Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages (1916)

User Rating:

8.2/10   

Director:

D.W. Griffith

Writers:

D.W. Griffith (scenario)
Anita Loos (titles)

Release Date:

5 September 1916 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | History | Romance

Tagline:

The Cruel Hand of Intolerance

Plot:

The story of a poor young woman, separated by prejudice from her husband and baby, is interwoven with tales of intolerance from throughout history.

Plot Keywords:

Intolerance | Judea | Jesus Christ | Massacre | Reformer

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Mae Marsh	...	The Dear One (Modern Story)
Robert Harron	...	The Boy (Modern Story)
F.A. Turner	...	The Girl's Father (Modern Story) (as Fred Turner)
Sam De Grasse	...	Arthur Jenkins (Modern Story)
Vera Lewis	...	Mary T. Jenkins (Modern Story)
Mary Alden	...	Self-Styled Uplifter (Modern Story)
Eleanor Washington	...	Self-Styled Uplifter (Modern Story)
Pearl Elmore	...	Self-Styled Uplifter (Modern Story)
Lucille Browne	...	Self-Styled Uplifter (Modern Story)
Julia Mackley	...	Self-Styled Uplifter (Modern Story) (as Mrs. Arthur Mackley)
Miriam Cooper	...	The Friendless One (Modern Story)
Walter Long	...	The Musketeer of the Slums (Modern Story) / Uncredited Babylonian Warrior (Babylonian Story)
Tom Wilson	...	The Kindly Policeman (Modern Story)
Ralph Lewis	...	Governor (Modern Story)
Lloyd Ingraham	...	Judge of the Court (Modern Story)

Also Known As:

Intolerance (USA) (short title)
Intolerance: A Sun-Play of the Ages (USA) (copyright title)
The Mother and the Law (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

163 min | UK:178 min (2000 video release) | USA:197 min | Spain:197 min (DVD version) | Spain:123 min (TV version) | Argentina:175 min

Country:

USA

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Silent

Certification:

Argentina:Atp | South Korea:12 (2003) | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

Baldwin Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Triangle Film Corporation

Trivia:

Anita Loos claimed that, when writing 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,' she had been inspired to give lead character Lorelei Lee a brief movie career after watching her friends on the set of Intolerance playing Babylonian slave girls.

Goofs:

Continuity: During the Babylonian bacchanal, the same extra, dressed as a slave girl, is standing behind both Belshazzar and Beloved. She is looking in different directions and has her arms in different positions in each shot.

Quotes:

Prince Belshazzar: [to his princess beloved] The fragrant mystery of your body is greater than the mystery of life.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Nothing Lasts Forever (1984)

Love's struggle through the ages

"Intolerance" (Wark Producing Corporation, 1916), directed by D.W. Griffith, became an immediate follow-up to the director's previous effort, a civil war story titled "The Birth of a Nation" (1915), using many of the same actors including Lillian Gish, Mae Marsh, Miriam Cooper, among others. Of the two, I find "Intolerance" the most interesting, mainly because of its advance style in story telling. Yet, "Intolerance" did not become as successful nor controversial as "The Birth of a Nation" when first released.

"Intolerance" consists of four separate stories into one movie, but what's unusual about it is that the stories are not told episodically, but presented simultaneously in parallel action, linked together with Lillian Gish as the mother rocking her cradle. The stories consist of THE MODERN STORY, THE JUDEAN STORY, THE FRENCH STORY and finally THE BABYLONIAN STORY. Of the four, only THE JUDEAN STORY is the shortest and less detailed, featuring the life of Jesus Christ, as played by Howard Gaye. THE MODERN STORY, starring Mae Marsh and Robert Harron, finds the young couple getting married, followed by the husband resorting to life of crime when unable to find work, and later accused of a murder he did not commit; THE FRENCH STORY is set during the Middle Ages with Brown Eyes (Margery Wilson) and Prosper Latour (Eugene Pallette) of religious intolerance under the regime of Catherine De Medici (Josephine Crowell); and THE BABYLONIAN STORY finds the Mountain Girl (Constance Talmadge) treated kindly by Belshazzar (Alfred Paget) when she is forced by the judicial system to appear on the marriage market, and falls in love with her prince. The battle scenes in this segment are well staged, considering the time of when this movie was produced. The Belshazzar's Banquet Hall set is the most famous sequence of all, shown many times as a film clip segment in several documentaries about silent films. The sets are lavish and the expense of this production shows. In spite of some hokey acting and title cards, which was taken seriously by 1916 standards, it's still a worthy viewing, especially for film scholars. Of all the actors who have appeared in this production, and there are too many to mention, the one who's most remembered long after the film is over is the one with less footage, Lillian Gish.

"Intolerance" is available on video in several different versions. Besides public domain videos with bad copies and no music score whatsoever, the three noted mentions include, (1) The former Blackhawk Video Company distributed it in the 1980s at 135 minutes accompanied with clear picture, an organ score and intermission. The opening titles of that print claims it to be the most complete copy, which includes the list of cast actors and their roles. (2) When Blackhawk merged with Republic Video several years later, it presented another copy, a shorter but almost clearer print running at 121 minutes accompanied with a good piano score and tinted picture, but minus the listing of the cast of actors and their roles. This was the copy used for the Public Television presentation of "The Silent Years" (1971), as hosted by Orson Welles. (3) Then there is another video copy, compliments of Kino Video, which runs at silent accu-speed, making it as long as three hours, color tints, accompanied with organ score, this version which can be seen on Turner Classic Movies. With several video copies currently available, it would certainly make a difference as to which one would make watching this movie enjoyable. On a personal level, I'd recommend No. 2, the Republic Video copy with the piano score.

"Intolerance" can almost be said to be the first all-star movie production. But for what it's worth, this epic should rank as one of the greatest of all silent films. It's amazing that it wasn't named as one of the 100 Greatest American Movies of the twentieth century by the American Film Institute. Maybe a proposed TV special on the selection of 100 Greatest Silent Movies of All Time will amend that.