose the right actors, gather the best production staff and make very profitable films.-Life and...
immediately gave her permission to do so. Gish recalled wanting Lars Hanson
Lars Hanson
Lars Hanson was a Swedish film and stage actor, internationally mostly remembered for his motion picture roles during the silent film era.-Biography:...
as her leading man after having him seen in a Swedish film with Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo , born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson, was a Swedish film actress. Garbo was an international star and icon during Hollywood's silent and classic periods. Many of Garbo's films were sensational hits, and all but three were profitable...
. She also assigned Victor Sjöström
Victor Sjöström
Victor Sjöström was a Swedish actor, screenwriter, and film director.- Biography:Born in Silbodal, in the Värmland region of Sweden, he was only a year old when his father, Olof Adolf Sjöström, moved the family to Brooklyn, New York. His mother died when he was seven years old in 1886...
as the director herself. Sjöström directed Gish before in the 1926 movie
1926 in film
-Events:*August - Warner Brothers debuts the first Vitaphone film, Don Juan. The Vitaphone system used multiple 33⅓ rpm disc records developed by Bell Telephone Laboratories and Western Electric to play back audio synchronized with film....
The Scarlet Letter
The Scarlet Letter (1926 film)
The Scarlet Letter is a 1926 drama film directed by Victor Sjöström. Louis B. Mayer was reluctant on using Miss Gish, fearing opposition from church groups. The film was announced as "It's a real 'A' picture", taking advantage of the 'A' for Adultery, and proved a box office success...
.
The film was shot partially near Bakersfield
Bakersfield, California
Bakersfield is a city near the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley in Kern County, California. It is roughly equidistant between Fresno and Los Angeles, to the north and south respectively....
and the Mojave Desert
Mojave Desert
The Mojave Desert occupies a significant portion of southeastern California and smaller parts of central California, southern Nevada, southwestern Utah and northwestern Arizona, in the United States...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. The off-key happy ending of the film that was released was added at the insistence of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, who refused to approve the novel's logical ending in which Gish's character wandered into a windstorm and died.
Critical reception
The British newspaper, The GuardianThe Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, recently reviewed the work of director Victor Sjöström and they wrote, "And in America his three most famous works - He Who Gets Slapped
He Who Gets Slapped
He Who Gets Slapped is a 1924 film starring Lon Chaney, Norma Shearer, and John Gilbert. It was directed by Victor Sjöström. The film is based on the Russian play Тот, кто получает пощёчины by playwright Leonid Andreyev, which was published in 1914 and in English, as He Who Gets Slapped, in 1922...
(1924), The Scarlet Letter
The Scarlet Letter (1926 film)
The Scarlet Letter is a 1926 drama film directed by Victor Sjöström. Louis B. Mayer was reluctant on using Miss Gish, fearing opposition from church groups. The film was announced as "It's a real 'A' picture", taking advantage of the 'A' for Adultery, and proved a box office success...
(1926) and The Wind (1928) - each dealt with human suffering. The Wind is almost certainly the best - a silent classic, revived in recent years by producer/ director Kevin Brownlow
Kevin Brownlow
Kevin Brownlow is a filmmaker, film historian, television documentary-maker, author, and Academy Award recipient. Brownlow is best known for his work documenting the history of the silent era. Brownlow became interested in silent film at the age of eleven. This interest grew into a career spent...
with a Carl Davis
Carl Davis
Carl Davis CBE is an American born conductor and composer who has made his home in the UK since 1961. In 1970 he married the English actress Jean Boht....
score, which gave the great Lillian Gish one of the finest parts of her career...Sjostrom treats the inevitable clash between Letty and her new surroundings with considerable realism and detail, allowing Gish as much leeway as possible to develop her performance. The entire film was shot in the Mojave Desert
Mojave Desert
The Mojave Desert occupies a significant portion of southeastern California and smaller parts of central California, southern Nevada, southwestern Utah and northwestern Arizona, in the United States...
under conditions of great hardship and difficulty and this was probably the first 'Western' that tried for truth as well as dramatic poetry. One of its masterstrokes, which looks far less self-conscious than any description of it may seem, is the moment
when Letty hallucinates in terror at the sight of the partially buried body of her attacker."
In a retrospective of silent films, the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
screened The Wind and included a review of the film in their program. They wrote, "What makes The Wind such an eloquent coda to its dying medium is Seastrom's and Gish's distillation of their art forms to the simplest, most elemental form: there are no frills. Seastrom was always at his best as a visual poet of natural forces impinging on human drama; in his films, natural forces convey drama and control human destiny. Gish, superficially fragile and innocent, could plumb the depths of her steely soul and find the will to prevail. The genius of both Seastrom and Gish comes to a climactic confluence in The Wind. Gish is Everywoman, subject to the most basic male brutality and yet freshly open to the possibility of romance. As a result, the film offers a quintessential cinematic moment of the rarest and most transcendentally pure art."
When the film first opened in 1928, however, the press was not as kind. Mordaunt Hall
Mordaunt Hall
Mordaunt Hall was the first regularly assigned motion picture critic for The New York Times, from October 1924 to September 1934....
, film critic for The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, for example, was very critical of the film and he found it difficult to suspend his disbelief regarding the special effects and Lillian Gish's acting. He wrote, "Yesterday afternoon's rain was far more interesting than...The Wind,...The rain was real, and in spite of the lowering skies there was life and color around you. In the picture, the wind, whether it is a breeze or a cyclone, invariably seems a sham, and Lillian Gish, the stellar light in this new film, frequently poses where the wind is strongest; during one of the early episodes she does her bit to accentuate the artificiality of this tale by wearing the worst kind of hat for a wind. Victor Seastrom hammers home his points until one longs for just a suggestion of subtlety. The villain's sinister smile appears to last until his dying breath."
Awards
In 1993, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film RegistryNational Film Registry
The National Film Registry is the United States National Film Preservation Board's selection of films for preservation in the Library of Congress. The Board, established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, was reauthorized by acts of Congress in 1992, 1996, 2005, and again in October 2008...
by the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."