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Greatest Films of the Pre-1920s
1902 | 1903 | 1914 | 1915 | 1916 | 1919
Title Screen Film Genre(s), Title, Year, (Country), Length, Director, Description 
Broken Blossoms (1919), 95 minutes, D: D.W. Griffith
A silent film masterpiece, dealing with controversial subject areas including racial prejudice and child abuse. Subtitled: The Yellow Man and the Girl. The young Cockney daughter Lucy Burrows (Lillian Gish) of a drunken, abusive London prize-fighter Battling Burrows (Donald Crisp), fled after one particularly awful beating. In a Chinese shop in the London slums, she was befriended by a young Chinese poet (Richard Barthelmess) who hid her, treated her with kindness, took care of her, and dressed her up in Oriental costumes. He immediately fell in love with her and they experienced a mystical romance. However, Lucy's father was enraged when he learned that she was with a Chinese man, discovered her location, and tragically murdered her.
