Broken Blossoms or The Yellow Man and the Girl (1919)

A frail waif, abused by her brutal boxer father in London's seedy Limehouse District, is befriended by a sensitive Chinese immigrant with tragic consequences.

Director:

D.W. Griffith

Writers:

Thomas Burke (adapted from 'The Chink and the Child' by), D.W. Griffith

Stars:

Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess, Donald Crisp

1 win.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Lillian Gish	...	Lucy - The Girl (as Miss Lillian Gish)
Richard Barthelmess	...	The Yellow Man (as Mr. Richard Barthelmess)
Donald Crisp	...	Battling Burrows
Arthur Howard	...	His Manager
Edward Peil Sr.	...	Evil Eye (as Edward Peil)
George Beranger	...	The Spying One
Norman Selby	...	A Prizefighter

Storyline

Cheng Huan is a missionary whose goal is to bring the teachings of peace by Buddha to the civilized Anglo-Saxons. Upon landing in England, he is quickly disillusioned by the intolerance and apathy of the country. He becomes a storekeeper of a small shop. Out his window, he sees the young Lucy Burrows. She is regularly beaten by her prizefighter father, underfed and wears ragged clothes. Even in this deplorable condition, Cheng can see that she is a priceless beauty and he falls in love with her from afar. On the day that she passes out in front of his store, he takes her in and cares for her. With nothing but love in his heart, he dresses her in silks and provides food for her. Still weak, she stays in his shop that night and all that Cheng does is watch over her. The peace and happiness that he sees last only until Battling Burrows finds out that his daughter is with a foreigner.

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Plot Keywords:

boxer | waif | doomed love | battered child | interracial relationship | 

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Genres:

Drama | Romance

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

USA

Release Date:

20 October 1919 (USA)

Also Known As:

Broken Blossoms

Filming Locations:

Fine Arts Studios - 4516 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$88,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

D.W. Griffith Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

90 min

Sound Mix:

Silent

Color:

Black and White (tinted screen)

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Donald Crisp was only 11 years older than Lillian Gish.

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Goofs

While Lucy is looking into the window of Cheng Huan's shop, director D.W. Griffith, in his shirtsleeves and wearing a vest, can briefly but very clearly be seen reflected in the window, briskly walking into the shot and sitting down in a chair beside the camera. This occurs in the shot immediately following the intertitle "The girl with the tear-aged face."

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Quotes

Narrator: The Yellow Man holds a great dream to take the glorious message of peace to the barbarous Anglo-Saxons, sons of turmoil and strife.

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Connections

Remade as Broken Blossoms (1936)

User Reviews

An Americanized London Story

It is rather interesting to compare the silent D.W. Griffith BROKEN BLOSSOMS with its inspiration: the 1916 Thomas Burke short story The Chink And The Child, published in Limehouse Nights (Grant Richards Limited, London). Griffith has deliberately left out, added and changed parts of the story in his film. When Burke's collection of Limehouse stories was published it was feared that the book would be barred by the censor. Recently books by Vere Stacpoole (The Blue Lagoon) and D.H. Lawrence (The Rainbow) has been suppressed, as 'frankness in fiction was frowned upon...' (John Gawsworth - Foreword to: The Best Stories of Thomas Burke, Phoenix House, London, 1950). There were enough worrying themes in the story: its sadism, the utterly impossible interracial love affair and the girl's youth. In Burke's story Lucy is found in an opium joint, where a prostitute has taken her to make a profit out of the virgin. Cheng rescues the 'alabaster Cockney child' - she is only twelve - to bring her '...love and death.' Burke's poetic prose is not always graphic: «He took her hand and kissed it; repeated the kiss upon her cheek and lip and little bosom, twining his fingers in her hair. Docilely, and echoing the smile of his lemon lips in a way that thrilled him almost to laughter, she returned his kisses impetuously, gladly. ... And she was his; her sweet self and her prattle, and her birdlike ways were all his own. Oh, beautifully they loved. ...» Nevertheless elsewhere Burke clarifies the nature of their relation as « It may be that he forgot that he was in London and not in Tuan-tsen. It may be that he did not care. Of that nothing can be told. All that is known is that his love was a pure and holy thing.» Griffith's additions vary from Lucy's artificial smile to Cheng's religious mission. The Christian missionary is also Griffith's invention. He has a dig at Western Christian morality sending missionaries around the world while there's still enough to be done in Battling Burrows's own home town. Near the end Cheng kills Battling Burrows with a handgun as in any American western. In Burke's London Limehouse nights a snake deals with Battling Burrows. Was such a venomous revenge not personal enough to Griffith's American taste?