The Griffith Project Volume 12: Essays on D.W. Griffith 9781844572687, 9781838710699, 9781839020049

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THE GRIFFITH PROJECT VOLUME 12 ESSAYS ON D.W. GRIFFITH

TO MIRIAM HANSEN

THE GRIFFITH PROJECT VOLUME 12 Essays on D.W. Griffith

G ENERAL E DITOR Paolo Cherchi Usai EDITED BY Paolo Cherchi Usai Cynthia Rowell CONTRIBUTORS William M. Drew, Helmut Färber, André Gaudreault, Philippe Gauthier, Lea Jacobs, Joyce Jesionowski, Charlie Keil, Richard Koszarski, Arthur Lennig, Patrick Loughney, David Mayer, Russell Merritt, Jan Olsson, Paul Spehr, Yuri Tsivian, Linda Williams

A BFI book published by Palgrave Macmillan

Copyright © Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2008 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author(s) has/have asserted his/her/their right(s) to be identified as the author(s) of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published in 2008 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN on behalf of the BRITISH FILM INSTITUTE 21 Stephen Street, London W1T 1LN www.bfi.org.uk There’s more to discover about film and television through the BFI. Our world-renowned archive, cinemas, festivals, films, publications and learningresources are here to inspire you. Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. Set in Italian Garamond by couch This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978–1–84457–268–7 eISBN 978–1–83902–003–2 ePDF 978–1–83902–004–9

CONTENTS

Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .vii Notes on Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .ix 1. D.W. Griffith as a Transitional Filmmaker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 Charlie Keil 2. Griffith’s Vaudeville Years (1900–1903), the Dramatic Sketch, and the Biograph One- and Two-Reeler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11 David Mayer 3. D.W. Griffith: A Close Examination of the Evidence in the Biograph Copyright Records at the Library of Congress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19 Patrick Loughney 4. Crosscutting, a Programmed Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30 André Gaudreault and Philippe Gauthier 5. Out on Location: D.W. Griffith and Fort Lee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .48 Richard Koszarski 6. Microbes, Animals, and Humans: The Escape and the Politics of Undesirable Breeding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .69 Jan Olsson 7. O Femme Étonnante!: Women in D.W. Griffith’s Films . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .83 Joyce Jesionowski 8. On the Endings of The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance: Some Complementary Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .92 Helmut Färber 9. The Judean and French Sections of Intolerance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .100 Arthur Lennig 10. Robespierre Has Been Lost: Movies and the Soviet 1920s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .111 Yuri Tsivian 11. Surprised by Blackface: D.W. Griffith, Blackface and One Exciting Night . . . . . . . .122 Linda Williams 12. Rough Trade on Ivar Boulevard: Griffith Meets Sam Fuller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .140 Russell Merritt 13. Supervised by D.W. Griffith?: A Checklist of Reliance, Majestic and Komic Films Released by Mutual From 30 November 1913 to 7 November 1915 . . . . . . . . . . . .145 Paul Spehr 14. Corrections and Additions to Volumes 1–11 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .200 William M. Drew, Lea Jacobs, Charlie Keil, David Mayer and Russell Merritt Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .211 v

THE GRIFFITH PROJECT Volume 1: Volume 2: Volume 3: Volume 4: Volume 5: Volume 6: Volume 7: Volume 8: Volume 9: Volume 10: Volume 11:

1907–08 January–June 1909 July–December 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913 1914–15 1916–18 1919–46 Selected Writings by D.W. Griffith Indexes and Corrections to Volumes 1–10 Volume 12: Essays on D.W. Griffith

vi

FOREWORD

In early 1996, an international group of specialists in silent cinema volunteered to write commentaries on more than six hundred films directed, written, produced and supervised by D.W. Griffith, or featuring him as a performer. All authors involved in The Griffith Project were bound to strict editorial rules, most notably the fact that all titles in the series would be assigned to them in pre-determined groups rather than as a result of their own individual preference for this or that specific entry. The patience and commitment demonstrated by all scholars in this endeavor requires at least a symbolic recognition. We therefore invited the members of the project team to write an essay on a (D.W. Griffith-related) topic of their own choice. The papers included in this volume constitute the response to our carte blanche invitation. Our offer was also extended to other experts on D.W. Griffith who, for various reasons, were unable to participate in The Griffith Project but consistently supported it with their generous advice and insight; hence the inclusion of Helmut Färber’s and Arthur Lennig’s essays in this collection. Our colleague and friend Miriam Hansen, who originally agreed to write a new essay for this book, was regrettably forced to withdraw due to adverse circumstances. We would like to take this opportunity to recognize the extent to which The Griffith Project as a whole is indebted to her scholarship, inspiration and loyalty to the Giornate del Cinema Muto, organizers of the multi-year retrospective on D.W. Griffith held in Pordenone and Sacile from 1997 to the present time. This volume brings The Griffith Project to its natural end, as 2008 sees the last installment of the D.W. Griffith program at the Pordenone Silent Film Festival with the screening of his films produced between 1925 and 1931. Not surprisingly, twelve years of research on D.W. Griffith have unearthed an impressive wealth of knowledge but also an equally amazing array of new questions, certainly enough of them to fill several more volumes. Some of these issues (including the increasingly complex issue of D.W. Griffith’s role as production supervisor) are only introduced or barely mentioned here, but we are confident that what we have called the “Griffith Project” will continue – at the Giornate and elsewhere – with more research and newly found or preserved prints. In the meantime, we wish to reiterate our thanks to all those who assisted us throughout the years in this editorial venture. Their names have often been mentioned in previous volumes, but they are worth repeating on this occasion. Mike Mashon (Library of Congress), Elaine Burrows (formerly at the National Film and Television Archive, London), Steven Higgins (The Museum of Modern Art), Paul Spehr, Russell Merritt and Kevin Brownlow have replied with admirable patience and insight to the hundreds of inquiries we have submitted to them for more than a decade. Our special thanks go to Mary Lea Bandy and Anne Morra (The Museum of Modern Art, New York), Greg Lukow and Madeline Matz (Library of Congress), all of whom were or are currently involved in this massive undertaking initiated several years ago by Iris Barry and Eileen Bowser at MoMA and by the staff of the Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division at the Library of Congress. Film preservation is by definition an international effort: several archives have restored other Griffith titles, or helped with additional documentation and research. We wish to express our gratitude to Eddie Richmond, Charles Hopkins and Jennifer Teefy (UCLA Film and Television Archive); Mark-Paul Meyer, Rommy Albers, Catherine Cormon and Simona Monizza (Filmmuseum, Amsterdam); Eva Orbanz (Film Museum Berlin); Dan Nissen and vii

