I love silent films. In some ways I feel that the art of drama was perfected long before film ever learned to talk. While the American Film Institute lists films such as Star Wars and Tootsie as their greatest films, it is obvious that they have never seen The Wind.

The Wind is perhaps one of the most stark and honest portrayals of the old west that I've ever seen. The American west has been so romanticized by artists like Remington and directors like John Ford and even turned into a happy go lucky place by Gene Autrey, Hopalong Cassidy and Roy Rogers. The real west was a difficult place to live and for many an easterner it was as if they were Dante venturing into the very pits of Hell.

Lilian Gish plays the character of Letty. Letty is a young girl from Virginia who moved out west to Texas to live with her cousin and his wife and children. At first she turns her nose up at the quaint place and dirty environment and especially the literally humble food. Yet as time goes on she learns that life in the west is certainly not like that of Virginia and that she must adapt to the circumstances or die.

Letty and her cousin share a bond from childhood leading to her cousin's wife to become enraged with jealousy. Letty is forced off the ranch and must find a place to live immediately. The only way she can survive is to marry her neighbor Lige. As Lige sees that this is a loveless marriage an uneasy relationship begins where Lige works to save enough money to send Letty back to Virginia as this, he believes, is the only thing that will make Letty happy.

Did I mention that there's wind? Day in and day out the wind blows and blows and slowly eats away at the sanity of Letty. Isolation, loneliness and desolation were very real emotions felt by pioneer women and Letty is in no way immune to this. Slowly and slowly she delves further and further into the madness brought on by the ever present and ever fearful wind.

The Wind is a Western and yet it's not for Western fans. If you think the west was the realm of John Wayne and Roy Rogers you should check out The Wind. I think you may be surprised at what you see.

If I had any complaints about this film it would be the ending. It seems to come from out of nowhere and is totally inconsistent with the rest of the film. The reason for this is that the films distributors felt that the original ending in the book would hurt the chances of the film at the box office. While everyone from Irving Thalberg to Lilian Gish thought this was wrong, the money men had their ending. Despite this, The Wind is a classic and should be on any serious film fan's wish list.

*Sources for this post include imdb and the Robert Osborne bumper segments from when this was shown on TCM.

Labels: 31 days of film, Classics, Silent Films