Description

Intolerance is a 1916 silent film directed by D. W. Griffith and is considered one of the great masterpieces of the Silent film. The three-and-a-half hour epic intercuts four parallel storylines, each separated by several centuries: (1) A contemporary melodrama of crime and redemption; (2) a Judean story: Jesus Christ; (3) a French story: the events surrounding the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre of 1572; and (4) a Babylonian story: the Battle of Opis to Persia in 539 BC. Each story had its own tint in the original print. which was criticized by the NAACP and other groups as perpetuating racial stereotypes and glorifying the Ku Klux Klan.

Cast

In order of appearance

• Lillian Gish as Eternal Motherhood
• Vera Lewis as Mary T. Jenkins
• Mae Marsh as The Dear One
• F. A. Turner as The Dear One’s father, a worker at the Jenkins Mill
• Robert Harron as The Boy
• Josephine Crowell as Catherine de Medici, the Queen-mother
• Joseph Henabery as Admiral Coligny
• Constance Talmadge as Marguerite of Valois
• W. E. Lawrence as Henry of Navarre
• Margery Wilson as Brown Eyes
• Eugene Pallette as Prosper Latour
• Sam de Grasse as Mr. Jenkins, mill boss
• Constance Talmadge as The Mountain Girl (second role in film)
• Elmer Clifton as The Rhapsode, a warrior-singer
• Tully Marshall as High Priest of Bel (mythology)
• Ruth St. Denis as Dancing girls
• Alfred Paget as Prince Belshazzar
• Carl Stockdale as King Nabonidus, father of Belshazzar
• Elmo Lincoln as The Mighty Man of Valor, guard to Belshazzar
• Seena Owen as The Princess Beloved, favorite of Belshazzar
• Miriam Cooper as The Friendless One, former neighbor of the Boy and Dear One
• Walter Long (actor) as Musketeer of the Slums
• Bessie Love as The Bride
• George Walsh as The Bridegroom
• Howard Gaye as Jesus Christ
• Lillian Langdon as Mary, the Mother
• Spottiswoode Aitken as Brown Eyes’ father
• George Siegmann as Cyrus the Great
• Max Davidson as tenement neighbor of Dear One
• Douglas Fairbanks as Drunken Soldier with monkey (uncredited Extra (actor))
• Lloyd Ingraham as Judge (Modern Story)
• Tom Wilson (actor) as The Kindly Officer (Kindly Heart)
• Ralph Lewis (actor) as The Governor