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Adam_S · 05-09-2008, 06:33 AM

Orphans of the Storm - 3 of 10
stars list - Lillian Gish

I felt so triumphant for getting through the entire interminable runtime that I bumped the rating a whole point.

A 70 minute story stretched out to 160 makes Orphans of the Storm one of the weakest titles of the entire Stars list. Lillian Gish's performance is very good (as is that of her sister) but not as memorable as either of two Pickford films I've recently seen.

Two orphans are rescued by a destitute farmer from the the steps of Notre Dame cathedral, one is the bastard child of an aristocrat the other I forget who belongs to, perhaps the destitute farmer's own child. Anyway the two twerps are raised as sisters and we flash forward to the future (just before the french revolution) where something, presumably scarlett fever has left Louise, the aristocrat orphan, blind. They are not so destitute any more but comfortably middle class based on their clothing. Being that this is a silent film there is a magic cure for blindness available, but to get it they have to go to Paris. They go to Paris and are promptly separated by a nefarious aristocrat with designs of raping the notblind sister (Lillian Gish), he takes her to a party and tries to rape her publically to the bemusement of almost all the aristocrats but one (the son of the same countess making him the half brother of Louise) who gets notblind out of the vicious 'party' she then spends three or four hours of screen time looking for her sister. Meantime her sister has been taken by a nefarious and ultra ugly beggar woman (so you know she's evil, cuz she's ugly, this is Griffith afterall) and is mistreated and forced to be a beggar (her blindness is an asset to the begging trade). Naturally she runs into the magic blindness cure doctor and her mother at somepoint as well as her sister, only her sister is unable to reunite this early in the film because she's been arrested on trumped up charges as a fallen woman. Robespierre doesn't like notblind because she didn't give him the right gossip about her and shut a door in his face, how criminal! They did a great job casting Robespierre, at least one point of the rating is for just how viciously nasty and disgusting he comes off every time he's on screen, a prissy ass. Anyway then the French Revolution happens and its not very exciting. Eventually the lovers wind up in front of the 'court' that guillotines everyone, and they are so sentanced (naturally the court is the point when the sisters finally reunite), and in a classic and unsurprising griffith move there is lengthy cross cutting to create nonsuspense about whether or not the noble Dalton will be able to secure a pardon for our lovers and get it to the guillotine on time! of course he does and everyone lives happily ever after, and the sisters become sisters in truth when everyone gets married in the end.

Ugh, the film was terrible, long, boring, and endlessly frustrating at all the nonstop melodramatic plot devices designed to prevent any progression from being made and forcing a repeat over and over (and over and over) of scenes of notblind weeping about Louise and Louise being all mistreated by the beggars. Thank god I'll never have to watch that again.

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05-09-2008, 06:33 AM	#363 of 451
Adam_S *Adam_S* Member Location: Marina del Rey, CA Join Date: Feb 2001 Local Time: 04:43 AM Local Date: 07-24-2008 Posts: 4,979	Re: AFI 100 Years Series Discussion & Challenges, vol. 2 Orphans of the Storm - 3 of 10 stars list - Lillian Gish I felt so triumphant for getting through the entire interminable runtime that I bumped the rating a whole point. A 70 minute story stretched out to 160 makes Orphans of the Storm one of the weakest titles of the entire Stars list. Lillian Gish's performance is very good (as is that of her sister) but not as memorable as either of two Pickford films I've recently seen. Two orphans are rescued by a destitute farmer from the the steps of Notre Dame cathedral, one is the bastard child of an aristocrat the other I forget who belongs to, perhaps the destitute farmer's own child. Anyway the two twerps are raised as sisters and we flash forward to the future (just before the french revolution) where something, presumably scarlett fever has left Louise, the aristocrat orphan, blind. They are not so destitute any more but comfortably middle class based on their clothing. Being that this is a silent film there is a magic cure for blindness available, but to get it they have to go to Paris. They go to Paris and are promptly separated by a nefarious aristocrat with designs of raping the notblind sister (Lillian Gish), he takes her to a party and tries to rape her publically to the bemusement of almost all the aristocrats but one (the son of the same countess making him the half brother of Louise) who gets notblind out of the vicious 'party' she then spends three or four hours of screen time looking for her sister. Meantime her sister has been taken by a nefarious and ultra ugly beggar woman (so you know she's evil, cuz she's ugly, this is Griffith afterall) and is mistreated and forced to be a beggar (her blindness is an asset to the begging trade). Naturally she runs into the magic blindness cure doctor and her mother at somepoint as well as her sister, only her sister is unable to reunite this early in the film because she's been arrested on trumped up charges as a fallen woman. Robespierre doesn't like notblind because she didn't give him the right gossip about her and shut a door in his face, how criminal! They did a great job casting Robespierre, at least one point of the rating is for just how viciously nasty and disgusting he comes off every time he's on screen, a prissy ass. Anyway then the French Revolution happens and its not very exciting. Eventually the lovers wind up in front of the 'court' that guillotines everyone, and they are so sentanced (naturally the court is the point when the sisters finally reunite), and in a classic and unsurprising griffith move there is lengthy cross cutting to create nonsuspense about whether or not the noble Dalton will be able to secure a pardon for our lovers and get it to the guillotine on time! of course he does and everyone lives happily ever after, and the sisters become sisters in truth when everyone gets married in the end. Ugh, the film was terrible, long, boring, and endlessly frustrating at all the nonstop melodramatic plot devices designed to prevent any progression from being made and forcing a repeat over and over (and over and over) of scenes of notblind weeping about Louise and Louise being all mistreated by the beggars. Thank god I'll never have to watch that again. top 20 films 2008 film list My DVDs; S&S List 62...212 AFI lists: - DONE! HTF Stars list 247/248 Last edited by Adam_S : 05-09-2008 at 06:36 AM.