THE SCARLET LETTER (1926)

Directed by: Victor Sjöström

Based on the novel by: Nathaniel Hawthorne

Starring: Lillian Gish, Lars Hanson, Henry B. Walthall, Karl Dane, William H. Tooker, Marcelle Corday, Fred Herzog, Jules Cowles, Mary Hawes, Joyce Coad, James A. Marcus, Nora Cecil, Iron Eyes Cody, Dorothy Gray, Margaret Mann, Polly Moran, Chief Yowlachie, May Boley

115 minutes

(NR - adult themes)

PLOT:

In Puritan Boston, seamstress Hester Prynne is punished for playing on the Sabbath day, but kind minister Arthur Dimmesdale takes pity on her. The two fall in love, but their relationship cannot be: Hester is already married to Roger Prynne, a physician who has been missing for seven years. Dimmesdale must go away to England; when he returns, he finds Hester pregnant with their child and the focus of the town's censure. In a humiliating public ceremony, she is forced to don the scarlet letter A--for adultery--and wear it for the rest of her life. The church fathers encourage Dimmesdale to demand that Hester name the person with whom she sinned.

ACTUAL MOVIE: