The Wind (1928)

Purely Joyful Movie!

Perfect cast and a good story

best movie i've ever seen.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

With motion pictures having its share of windy film titles throughout the years, ranging from SOMETHING IN THE WIND (Universal, 1947), WRITTEN IN THE WIND (Universal, 1956), INHERIT THE WIND (United Artists, 1960), and the most famous wind title of all, GONE WITH THE WIND (Selznick, 1939), one of the last great silent movies with artistic style and motion becomes simply called THE WIND (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1928). Directed by Victor Seastrom, who earlier directed its leading players of Lillian Gish and Lars Hanson in THE SCARLET LETTER (MGM, 1926), re-teams these two here for another classic melodrama where the wind/or cyclone take precedence through parts of the story "of a woman who gave into the domain of the winds."Plot summary: Letty Mason (Lillian Gish) is a young girl from Virginia train-bound through the western prairie to stay with her cousin and family at his ranch in Sweet Water. While fearing the endless sounds of wind as seen through the train window, Letty soon makes the acquaintance of Wit Roddy (Montagu Love), a rugged fellow passenger and cattle trader who takes an interest in her. Once at her destination outside the train station, Letty is met by Ligh Hightower (Lars Hanson) and his friend, Sourdough (William Orlmond), nearest neighbors of her cousin (15 miles away) who have come to take her to the ranch by coach. While Letty gets a warm reception from her cousin, Beverly (Edward Earle), and meeting with his three children (Leon Ramon, Carmencita Johnson and Billy Kent Schaefer), she fails to get the same welcome from his bitter wife, Cora (Dorothy Cumming). During a social gathering, Letty meets with Wirt Roddy once more, who offers his hand of marriage. Because of her closeness towards her husband, the jealous Cora forces Letty to leave her ranch and get herself married. Accepting Wirt's proposal, she discovers through him that he's already married and only wants Letty as his mistress. With nowhere else to go, she chooses the marriage proposal of Ligh instead. Their wedding night is anything but pleasant, considering how both bride and groom are heavily nervous about being alone together. After Letty rejects Ligh's forced intentions, Ligh realizes Letty's hate towards him and decides to earn enough money to send her back home to Virginia. After returning home from working on the prairie, Ligh brings home an injured stranger who happens to be Wirt. Being left alone with him while her husband is out working, Letty soon finds her biggest fear is not so much the endless sounds of the wind, but the very presence of the man who's still obsessed by her.Lillian Gish has come a long way since her days under famed movie director, D.W. Griffith, that began in 1912. After leaving Griffith by 1921, he ventured over to Metro by 1923. During her MGM years, her acting style not only improved, but Gish herself matured greatly as a serious actress. In a plot that echoes her earlier success of Griffith's WAY DOWN EAST (1920), where Gish braved the forceful blizzard winds, this time she goes through extremes of forceful winds of sand, with realistic insane moments where she observes the every movement inside her cabin, and unable to move herself forward through the wind while outside making her escape. Because this is a silent movie, Swedish actor Lars Hanson gets away playing an American prairie man. Most scenes are nearly stolen by the villainous and sometimes scary performance by Montagu Love. Dorothy Cumming as the unfriendly wife also brings chills up and down one's spine in the similar manner of other actress of the time, Gladys Brockwell. William Orlamond, who sometimes resembles that of Lucien Littlefield, is around for some comedy relief as the middle- aged farmer. According to sources, THE WIND had little appeal to movie audiences back in 1928. THE WIND has fortunately aged well and stood the test of time, especially when it surfaced decades after its theatrical release. THE WIND did became a curiosity for many when the climatic windstorm segment involving Gish and Love was clipped into a segment of an 13- week, well-informed history of silent movies documentary "Hollywood" (1980) under the narration of James Mason. Availability to home video with Thames Orchestral Score conducted by Carl Davis in place of original 1928 soundtrack and sound effects went into release by 1988, with five minute introduction by Lillian Gish herself. THE WIND was soon followed by world television premiere on Turner Network Television (TNT) August 26, 1990, followed by another broadcast Christmas Eve (December 24, 1990) as part of its "Silent Night" silent movie festival. In later years THE WIND (at 77 minutes) enjoyed frequent broadcasts on Turner Classic Movies, where, through its revivals, continues to win the appreciation it lacked way back in 1928. (****)

The wind Story Of A Young Girl With Her Fear The Wind. I Think No Movie After Or Before That Make This Kind Of Emotions . In One Side Is Young Girl And Other Side Is The Wind , Every Time Wind Comes She Freak Out If You Want Classic Movie With Powerful Ending See The Wind And You Never Remorse , Victor Make A Great Movie And Acting Is Great Too. Just See The Wind You Get Every Thing Without Any Dialog .

"The wind" was the second silent movie I had seen just after "Metropolis" ,along time ago;when I saw it again last week,I was not sure I would be so enthused over it.And I was wrong."The wind" remains one of the few silent movies which holds up well today.Lilian Gish was without a doubt the greatest actress of the silent era,and her career spanned the whole 20th centuries,encompassing memorable talkies such as "the night of the hunter " and " a wedding";without words ,she could express everything but she never,even in her more tragic scenes succumbed to self-pity - remember her firm stand against the rotten aristocracy in DW Griffith's "Orphans in the storm".Matching her every step of the way is Lars Hanson's generous husband,ready to sacrifice his own happiness -in a way close to Frank Borzage's characters-"The wind" is ,in turn,a melodrama (the sister-in-law ,envious and spiteful,resents the fact that that intruder steals cousin's and t children 's affection ),a western (the long rides in the desolate landscape and these wild horses ,with impressive pictures inspired by Sjostrom's/Seastrom's previous experiments ("Körkalen",1920),a thriller (Gish and Love ,who tries to rape her) ,a horror movie (the last minutes,when the dead seems to rise from his grave."The wind" is all this and more;since nobody was able to make us FEEL the presence of the wind like the great director did;it's really a character in itself ,and not always an enemy (Lige's last sentence).The viewer really feels it on his skin ,he hears the shutter beat in the storm ,he sees it come into the house .The coming of the talkies made "the wind" a commercial failure ;but its influence was important (William Wyler's "wuthering heights" ,and in France ,Yves Allégret tried to use rain -"Une Si Jolie Petite Plage"- in a similar way)

I have no idea how this film bombed at the box office, because it was incredible to watch. Lars Hanson and Lillian Gish's acting steal the movie, but I found myself on the edge of my seat wondering what would happen next all the way from the first scene to the last. That is what a movie is all about- making the viewer anticipate on what will happen next not just sit there and correctly guess scene after scene. I will say that I saw this film at the 2009 San Francisco Silent Film Festival with an AMAZING live wurlitzer-which added an extra element to the film that made it an amazing performance. What breaks and makes a silent film (usually but not always) is defiantly the score of the film, and i'm quite sure that Lillian Gish would have loved the live music!