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Show Restored 'Way Down East' will play at Egyptian "Way Down East," one of the quintessential silent films, will be screened in a special restoration version at 4he Egyptian Theatre on Wednesday, Jan 23. The film has been restored after five years of detective work by archivists at the Film Department of the New York Museum of Modern Art. "Way Down East" would seem to have the stereotyped silent movie plot. Lillian Gish is the innocent country girl, seduced, used and abandoned, thrown out into the snow in shame, and finally drifting unconscious on an ice floe headed for the falls. Actually, the story was considered old-fashioned even then. But director D.W. Griffith gave it new life in his 1920 version. One ingredient was dramatic location shooting on a real ice-strewn river. Gish and hero Richard Barthelmess were in genuine danger while I filming the climactic scenes. Another element was the acting of Gish herself. One notable scene showed her baptising her baby, which has been born dead. The movie will be 145 minutes long and it will not be silent, as indeed, most "silent films" were not. A musical accompaniment will be performed by Ricklen Noblis and the Salt Lake Chamber Ensemble, working from the orginal score reconstructed by Gillian Anderson of the Library of Congress. The ensemble appears in part through a grant from the Utah Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts. Admission to the special event is $25. |