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Thomas C. Christensen (Det Danske Filmmuseum); Stéphanie Côté (Cinémathèque Québécoise, Montréal) and Robert Daudelin, former director of the Cinémathèque Québécoise; Anca Mitran and the staff of the Arhiva Nationala de Filme (Bucarest); the late Paulina Fernandez Jurado (Fundación Cinemateca Argentina); Carlos Roberto de Souza and Patricia De Filippi (Cinemateca Brasileira); Lúcia Lobo (Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro); Eric Le Roy and Jean-Louis Cot (Archives françaises du film, Centre Nationale de la Cinématographie, Bois d’Arcy); Michael Pogorzelski and Fritz Herzog (Academy Film Archive); Alberto Del Fabro (Cinémathèque française), Catherine Gautier (Filmoteca Española); Dinko Tucakovic (Yugoslovenska Kinoteka, Belgrade); Agata Zalewska (Filmoteka Narodowa, Warsaw); Vladimir Dmitriev (Gosfilmofond of Russia); Patrick Loughney, Edward E. Stratmann, Caroline Yeager, Deborah Stoiber, Daniel Wagner, Tim Wagner, Jared Case, Benjamin Tucker, Anthony L’Abbate and all the staff of the Motion Picture Department at George Eastman House for their generous help in retrieving and sharing information on film credits and archival sources. Last but not least, we are grateful to all the interns and students of the L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation who contributed to the early stages of preparation of this and other volumes: Greg Linnell (in the academic year 1998–1999); Julie Buck, Mark Toscano (1999–2000); Elizabeth Coffey, Brandee Cox, Patricia De Filippi, Amy Gallick, Martin Glaus, Kae Ishihara, Dorothy Love, Srdjan Luki´c, Anke Mebold, Florence Paulin, Brigitte Paulowitz, Samantha Safran, Katie Trainor (2000–2001); Kelly Chisholm, Sonia Genaitay, Kelli Hicks, Sungji Oh, Christina Porterfield, Linda Shah, Heather Stilin, John Woodard (2001–2002); Susan Busam, May Dea, Andrew Lampert, Diana Little, Ember Lundgren, Brianne Merkel, Robert Nanovic, Heather Olson, Brent Phillips, Magnus Rosborn, Alexandra Terziev, Edward Tse (2002–2003); Daniel Blazek, Brendan C. Burchill, Christina Nobles, Loubna Regragui, David Rice, Jennifer Sidley, Marcus Smith, Anna Sperone (2003–2004); Janet Ceja, Angela Holm, Nancy Kauffman, Bryan Pang, Molly Pielow, Albert Steg (2004–2005); Charles Allen, Leslie Anne Lewis, Elisa Mutsaers, Joanna Poses, David Spencer, Brian Meacham (2005–2006); Antonella Bonfanti, Daniela Currò, Alice Moscoso, Celine Ruivo, Stephanie Stewart, Ines Toharia Teran (2006–2007); Tatiana Carvalho, Dianna Ford, John Klacsmann (2007–2008); Rita Monica Nicola, recipient of the 2008 Pordenone/Selznick School Scholarship, has assisted with supplementary editing and research for this volume. Paolo Cherchi Usai Canberra, January 2008

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NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

PAOLO CHERCHI USAI is Director of the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia. He is co-founder of the Pordenone Silent Film Festival and of the L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation at George Eastman House. He directed the experimental feature film Passio (2007). His latest book is David Wark Griffith (Editrice Il Castoro, 2008). WILLIAM M. DREW is a freelance writer, researcher and film historian based in Northern California. His books include D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance: Its Genesis and Its Vision (1986) and Speaking of Silents: First Ladies of the Screen (1989). He is the author of numerous articles and contributions to DVD releases and documentaries on silent cinema. His new book The Woman Who Dared: The Life and Times of Pearl White, Queen of the Serials is currently in preparation. HELMUT FÄRBER, born in 1937, has taught courses at film schools in Munich and Berlin for many years. He has published works on Mizoguchi, Ozu, Disney, Eisenstein, Griffith and Renoir (forthcoming), and has contributed to the Parisian film magazine Trafic. ANDRÉ GAUDREAULT is a full professor in the Département d’histoire de l’art et d’études cinématographiques at the Université de Montréal, where he leads the research group GRAFICS (Groupe de recherche sur l’avènement et la formation des institutions cinématographique et scénique). His books, on film narrative and/or early cinema, include Du littéraire au filmique. Système du récit (revised edition, 1999; an English translation is forthcoming from the University of Toronto Press in 2009 under the title From Plato to Lumière: Narration and Monstration in Literature and Cinema), Le Récit cinématographique (1991, with François Jost), Pathé 1900. Fragments d’une filmographie analytique du cinéma des premiers temps (1993), Au pays des ennemis du cinéma (1996, with Germain Lacasse and Jean-Pierre SiroisTrahan), Cinema delle origini. o della “cinematografia-attrazione” (2004) and Cinéma et attraction. Pour une nouvelle histoire du cinématographe (2008). He is also director of the scholarly journal CiNéMAS. PHILIPPE GAUTHIER is a PhD student at the Université de Montréal and the Université de Lausanne. In Montreal, he is a research assistant with the research group GRAFICS (Groupe de recherche sur l’avènement et la formation des institutions cinématographique et scénique). He is particularly interested in crosscutting in early cinema (Cinéma & Cie, fall 2007) and is author of Le montage alterné avant Griffith. Le cas Pathé (forthcoming from L’Harmattan in 2008). His doctoral work focuses on the historiography of film editing practices. LEA JACOBS teaches film at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is the author of The Decline of Sentiment: American Film in the 1920s (2008) and Theatre to Cinema: Stage Pictorialism and the Early Feature Film (1997), written with Ben Brewster. JOYCE JESIONOWSKI is a film scholar and lecturer at Binghamton University. She is the author of Thinking in Pictures (1987), a formal examination of the formal structures in D.W. Griffith’s Biographs. ix

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CHARLIE KEIL is Director of the Cinema Studies Institute and associate professor of History at the University of Toronto. He is the author of Early American Cinema in Transition: Story, Style and Filmmaking, 1907–1913 (2001); co-editor, with Shelley Stamp, of American Cinema’s Transitional Era: Audience, Institutions, Practices (2004); and co-editor, with Ben Singer, of the forthcoming American Cinema of the 1910s: Themes and Variations (2009). His next project is a co-edited anthology on humour in studio-era animated films. RICHARD KOSZARSKI is editor-in-chief of Film History: An International Journal. His books include The Man You Loved to Hate: Erich von Stroheim and Hollywood (1983), An Evening’s Entertainment: The Age of the Silent Feature Picture (1990), Fort Lee, The Film Town (2004) and Hollywood on the Hudson (2008). He was the 1991 recipient of the Prix Jean Mitry from the Pordenone Silent Film Festival. Previously head of collections and exhibitions for the American Museum of the Moving Image, he now teaches film history at Rutgers University. ARTHUR LENNIG is professor emeritus from the University at Albany in New York. He edited and wrote major portions of Film Notes (1960) and Classics of the Film (1965), and authored The Silent Voice (a study of the silent period published in 1966), The Count (1972), Stroheim (2000), The Immortal Count (2003), and will soon be finishing his Critical Biography on D.W. Griffith. He has also written for Film Journal, Film History, and many other magazines. PATRICK LOUGHNEY is Senior Curator of the Motion Picture Department at the George Eastman House, Director of the L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation and adjunct professor of Film History at the University of Rochester. DAVID MAYER is emeritus professor of Drama and research professor at the University of Manchester, England. His books include Harlequin in his Element: English Pantomime, 1806–1836 (1969), Playing Out the Empire: Ben Hur and Other Toga Plays and Films (1994), and the forthcoming Stage-struck Filmmaker: D.W. Griffith and the American Theatre (2009), the latter a direct result of The Griffith Project. He is the author of numerous essays on nineteenth- and early twentieth-century popular stage entertainments and links with early film. RUSSELL MERRITT is visiting professor in the Film Studies program at the University of California, Berkeley. He has written with J.B. Kaufman an account of Walt Disney’s silent cartoons, Walt in Wonderland: The Silent Films of Walt Disney (1992), and Walt Disney’s Silly Symphonies: A Companion to the Classic Cartoon Series (2006). He directed and produced “The Great Nickelodeon Show”, presented at the Pordenone Silent Film Festival in 2002. His most recent commentaries on Griffith can be read and heard on laser discs and DVDs produced by Film Preservation Associates for The Birth of a Nation, Intolerance, Way Down East, and the Biograph anthology D.W. Griffith Years of Discovery: 1909–1913. JAN OLSSON is professor of Cinema Studies at Stockholm University. He has been visiting and honorary professor at several European and American universities, most often at the University of Southern California. He is the author of several books and anthologies, and of numerous essays in scholarly journals. His forthcoming books are From Los Angeles to Hollywood: Journalism and American Film Culture, 1905–1915 and Hitchcock à la Carte. CYNTHIA ROWELL graduated in 1999 from the L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation at George Eastman House. She currently produces DVDs for New Yorker Films. x

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PAUL SPEHR has been an archival consultant and film historian since retiring from the Library of Congress where he was Assistant Chief, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division. He is the author of The Movies Begin: Making Movies in New Jersey, 1887–1920 (1977) and American Film Personnel and Company Credits, 1908–1920 (1996), as well as a number of articles on archival matters and early film history. His book on the career of William Kennedy Laurie Dickson, The Man Who Made Movies: W.K.L. Dickson, will be published by John Libbey Publishing in the fall of 2008. YURI TSIVIAN is professor of Film at the University of Chicago. He earned a PhD in Film Studies from the Institute of Theater, Music and Cinema, Leningrad, in 1984. Among his publications are Silent Witnesses: Russian Films, 1908–1919 (1989), Istoricheskaja recepcija kino (1991), translated as Early Cinema in Russia and its Cultural Reception (1994), and, in collaboration with Yuri Lotman, Dialogues with the Screen (1994). His most recent books are Ivan the Terrible (2002) and Lines of Resistance: Dziga Vertov and the Twenties (2004). His current line of interest is in developing new methods of film studies, as can be seen in the Cinemetrics project (http://www.cinemetrics.lv). LINDA WILLIAMS teaches courses on popular moving-image genres (pornography, melodrama, and “body genres” of all sorts) at the University of California, Berkeley. She has recently taught courses on Oscar Micheaux and Spike Lee, eastern and western melodrama, film theory, pornography and the wider phenomenon of screening sex in mainstream American film. Her edited books include a volume on film spectatorship, Viewing Positions (1993), Reinventing Film Studies (with Christine Gledhill, 2000) and a collection of essays on pornography, Porn Studies (2004). In 1989 Williams published a study of pornographic film entitled Hard Core: Power, Pleasure and the “Frenzy of the Visible” (2nd edition, 1999). In 2001 she published a book on racial melodrama, Playing the Race Card: Melodramas of Black and White, from Uncle Tom to O.J. Simpson. Her latest book, entitled Screening Sex, chronicles the revelation and concealment of sex in movies from Edison’s The Kiss to new media. It will appear in fall 2008 with Duke University Press.

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1. D.W. GRIFFITH AS A TRANSITIONAL FILMMAKER GRIFFITH AT BIOGRAPH AND TRANSITIONAL CINEMA HISTORIOGRAPHY

D.W. Griffith’s historical significance remains undisputed, but the exact nature of that significance continues to vex historians: is he overrated, undervalued, or are his contributions simply misconstrued? For years, Griffith was deemed the master of narrative filmmaking, his achievements valorized in direct proportion to their assumed importance to the development of the American cinema. With Griffith’s Biograph films often standing in for the entirety of film production for the years 1908–1913, his inspired use of an arsenal of stylistic elements, from the close-up to parallel editing, operated as proof of his indelible influence on the medium’s passage from naïve novelty to established art form. A lineage of historians from Terry Ramsaye to Lewis Jacobs to Georges Sadoul perpetuated this reading of Griffith as an innovative figure who set narrative film on its path toward narrational self-sufficiency. In response, some contemporary historians, suspicious of any approach that promotes the role of a single individual over a battery of carefully considered contextual factors, and armed with greater knowledge of the output of other filmmakers during Griffith’s first years as a director, have preferred to relegate Griffith to the position of notable anomaly. One can measure the shifting historiographical fortunes of the director by comparing his treatment in two widely used film history textbooks whose original publishing dates are separated by fifteen years. In David Cook’s A History of Narrative Film, first published in 1981, an entire chapter is devoted to Griffith’s achievements, with one-third of its forty pages spent analyzing his mastery of “interframe” and “intraframe” narrative as exemplified by his output at Biograph. (Tellingly, Cook makes almost no mention of any other American films produced during the Biograph years in the rest of the text.) Cook distills the significance of Griffith’s tenure at Biograph at the outset of the chapter: “In the brief span of six years … Griffith established the narrative language of the cinema as we know it today and turned an aesthetically inconsequential medium of entertainment into a fully articulated art form.”1 Conversely, 1996’s Film History: An Introduction, co-authored by Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell (the former responsible for the groundbreaking examination of stylistic and narrational norms of pre-classical cinema in several chapters of 1985’s The Classical Hollywood Cinema), relegates Griffith’s work to a minority role in its chapter on cinema from 1905–1912. (The periodization alone works to displace Griffith to an extent, as he did not begin directing until three years after the chapter’s start point.) The authors single out The Lonely Villa (1909) and The Painted Lady (1912) alone among Griffith’s many Biograph films. Significantly, Griffith receives proportionately more attention in the “Notes and Queries” section at the end of the chapter, where the authors concede that “if this book had been written several years earlier, this chapter’s discussion of changing film style would probably have dealt primarily with D.W. Griffith.”2 They credit increased access to other films of the period as providing a corrective to the earlier view of Griffith as definitive of his time, suggesting in the textbook’s later edition that “historians now agree that Griffith’s artistic ambitions, not his sheer originality, made him the foremost American filmmaker of this era.”3 In a subsequent blog entry, the authors further distance Griffith from his fabled role as narrative cinema’s progenitor by foregrounding the director’s distinctiveness: “instead of creating film language, he spoke a forceful but often unique dialect.”4

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What caused Griffith to assume such a pre-eminent role in the history of American cinema’s development as a narrative medium? Those leery of conferring the title of “father of narrative” upon the director typically point to two factors: an advertisement that appeared in the trade press at the end of Griffith’s tenure at Biograph, and the extraordinary survival rate of his films made at the company. The advertisement, published in The New York Dramatic Mirror on 3 December 1913 was a canny act of self-aggrandisement designed to ensure Griffith of the fame that had largely eluded him during his years of unwilling anonymity at Biograph (a studio that refused to credit its creative personnel onscreen even when it had become the industry norm). It states, in part, that: D.W. Griffith, Producer of all great Biograph successes, [deserves recognition for] revolutionizing motion picture drama and founding the modern technique of the art. Included in the innovations which he introduced and which are now generally followed by the most advanced producers, are: [t]he large or close-up figures, distant views as represented first in Ramona, the “switchback,” sustained suspense, the “fadeout,” and restraint in expression, raising motion picture acting to the higher plane which has won for it recognition as a genuine art.5

Reproduced in whole or part in so many historical accounts of the American cinema that it has assumed the status of a near-apocryphal text, this ad, like most pieces of historical evidence, assumes whatever meaning the historian employing it wishes it to convey. Few doubt now that early historians relied upon it to shape their own accounts of Griffith’s transformative role in the development of film style. Suspicious of its claims – and the attendant theoretical pitfalls of unfettered auteurist approaches to stylistic development – most contemporary historians cite it now as evidence of the influence Griffith exercised over his own authorial legend. Scott Simmon summarizes the significance of the document succinctly: “this first major statement about Griffith’s worth gives us pause because of two great curiosities: He made it himself, and the specific terms of the claim have proved to be extremely durable.”6 If scholars have tended to follow the lead of what Simmons labels the “loosely formalist”7 terms of the advertisement’s claims, they have done so aided by the availability of nearly the entire Biograph canon, a windfall of textual riches. Unlike the advertisement, Griffith had no control over his filmic legacy: in this he was a beneficiary of an accident of history, which left virtually all of his Biograph output extant. Unique among its American producing competitors during the same period, Biograph saw its original nitrate negatives survive, outlasting the company itself. Eventually these negatives were preserved by the Museum of Modern Art, allowing successive generations of scholars to view and assess Griffith’s achievements systematically; circumstances did not permit a comparable approach with the work of any other production company or filmmaker. Simmon provides a concise appraisal of how the rate of survival skews consideration of the transitional period (and, in particular, key years like 1909 and 1910) toward Griffith’s works, regardless of their typicality: It is not possible to say with any precision how many films in total were made in the United States in 1910 – there are no surviving production records for most companies and most nonfiction film types – but it would be a reasonable guess that at least 3,000 films were released ... Another fair guess would be that at least 90 percent of these titles are now “lost” – that is, all copies were thrown away, allowed to deteriorate, or burned in such fires as the one at Vitagraph ... Films directed by D.W. Griffith for the Biograph Company represent more than one-quarter of the surviving U.S. fiction films of 1910, well over half of the year’s 2

