Public Domain Movies

The Wind is a 1928 American synchronized sound romantic drama film directed by Victor Sjöström. While the film has no audible dialog, it was released with a synchronized musical score with sound effects using both the sound-on-disc and sound-on-film process. The movie was adapted by Frances Marion from the 1925 novel of the same name written by Dorothy Scarborough. Featuring Lillian Gish, Lars Hanson and Montagu Love.

An impoverished young woman named Letty Mason travels west by train from Virginia to live at her cousin Beverly's isolated ranch in Sweetwater, Texas. On the way, she is bothered by the constantly blowing wind. Fellow passenger and cattle buyer Wirt Roddy makes her acquaintance and tells her the wind usually drives women crazy.

Upon arrival, she is picked up by Beverly's closest neighbors, Lige Hightower and the older, balding Sourdough, who live 15 miles from her cousin. Wirt assures her he will drop by occasionally to see how she is doing.

After endless miles in sand and wind, they arrive at the ranch. Beverly is delighted to see her, but his jealous wife Cora gives her a cold reception, despite Letty saying she and Beverly (who was raised by Letty's mother) are like brother and sister. Cora is further angered when her children seem to like Letty better.

At a party, Sourdough tells Lige that he intends proposing to Letty. Lige explains he was planning to do the same. After Wirt drops by, a cyclone interrupts the festivities. Most of the guests seek shelter in the basement, where Wirt declares his love for Letty and offers to take her away from the dismal place. After the cyclone passes, Lige and Sourdough talk to Letty in private. When they flip a coin to see who will ask for her hand in marriage (Lige wins), Letty thinks it is just a joke.

Afterward, Cora demands that Letty leave the ranch. Because she has neither money nor a place to go, she decides to go away with Wirt, but then Wirt reveals that he wants her for a mistress, informing her that he already has a wife. She goes back to Cora, who tells her to choose from her two other suitors. She marries Lige.

When Lige takes her home, he kisses Letty for the first time, but her lack of enthusiasm is unmistakable. Worse for the drink, he becomes more forceful, and she tells him she hates him. He promises he will never touch her, and will try to make enough money to send her back to Virginia. In the meantime, Letty works around the house, but is bothered by the ever-present wind.

One day, Lige is invited to a meeting of the cattlemen, who must do something to avoid starvation. Letty, terrified of being left alone with the wind, begs to go with him, and he agrees. After she cannot control her horse in the fierce wind, he has her get on behind him on his horse. When she falls off, Lige tells Sourdough to take her home.

When the cattlemen return, they bring an unwanted guest, an injured Wirt. After he recovers, Lige insists he participate in a roundup of wild horses to raise money for the cattlemen. Wirt goes along, but later sneaks away and returns to Letty. Out of her mind with fear as she endures the house shaking from the worst windstorm yet, Letty faints soon after Wirt's arrival. He picks her up and carries her to the bed.[note 1]

The next morning, Wirt tries to persuade Letty to go away with him, but she coldly rejects him. He insists, noting Lige will kill them both if they remain. As Wirt becomes more aggressive, Letty picks up Wirt's revolver from the table to defend herself. Confident that Letty will not fire, Wirt grabs the gun and it goes off, killing him. At first startled by Wirt's death, Letty looks confusedly at him and at the gun in her hand; she then decides to bury him outside.

After she is done, she goes back inside the cabin. The wind blows into an even greater fury, and Letty stares with mounting fear through a window as the wind gradually uncovers Wirt's body. Letty runs away from the window, but then sees two hands clasped around the cabin's door trying to force it open; Letty hysterically believes it is Wirt returned from the dead, and falls prone with terror, her face hidden, as someone enters. The hands turn her over, and Letty stares upward blank with madness. However, it is actually Lige, who has returned. After a few moments, Letty returns to sanity and recognizes Lige; she is so glad to see him, she frantically kisses her husband. She then confesses she killed and buried Wirt. When Lige looks outside, however, the corpse is nowhere to be seen. He tells Letty that the wind can remove traces when a killing is justified. He has enough money to send her away, but Letty declares that she loves him, that she no longer wants to leave, and that she is no longer afraid of the wind or anything else.

Cast
Lillian Gish as Letty
Lars Hanson as Lige
Montagu Love as Roddy
Dorothy Cumming as Cora
Edward Earle as Beverly
William Orlamond as Sourdough
Carmencita Johnson, Laon Ramon and Billy Kent Schaefer as Cora's children