This film is part of Free
East Is East
Charming tale of East End lovers divided by a not so lucky windfall, with beautiful scenes in the Kent hop fields.
Overview
This quintessentially British story, played with exquisite naturalness by Florence Turner and Henry Edwards, deals with the impossibility of finding love across social classes and in defiance of stifling social conventions. Edwards, the biggest star of the British cinema at the time, plays a Cockney boy-done-good, while Florence Turner, ex 'Vitagraph Girl', is his childhood sweetheart from the slums of Poplar who inherits a fortune but is miserable without her soulmate. In the end, happiness is achieved only through escape to a middle ground between the two social worlds.
The scenes shot on location in the hop fields of Kent - where East End Londoners traditionally enjoyed a brief working holiday away from the city - adds greatly to the film's charms. Look out too for a delightful early screen appearance by the great Edith Evans, an arch ham even in 1916, who tries to upstage everyone in this rags-to-riches drama.
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