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U.S. films of all types currently viewable in archives, and more than three-quarters of the year’s U.S. titles currently viewable outside of archives. A full history would want to correct this imbalance, but one-reel films from the pre-feature era remain difficult enough to see under any circumstances ... It is compensation that, [for 1910] at least, Griffith’s films are unrivaled in stylistic sophistication, if not in their range of subjects.8

Further compensation for this lopsided view of the transitional period has been a wealth of impressive scholarship examining the Griffith films of the Biograph era, including book-length studies by Tom Gunning, Roberta Pearson, Joyce Jesionowski, and Simmon himself, not to mention the multiple volumes of The Griffith Project devoted to the director’s work from these years. But the lingering question left by any such study is how one relates the films of Griffith to those of his peers. Can one make a case for Griffith being exemplary of his time, or is he remarkable primarily for the way that his films stand apart from the norms of the period? If, in fact, Griffith’s “dialect” was “often unique”, as Bordwell claims, then how useful is it in helping us to construct the filmmaking standards of the time? What should we make of the fact that Griffith relied on much more rapid cutting rates than his peers for most of the transitional period? What of his tendency for filming contiguous spaces seemingly joined at the frameline as if they were so many “railroad cars”,9 or his penchant for associative edits that link spaces in an ambiguous fashion, traits that few other filmmakers of the time share? Does analysis of a Griffith Biograph ultimately result in doing little more than amplifying a portrait of an artist whose relationship to his time will always be idiosyncratic and therefore of limited historiographic value? Filling in some more details about the nature of filmmaking during the transitional period might temper our sense of Griffith’s seeming uniqueness. It bears stressing at the outset that normative practice during the transitional period is far less normative than it will prove to be several years later (or, arguably, ever again in the history of American filmmaking). While more routinized production schedules encouraged filmmakers to find efficient ways to produce a 1,000-foot narrative, directors still opted for divergent stylistic approaches to that end. Some industrywide tendencies become apparent over the span of the transitional period, but one can always find examples that run counter to such trends, whether cutting rates, shot scale, or performance style is at issue. Those critical of the term “transitional” find it objectionable in part because it implies that the period functions as some kind of ill-defined prelude to the classical era. But in my own work on the period, I have tried to stress that what defines these years most pointedly is the sense of flux and opportunity. The urge to find ways of telling stories that would resonate with audiences and allow for easy replication (with variation) fuels most of the experiments with style and narrative during this period. That some of these approaches would prove foundational for the later classical mode is inevitable, but it does not invalidate those that did not survive the era. It also means that we should not judge Griffith’s contributions to this period solely on the basis of whether they had lasting value for later generations. We should also remember that while rampant copying of storytelling devices did occur throughout these years, the predilection for lifting from one’s betters was tempered by whether such poaching could be accomplished easily or not. Not all of Griffith’s techniques were adapted, in part because some of them could not be duplicated unless the copier possessed considerable skill. Griffith’s most famous, and arguably most influential, contribution to the developing “language” of American filmmaking was undoubtedly his refinement of what his ad had labeled the “switchback”, or crosscutting. This was a storytelling device that many filmmakers found themselves comfortable appropriating, especially as the conventions of the “last-minute rescue” became well established through Griffith’s own repeated reliance on 3

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the technique from late 1908 onward. In instances such as this one, Griffith’s approaches were emulated by other companies, while in others, one can see as strong a tendency to oppose them or pursue alternatives. This should not surprise us, given the competitive nature of film production at this time. Constant trade press praise for Biograph confirms for us that it was one of the pre-eminent producers during the transitional years, but it was not alone in setting the standard for the industry, and ambitious newcomers vied for recognition as well. Successful mimicry could garner praise, but so could devising identifiable traits of one’s own. This likely accounts in part for the varied list of rival company Vitagraph’s innovations – including establishing the nine-foot line to determine shot scale, turning actors away from the camera in the foreground of the shot, experimenting with lighting effects – to differentiate its achievements from those of Biograph. What the specific context of the transitional period reveals to us is both the inordinate degree of influence an acknowledged industry leader such as Griffith could exert, and how the drive for devising inventive ways to tell stories could foster experimentation. Ironically, in a period now known for its suppression of the director-as-author through imposed anonymity, filmmakers were accorded license to employ style overtly for storytelling purposes to a greater degree than would happen once the industrial armature of the studio system encouraged the assimilation of established formal norms. Tom Gunning has astutely demonstrated that the changes to the production models employed at the dominant manufacturers of the day invested the director function with a greater degree of control. Pointing to Griffith in particular, Gunning argues that “the integrative and dominant role of the director at Biograph was not the simple result of the force of Griffith’s personality, but the product of an industrywide redefinition of the film commodity through a new emphasis on film as a fictional dramatic medium.”10 Griffith certainly capitalized on that new emphasis, but his sustained attempts at experimentation should not strike us as unique but rather exemplary of what was possible during the transitional period when the conditions of the time were exploited for their formal potential. To fully understand Griffith as an exemplary transitional director one must take into account his significant contributions to the period’s developments while also acknowledging how idiosyncratic many of those contributions are. Only during the transitional period could a director as distinctive as Griffith still be as pertinent. The protean nature of the transitional period resists any one figure standing as paradigmatic, but it also accommodates the experiments of Griffith as readily as the efforts of any other filmmaker of the era. In 1911, halfway through the transitional period, a critic writing in The Moving Picture World declared that directors would have “to discover new and original tricks of their own”.11 This straightforward advice can inform our sense of what many filmmakers, Griffith included, were attempting during this period. When writing about how filmmakers approached the challenges of devising effective storytelling methods during the transitional period, I have often relied on a problem-solution model, suggesting that filmmakers constantly struggled with the “linked demands of narrative legibility, spatiotemporal articulation, and verisimilitude, among others”.12 I believe that this applies equally to Griffith, though the range of his solutions was likely broader. I should stress that the nature of solutions is not that they are uniformly acknowledged as successful and then smoothly incorporated into a larger, functional system that eventually coalesces into classicism. Nor is it the case that solutions with no longstanding influence cannot exert their own fascination. Griffith’s solutions to the challenges posed during the transitional era resulted in a body of work of great richness and diversity, but we should not allow those very qualities to shield us from seeing how closely rooted that work is to the aims and qualities of the period that gave rise to its existence. 4

