Remembrance Wall

Title: The Greatest Thing in Life

Date: 1918

Distributor: D.W. Griffith

Director: D.W. Griffith

Cast: Lillian Gish, Robert Harron, Adolphe Lestina, David Butler, Elmo Lincoln, Edward Peil, Kate Bruce, Peaches Jackson, Ernest Butterworth.

Summary: Much to his chagrin, Edward, the son of a wealthy New York family, finds himself falling in love with Jeanette, a cigar shop salesgirl. She doesn’t like his condescending attitude. Fighting in World War I, a black soldier offers Edward his last bit of water. When the soldier is shot, Edward kisses him on the cheek as he dies. Moved by all he has seen during the war, Edward is reunited with Jeanette.

Notes: Lillian Gish considered this to be one of D.W. Griffith’s best films. The scene with a white soldier kissing a dying black soldier may have been Griffith’s attempt to make amends for the racial controversy that surrounded “Birth of a Nation.”