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Lillian Gish: Romantic Night
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When Lillian Gish died in 1993, she had lived for almost a full century. The rerelease of The Night of the Hunter in the fall of 2001 brought renewed critical attention, as have continued biographical and critical studies, such as the aforementioned book by Charles Affron. Many commentators seemed to be affronted by the fact that Lillian Gish was so attendant to her image, to her place in history, to her legacy, as if recent movie stars don't have armies of public relations flacks to facilitate their public personae. Lillian Gish didn't have publicists and public relations firms: she had herself, aided by her manager, James Frasher. Her stardom wasn't just a matter of publicity, it was a matter of artistry. She cared about how she looked, how she was perceived, how she was regarded, but she ... cared about her legacy.
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With her delicate, luminous beauty, Gish was perfect for Griffith's Victorian-styled melodramas; wide-eyed and restrained, her face a marvel of innocence and nuance, she was nothing less than ideal for Griffith's landmark use of close-up photography. Together, they worked from opposite sides of the camera to push the new medium from lowbrow entertainment into the realm of serious art. In 1920, under Griffith's tutelage, Gish even directed her own film, Remodeling Her Husband, a vehicle for her sister. She left Griffith in 1923, landing at MGM to star in such literary projects as 1926's La Boheme and The Scarlet Letter. In 1930, she made her first sound film, One Romantic Night. Longing to return to Broadway -- and considered a fading star around Hollywood -- she made only one film over the course of the next 13 years, 1933's His Double Life.
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With much of her own money, Lillian made two successful movies in Italy, The White Sister and Romola. She continued acting and made a very easy transition from silent movies to the "talkies" in 1930 with One Romantic Night. She soon signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer which called for her to do six pictures in two years and she would be paid one million dollars. She ... returned to the stage in 1930 starring in Uncle Vanya on Broadway. She continued on the stage playing Ophelia to John Gielgud's Hamlet in 1936 and in 1941 she began a record-breaking 66-week run in Life With Father. As Miss Gish (she most often was referred to as Miss Gish reflecting the great respect given to her by critics, directors, producers and fans) grew older, roles became more difficult to obtain, especially in the films.
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In the 1940s and 1950s, Gish did more film work, often playing supporting, character-type roles. In 1947, for example, she appeared in David O. Selznik's grandiose Duel in the Sun. In 1955, she appeared in The Night of the Hunter as a shotgun-carrying guardian of orphans. With the growth of commercial television in the late 1940s and 1950s, Gish found roles in the new medium, especially guest spots on episodic shows. She made her television debut in a 1948 episode of Philco Playhouse, "The Late Christopher Bean." Gish returned to Broadway in 1960 when she was cast in All the Way Home.
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Louise Brooks posited that MGM set out to ruin Gish at the dawn of the talkie era, and this may be true. Her stagebound sound debut One Romantic Night (1929) hurt her, but other factors were in play. The public was tired of Gish; it felt like she had been around forever. And her material (if not her playing of it) was quite repetitive. In King Vidor’s MGM comedy The Patsy (1928), Marion Davies (right) does a devastatingly accurate parody of Gish’s acting style. Davies puts a Scarlet Letter cap on her head, then draws her mouth into a tiny Gish dot, which makes her face wizened and prim.
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Synopsis: The second of three versions of the Ferenc Molnar play The Swan, One Romantic Night represented the talkie debut of the great Lillian Gish. The star plays Alexandra, a mittel-European princess who falls in love with Dr. Hafler (Conrad Nagel), her brother's tutor. Alas, affairs of state demand thatRead More
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Romantic Night