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GRIFFITH AT THE END OF THE TRANSITIONAL ERA

It is one of the fitting coincidences of history that Griffith’s tenure at Biograph should coincide so neatly with the duration of the transitional period itself. Both the transitional era and Griffith’s career at Biograph end in 1913, and I will use their mutual endpoint as the opportunity to analyze one final Biograph short in the context of The Griffith Project. Doing so takes on special resonance for me, for a few reasons: first, my first published essay focused on the so-called late Griffith Biographs, with three of the four films discussed in that essay released in 1913; second, I have contributed entries on the Biographs for every volume of The Griffith Project since the third, save for the volume devoted to 1913, an omission I have always regretted; third, the film I have selected, Death’s Marathon, has fascinated me since graduate school, my interest in it cultivated by the two pre-eminent contemporary Griffith scholars, whose work, teaching, and encouragement proved instrumental to my own study of the director, and by extension, early cinema. I refer, of course, to Russell Merritt and Tom Gunning. It would be a stretch to designate Death’s Marathon as a run-of-the-mill Biograph, and many would say that the last films Griffith made at the company are perhaps too self-conscious and thus unsuitable to demonstrate through analysis how Griffith’s achievements fit well within the parameters of the transitional period. But I aim to show that even at a late stage in his Biograph career, Griffith was still devising solutions to the central problems of the period, circa 1913 – though by this year, his problems had become those of a director trying to keep the single-reel narrative format fresh and not a novice contending with the novel demands the format posed in 1908. Death’s Marathon is notable for featuring an unsuccessful last-minute rescue, the inevitability of that failure prefigured in the compelling title, which fuses the stasis of mortality and the endurance of a race, just as the film’s centerpiece of parallel editing arrests the rapidity of the intercutting with lingering shots of death and its aftermath. By 1913, Griffith had become so adept at the various permutations of the lastminute rescue that setting himself the task of negating its presumed outcome became the ultimate version of reworking the well-honed contours of this familiar device. The fatalism of the title casts a pall over the entirety of the last-minute rescue, which employs roughly half of the film’s shots and takes up one-third of its running time. (Its shot total of 112 is just a few shy of the highest for a Griffith single-reeler produced this year.) Perhaps because the rescue’s outcome is preordained, Griffith devotes no time to tracing out in advance the route the erstwhile rescuer (Walter Miller) will use when speeding toward the office where his partner (Henry Walthall) is threatening to kill himself. By this time viewers may have become accustomed to understanding that each successive shot of the rescuer’s car should be read as coming progressively closer to its intended destination, but more to the point, the refusal to underscore increasing proximity reinforces the futility of the rescue attempt. Ironically, when Miller finally reaches his destination (in a shot whose mise-en-scène does confirm the locale as the exterior of the office building), it is already too late. While I am not ruling out the possibility that Griffith designs the sequence to encourage suspense, the suspense comes cloaked in the dread of inevitability. Rather than having the viewer speculate whether the agent of salvation will arrive in time to prevent wrongdoing, Griffith employs his standard battery of rapid cuts and precise alternation of specified spaces to keep the spectator guessing when death will finally intervene to thwart the efforts of the rescuer. As Tom Gunning has pointed out, placing a threatened suicide at the center of the film’s last-minute rescue converts the terms of the rescue’s representation.13 Unlike the standard version, where the rescue line of action speeds toward the space of the imperiled party, even as the forces of imperilment move ever closer, here victim and assailant reside within the same space (and, indeed, the same body). The retardatory function of editing within the 5

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rescue scenario, where delay proves essential for the perpetuation of suspense and where interruption renders the ultimate act of salvation all the more gratifying, becomes almost sadistically obvious in Death’s Marathon. All that stands between the suicide and death are the delaying tactics of his wife (Blanche Sweet) on the other end of the phone. Griffith cuts methodically between shots of the two parties, alternating between closely scaled shots of Walthall, who never moves from his seated position at his desk, and Sweet, framed at a slightly greater distance from the camera, and allowed one moment of mobility when she runs off to another room to enlist the persuasive powers of the couple’s baby. (Such is the pessimism of Death’s Marathon that even the innocence of an infant cannot dissuade the suicide from pursuing self-destruction.) The intense spatial restriction of this series of alternating shots is interrupted only by the methodical insertion of shots detailing Miller’s progress. As we might expect, the speed and movement embodied in these shots of Miller’s automobile rushing from one side of the screen to the other stand in direct contrast to the largely static and intimate shots of the couple linked by the telephone. But near metronomic timing of these interjections proves to be their most distinctive feature. Once the spatial coordinates for the husband and wife are fixed, six shots are devoted to Miller in his car, from the moment that he arrives at the couple’s home to when he finally reaches the office, and the intervals separating each of their appearances create a remarkably symmetrical pattern: nine shots (fifty seconds), two shots (ten seconds), nine shots (fifty-one seconds), nine shots (thirty-four seconds), five shots (thirty-one seconds). Recurring with such predictability, these shots of Miller’s ride to the rescue assume an inevitability that renders the fruitlessness of his attempt all the more poignant. Never has a rescue been presented with such machine-like precision yet failed so abysmally. The shots of the rescue attempt also operate as carefully engineered structuring devices, carving the interaction of husband and wife into discrete narrative segments. Gunning’s analysis carefully details this justly celebrated aspect of the film, reminding us that the extended telephone conversation relies on the strength of the performances of Walthall and Sweet, despite the brevity of most of the shots.14 If attention has properly focused on the bravura depiction of resignation and barely controlled mania conveyed by the former – and Roberta Pearson provides a concise account of its power15 – Sweet’s achievement emerges as no less remarkable. Particularly striking is the moment of Walthall’s actual death, registered by Sweet’s reaction rather than depiction of the shooting itself. Unlike Walthall, who uses the gun throughout as a prop to telegraph the fluctuations in his emotions, Sweet is left largely to her own devices. The horror of Walthall’s death is played out on her face. Up until this point, the give and take of action and reaction has sustained the wife’s ploy of keeping her husband on the line, while also motivating the constant alternation of shots between the two parties. Seeing the husband’s death performed through the wife’s reactions simultaneously registers the chill of recognition that she is now alone. The intensity of Sweet’s focussed performance conveys the finality of his decision, as does the extended duration of the two shots devoted to her expression of shock and grief, both of them noticeably longer than any of the shots leading up to this moment. The phone line no longer connects her to her spouse, nor does it hold forth the prospect of his salvation. When Miller finally picks up the receiver and confirms the obvious, we might be tempted to read the succession of shots as laying the groundwork for the creation of a new couple, as Miller assumes the husband’s role. But Griffith tempers this impression by sustaining the action past the moment the phone call ends, including a shot of Sweet stumbling aimlessly to the adjoining room, only to collapse. With this image of physical and emotional exhaustion ends the most unorthodox last-minute rescue that Griffith would ever film. If Death’s Marathon provided us with nothing else than this shockingly downbeat chal6

