First Mondays Silent Film Series: Hawthorne’s Massachusetts colonial classic The Scarlet Letter (1926) with Lillian Gish

Jeff Rapsis joins us again accompanying a wonderful seasonal period piece. In this silent film version of the classic tale, a single mother in Puritan New England bears her shame alone rather than expose the child’s father. In Puritan Boston, seamstress Hester Prynne and kindly Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale fall in love. After Dimmesdale must go away for a time to England, he returns to discover that Hester has given birth to their child and is the focus of local censure.

According to Turner Classic Movies in 2002, “Only Lillian Gish could have gotten The Scarlet Letter (1926) past the censors of the late ’20s and only she could have made it such an authentic American classic.” They go on to recognize this as the best adaptation of the novel.

Starring MGM’s new ingenue Lillian Gish as Hester Prynne and directed by the renown D.W. Griffith. Gish, known as “The First Lady of Cinema,” worked well into the talkies era earning a nomination for best supporting actress for Duel In the Sun (1946). The American Film Institute lists her as one of the 25 greatest female stars and she is credited with pioneering fundamental film performance techniques. She finally received an honorary academy award in 1971 and was Awarded Kennedy Center Honors in 1982.

CAST: Lillian Gish, Lars Hanson, Henry B. Walthall, Karl Dane, William H. Tooker, Marcelle Corday

DIRECTOR: Victor Sjöström

RUN TIME: 115 min