A seamstress in 17th-century Puritan Boston (Lillian Gish) conceives a child from the minister (Lars Hanson), whom she refuses to allow to stand up for her. She is pilloried and forced to wear a scarlet letter 'A' ('adulteress') on her clothing. Things come to a head when her unloved husband (Henry B. Walthall), who had gone missing shortly after the wedding, returns and vows to be revenged on her and the father of her child. 'The Scarlet Letter' is Gish's film. She brings exactly the kind of innocent delicacy to the role that it requires and is altogether outstanding: far superior to the other actors in this film, who are by no means bad either. It is just that her range of expressions is so much larger than that of for example Hanson, who looks perpetually worried, and Walthall, who keeps scowling and trying to look sinister and threatening. Karl Dane brings some welcome comic relief to this otherwise quite heartrending film. The story flows nicely, competently directed by Victor Sjöström. All in all a very good film, though not at the level of Gish and Sjöström's other collaboration, 'The Wind'.
Review of The Scarlet Letter
