Actor Lillian Gish, referring to the famous “chase sequence on the ice-floes,” quipped: “All that winter, whenever Mr. Griffith saw an ice cake, he wasn’t satisfied till he had me on it.”[4] D. W. Griffith bought the film rights to the story, originally a stage play by Lottie Blair Parker that was elaborated by Joseph R. Grismer.

The play, an old-fashioned story that espoused nineteenth-century American and Victorian ideals, was considered outdated by the time of its cinematic production in 1920.

[citation needed] Some sources, quoting newspaper ads of the time, say a sequence was filmed in an early color process, possibly Technicolor or Prizmacolor.

[6][7] Clarine Seymour, who had appeared in four previous Griffith films, was originally cast in the role of Squire Bartlett's niece, Kate.

An actual waterfall was used, though it was only a few feet high; the long shot where a large drop is shown was filmed at Niagara Falls.

Similar to other Griffith productions, Way Down East was subjected to censorship by some American state film censor boards.

Way Down East is the fourth-highest grossing silent film in cinema history, taking in more than $4.5 million at the box office in 1920.

(Even the film's seeming pioneering of feminism is hoary: the Leviticus-style titles would have us believe that Lillian Gish's tremulous ingenue fallen prey to a heavily mascaraed roue is "the story of Woman.")

What's amazing is that so much of Gish's tough, funny, intuitive performance, particularly in the film's middle section as she bears her illegitimate child, transcends time, place and technology.

Equally amazing is Griffith's mighty striving, with his arty location shots, quirky close-ups and riskily staged set pieces, to forge a new and expressly cinematic style.

[15]“Way Down East was the most passionate of Griffish’s many paeans of praise for the Christian home; on this score, at least, he could have satisfied Harriet Beecher Stowe.” — Literary and film critic Edward Wagenknecht.