True Heart Susie (Silent)

Legendary director D.W. Griffith spins a heartwarming tale of romance in this touching silent feature, considered by many to be his most moving and emotional work. Lillian Gish plays Susie May Trueheart, a plain country girl who has been in love with her next door neighbor, William Jenkins, since childhood. William dreams of going to college, so Susie secretly sells the family cow to pay for his tuition. The poor girl naively expects him to propose when he returns from university. Instead, William comes home with a new wife, free-spirited flapper Betty Hopkins, on his arm. Susie knows this big city girl is all wrong for William, but keeps her mouth shut until she discovers that Betty has been seeing other men behind his back. Now Susie must decide whether or not to tell the man she's loved all her life the truth about his new bride...

After his big-budget World War I epic Hearts of the World (1918) D.W. Griffith wanted to return to an earlier, idealized, pastoral America that had seemingly vanished with the war. His answer was True Heart Susie, based on a short story by Marion Fremont and starring Griffith regulars Lillian Gish and Robert Harron. Gish found the simple character of Susie a challenge: "Virgins are the hardest roles to play. Those dear little girls -- to make them interesting takes great vitality." Susie's opposite is the flapper character played by Clarine Seymour, who predates the more famous flappers played by Olive Thomas, Colleen Moore, and Clara Bow in the years to come. Seymour would undoubtedly have gone on to a great career had she not died the following year of pneumonia at the young age of 21. Despite its relative simplicity, True Heart Susie has long been a favorite film among Griffith aficionados. Even 100 years later, the affecting nature of this straightforward love story cannot be denied. Though not as flashy as The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916), True Heart Susie may indeed be Griffith's masterpiece.

• silent