Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages (1916)

Director: D.W. Griffith
Stars: Lillian Gish, Spottiswoode Aitken and Mary Alden

The story taking place in Babylon is breathtaking for the sets and costumes. If you have ever read the book "Hollywood Babylon" by Kenneth Anger, several photos from the set of "Intolerance" are included in the book. Also of note are the vivid fight scenes. Blood, gore and decapitations were right at home in 1916 Hollywood as they are today. I highly reccomend this film... the nutshell: required viewing both for its grand Hollywood spectacle and its out of vogue for the time questioning of humanity's true purpose and yearning for something that cannot ever be quite fulfilled. Not quite as good as "The Birth of a Nation" but very close

The emotional oomph of this film comes from the modern story where a young couple living in a tenement apartment almost gets destroyed by society do-gooders. The intercutting of scenes here is masterful as the rescuers race to save the hero who is about to be hanged. Melodrama to be sure, but in a form never seen before 1916.

Well I never came across with this film ever. But the story sounds so good. I think I must give it a try. Its seems really interesting. Well thank you so much for sharing that wonderful thread here in this forum.

D.W. Griffith invested more than $2 million on the film, an unprecedented amount of money at the time. "Intolerance" never even came close to earning back its budget - audiences in 1916 were completely unused to seeing films which ran in excess of 3 hours. Even when it was re-cut and released as 2 separate features, "The Fall of Babylon" and "The Mother and the Law", it still failed to make money.