Description

Orphans of the Storm is a 1921 drama film by D. W. Griffith set in late 18th century France, before and during the French Revolution.
This was the last Griffith film to feature Lillian Gish and Dorothy Gish and is often considered Griffith’s last major commercial success after box office hits such as Birth of a Nation, Intolerance (film), and Broken Blossoms.
Like his earlier films, Griffith used historical events to comment on contemporary events, in this case, the French Revolution to warn about the rise of Bolshevism. The film is about class conflict and a plea for inter-class understanding and against destructive hatred. At one point, in front of the Committee of Public Safety, a main character pleads, “Yes I am an aristocrat, but a friend of the people.”
The film is based on the 1874 French play “Les Deux Orphalines” by Adolphe d’Ennery and Eugène Cormon, which had been adapted for the American stage by N. Hart Jackson and Albert Marshman Palmer.

Main cast

• Lillian Gish as Henriette Girard
• Dorothy Gish as Louise
• Joseph Schildkraut as Chevalier de Vaudrey
• Frank Losee as Count de Linières
• Catherine Emmet as Countess de Linières
• Morgan Wallace as Marquis de Praille
• Lucille La Verne as Mother Frochard
• Frank Puglia as Pierre Frochard
• Sheldon Lewis as Jacques Frochard
• Creighton Hale as Picard
• Leslie King as Jacques-Forget-Not
• Monte Blue as Georges Jacques Danton
• Sidney Herbert (actor) as Maximilien de Robespierre
• Lee Kohlmar as Louis XVI
• Louis Wolheim as Executioner