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lenge to the last-minute rescue’s conventions, it would warrant attention. But the latter half also gains power from the way Griffith initiates numerous parallels and image patterns in the early sections that then resonate throughout the rest of the film. Structured in three parts, the narrative moves through a brief introduction that sketches in the relationship among its three principals before establishing the complicating actions that will drive the story toward the climax that I have already described. This narrative structure typifies the transitional era, with the overt compression of the opening section revealing the constraints of the single-reel format. And while we know that part of the reason Griffith soon left Biograph was his desire to enjoy the benefits of a more expansive narrative canvas, he demonstrates his mastery of this condensed form of storytelling in Death’s Marathon’s opening shots. The film begins with both of the male protagonists introduced at work, their respective personalities firmly established by the behaviors they exhibit: Miller, the responsible one, sits diligently working at his desk on the left, while Walthall stands aimlessly to the other side, nonchalantly striking a match to his hip to light a cigarette. After a pause, Walthall then moves into the adjoining office space (and separate shot), scrutinizing his friend, who has now given over to reverie, from a distance. This seemingly unnecessary movement of Walthall into a discrete space finds its motivation on a number of levels. First, it initiates a pattern in the film of doubled, typically contiguous, spaces, one of Griffith’s favored spatial strategies. Later, interior shots of the couple’s home will also be split across two adjoining rooms, and in the subsequent scene in the park, the two rivals’ courtship of the young woman that they both admire (Sweet) will involve two spaces that appear to be linked laterally as well. (A variation on this approach involves the club where Walthall will squander his earnings at gambling. Rather than splitting the space into two side-by-side rooms, Griffith presents it as an atypically deep space, with the background room occasionally closed off from the foreground space by a set of double doors.) Second, Griffith will play with a pattern of joining the two friends only to pull them apart again throughout the film until the final, irrevocable division, which sees them reunited physically only after one has died. When Miller does arrive at the office at the end, too late to save his friend, he finds Walthall’s dead body collapsed at the very same desk initially identified as Miller’s work space. Finally, placing the two friends in two separate rooms/shots allows the introduction of Sweet, in the film’s fourth shot, to function as a literal fulcrum point between the two men, a structural mimicry of her role as both men’s love interest. In another example of the film’s developed symmetry, the opening six shots distribute the main characters in the following way: #1: Miller and Walthall (AB) #2: Walthall (B) #3: Miller (A) #4: Sweet (C) #5: Miller (A) #6: Walthall (B) Much has been made of the indeterminate nature of the fourth shot: are we seeing Sweet as Miller imagines (or remembers) her at this moment or is this a shared vision of both men? But the bracketing of this central shot, as carefully prepared as the shot itself, promotes another reading as well: Walthall, aware of Miller’s reverie, is not merely thinking of Sweet at the same time as his friend, but imagining how his rival sees her, and is amused at the idealized portrait of the young woman he rightly assumes Miller is conjuring. Ironically, Walthall’s informed onlooking in this opening six-shot sequence finds its correlative in the depiction of actual courtship that follows. The action has moved to a park, 7

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reproducing enough of the iconography from the introductory shot of Sweet that the links between the first sequence and this one become more pronounced. Now positioned on the far left of the frame, Walthall seems ideally situated to witness his rival’s unsuccessful attempt to woo Sweet, biding his time until she rebuffs Miller. (If, indeed, shot #4 provides us with Miller’s idealization of Sweet, portrayed as pliant and passive, the irony only intensifies.) Griffith alternates shots of the characters in pairs with those of each man in isolation, creating a more complicated variation on the pattern established in the opening sequence. Like the first sequence, this one begins with Miller and Walthall, then pairs Sweet and Miller while Walthall waits by himself, and then, once Miller is displaced, puts Walthall together with Sweet, ending the sequence with Miller alone. This serves as a template for the way Griffith will distribute the characters throughout the rest of the film, until he keeps them separated one from the other throughout the sustained intercutting of the film’s final extended sequence. Describing the editing patterns in isolation can make these economical opening sequences seem as calculated as a well-played chess match. But Griffith’s deft direction of his actors, astute deployment of props, and inventive use of selected strands of imagery puts flesh on the symmetrical skeleton of the film’s structure. Walthall is particularly adept at suggesting a character with a few gestures, his insouciant lighting of the match in the first shot matched by his cocky tapping of the excess ashes accumulating on the end of his cigar as he waits for Miller’s earnest entreaties to Sweet to fall on deaf ears. In fact, Griffith gives each of his actors an expressive prop during Miller’s failed attempt at courtship. As Walthall enjoys his cigar, Sweet clutches flowers to her chest, while Miller self-consciously grabs onto a nearby willow bough. (Walthall will require no such crutch when he presses his case with Sweet: instead, having tossed away his cigar, he quickly takes her into his arms and envelopes her in his embrace. The casual comfort of the couple’s physicality stands in stark contrast to the awkwardness displayed by Miller and Sweet earlier.) The film’s fascination with floral imagery and smoking, initiated in these opening sequences, persists throughout. While Walthall’s penchant for smoking conveys his self-confidence, Miller appropriating the same habit only underscores his loneliness. (Griffith compounds this impression by placing this shot of Miller shown smoking alone at the gentlemen’s club directly after the sole sequence devoted to portraying Sweet and Walthall’s brief period of domestic bliss.) Later, when a delivery boy grabs a puff of a cigarette, exhaling emphatically before completing his errand in the adjoining office (and then picking up the temporarily abandoned butt before exiting the offices altogether), it seems little more than an incidental bit of business given to Bobby Harron to inject a walk-on role with some interest. But the message Harron delivers leads Miller to discover that Walthall has embezzled invested funds to support his gambling. And the blast of smoke emitted by his cigarette will later be reproduced by the gun that takes Walthall’s life, as the cockiness he displayed earlier proves his undoing. The meanings generated by such imagery twist and turn as the film’s tone darkens and the characters find that they can neither control nor predict what life has in store for them. Accordingly, flowers, so closely associated with Sweet as a natural outgrowth of love at the outset, come to signify a failed marriage, and the various bouquets appointing her home with Walthall eventually stand as a mockery of their past happiness. By the film’s final shot, the slate is wiped clean, with Sweet (in a composition reminiscent of the fourth shot that introduced her) clad in widow’s weeds, and all flowers in her home removed. The bittersweet tone of the film’s conclusion arises from Miller’s final gesture. He brings her a bouquet of roses, and then leaves. Though her half-smile suggests the possibility of a new life, it could equally imply a rueful recognition of her changed status. Death’s Marathon is a film all but bursting with directorial inventiveness. It becomes even more suggestive when viewed in combination with The Mothering Heart, the Biograph film 8

