Lillian Gish Tribute by David Drazin w/Piano Accompaniment

Dave at 13: 1969, Cleveland, OH. My parents had given me an 8mm Blackhawk Films print of The Battle at Elderbush Gulch for my birthday. My sister Laura and I watched it over and over. Other than buying film prints, in those pre-video days the only way to see silent movies was either on television or maybe in a library or museum showing. I'd seen Way Down East at the Old Mayfield Theater in Cleveland, Ohio and Orphans of the Storm in an edited version with narration in the library, but that's about all. I'd written a couple of fan letters to Lillian Gish and she replied! She told me that all my questions would be answered as her new book: The Movies, Mr. Griffith and Me, would soon be out. We knew that she would be in Cleveland at a book signing. I was in Junior High School. My mother totally shocked me and my sister by taking us out of school. She took us downtown to the May Company to meet Lillian Gish and buy her book! My dad had given me his Kodak 8mm Brownie camera two years earlier when I was eleven years old. I got a roll of black and white tri-x film for the first time and nervously loaded it up. This would supposedly film well in the low light conditions of the shopping center. My sister Laura took the very brief shot of me standing on Lillian Gish's left. The fellow on the left of one shot was her agent. Not long after she was on Dick Cavett. I filmed her and the shots from Way Down East off of the television. It flickers because the frame rate of 8mm film wasn't matched to the rate that lines are shot across the television screen horizontally. The other clips came from the Blackhawk Films preview reel in 8mm and one shot with Richard Barthelmess that was part of a Castle Film called: Rudolph Valentino, Idol of the Jazz Age. I'd never cut anything from a film this way before, but in this case it was editomania! The shot of the flower at the end was just an accident of splicing home movies together, but I decided to leave it in the You Tube.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Lillian Gish Tribute
• silent movies
• D.W. Griffith
• Way Down East
• Orphans of the Storm
• Dorothy Gish
• Dick Cavett
• The Movies Mr. Griffith and Me
• The May Company Cleveland Ohio
• David Drazin

[TheShockBlockNews]

Great video! Thank you for uploading it! Lillian Gish was the greatest and it's awesome that you got to meet her. I'm surprised this video doesn't have more views, but I guess there aren't that many people left who appreciate the great silent films.