Admission: $8. Restored Print! Way Down East was based on a story that in 1920 was already considered hopelessly old-fashioned, with its innocent heroine seduced, abandoned, and ostracized for giving birth to an illegitimate child. But, as Scott Simmon writes, "Through expansive film realism, the Griffith-Lillian Gish team redeem melodrama as form, not failure. And only The Wind rivals Way Down East among Gish's portrayals of interior torment and strength. Way Down East...has an absolute claim among Griffith's greatest films." The melodrama also exemplifies Griffith's dual stance toward his victimized heroine, who tries to defend herself against a society of hypocrites. She is literally cast adrift-on an ice floe rushing toward a waterfall, to be saved by Richard Barthelmess in one of the most harrowing (and influential) rescues on film. The rescue of Way Down East-the reconstruction of the long-lost original silent, tinted version-was a project undertaken by The Museum of Modern Art in 1979. It was based in part on the original score for the film, which Griffith closely orchestrated to the images. Dennis James performs the score, adapted for the Wurlitzer organ.