Henry B. Walthall

  • D.W. Griffith – The Avenging Conscience: or ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill’ (1914)

    1911-1920D.W. GriffithDramaSilentThe Birth of CinemaUSA

    Thwarted by his despotic uncle from continuing his love affair, a young man turns to thoughts of murder. Experiencing a series of visions, he sees murder as a normal course of events in life and kills his uncle. Tortured by his conscience, his future sanity is uncertain as he is assailed by nightmarish visions of what he has done.Read More »

  • Victor Sjöström – The Scarlet Letter (1926)

    Drama1921-1930SilentUSAVictor Sjöström

    In Puritan Boston, seamstress Hester Prynne is punished for playing on the Sabbath day; but kindly minister Arthur Dimmesdale takes pity on her. The two fall in love, but their relationship cannot be: Hester is already married to Roger Prynne, a physician who has been missing seven years. Dimmesdale has to go away to England; when he returns, he finds Hester pregnant with their child, and the focus of the town’s censure. In a humiliating public ceremony, she is forced to don the scarlet letter A – for adultery – and wear it the rest of her life. Dimmesdale is encouraged by the church fathers to demand of Hester the person with whom she sinned.Read More »

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