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likely made directly afterward, as the later film rings variations on the former. (Both feature wives neglected by husbands lured away from the home; both employ floral imagery to convey the failing fortunes of the marriage; both employ infants at critical junctures in attempts to strengthen the weakened bonds between husband and wife.) But it is also instructive because it shows us that by 1913 Griffith was not only toying with his own formulae but borrowing from trends developing around him. Experimenting with the depiction of subjective states, exploring the depth of sets with extensive background space, exploiting the emotional and visual potential of offscreen space, arranging characters around tables so that some have their backs to the camera, showing characters reflected in mirrors, using cut-ins to reveal narratively significant actions – one finds Griffith trying out all of these approaches, though none is strongly associated with his filmmaking style at this time. As the pressure increased to find ways to render narratives psychologically dense and emotionally compelling, visually resonant and narrationally inventive, Griffith employed an array of approaches to provide solutions to the problems posed by his chosen scenario. In this he differs little from other filmmakers of the period, though few would experiment so insistently in a single film. In my first published essay on Griffith (and on transitional cinema), I identified a productive tension between the demands of style and narrative as the salient trait of the late Griffith-era Biographs.16 I see little reason to amend that assessment now, some twenty years later, except to add that in Griffith the tension often seems even more palpable and the works emerging out of that tension the most satisfying the period has to offer. Griffith’s Biograph films do not offer us evidence that we should bracket him off from central tendencies of transitional era production so much as they force us to continue rethinking its conceptual boundaries. CHARLIE KEIL Thanks to Cindi Rowell for unsurpassing patience and editorial tact; special thanks to Paolo Cherchi Usai, whose persistent good humour and support has made this long ride with The Griffith Project nothing but a joy. NOTES

1. David Cook, A History of Narrative Film, 1st Edition (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., 1981), p. 59. 2. Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell, Film History: An Introduction, 1st Edition (New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1996), p. 51. 3. Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell, Film History: An Introduction, 2nd Edition (New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 2004), p. 54. 4. Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell, “Do Filmmakers Deserve the Last Word?”, in Observations on Film Art and Film Art, October 10, 2007, . 5. The New York Dramatic Mirror, 70, no. 1824, December 3, 1913, p. 36. 6. Scott Simmon, The Films of D.W. Griffith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 15. 7. Ibid. 8. Scott Simmon, “1910: Movies, Reform and New Women”, in Charlie Keil and Ben Singer (eds), American Cinema of the 1910s (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2009), pp. 44–45. 9. David Bordwell, On the History of Film Style (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), p. 132. 10. Tom Gunning, D.W. Griffith and the Origins of American Narrative Film (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991), p. 48. 11. Hanford C. Judson, “What Gets Over”, The Moving Picture World, 8, no. 15, April 15, 1911. 12. Charlie Keil, Early American Cinema in Transition: Story, Style, and Filmmaking, 1907–1913 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2001), p. 44.

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13. Tom Gunning, “Death’s Marathon”, DWG Project #477, in Paolo Cherchi Usai (ed.), The Griffith Project: Volume 7, Films Produced in 1913 (London: BFI Publishing, 2003), p. 63. 14. Ibid., pp. 64–65. 15. Roberta Pearson, Eloquent Gestures: The Transformation of Performance Style in the Griffith Biograph Films (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), pp. 110–111. 16. Charlie Keil, “Transition Through Tension: Stylistic Diversity in the Late Griffith Biographs”, Cinema Journal, vol. 28, no. 3 (1989), pp. 22–40.

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2. GRIFFITH’S VAUDEVILLE YEARS (1900–1903), THE DRAMATIC SKETCH, AND THE BIOGRAPH ONE- AND TWO-REELER There are notable elisions in Griffith’s autobiography, if this rudimentary and incomplete memoir1 can be described by anyone but its publisher as an autobiography. Some of its elisions are accidental or the result of an inaccurate memory, but there are omissions which are intentional. Griffith took care to conceal embarrassing truths. One of these occluded periods, 1900–1903, involved his financially necessary employment as a vaudeville actor. References to vaudeville are wholly elided from Griffith’s autobiography and similarly omitted from various reminiscing interviews given from 1916 onward. Griffith, in one of his few references to his short-lived career as an actor, in an interview with Henry Stephen Gordon for Photoplay, admitted to appearing in J.E. Dodson’s Richelieu’s Stratagem company. He boasted to Gordon of his role and the critical response it generated – speaking, Griffith implied, as if the production had toured “legitimate” circuits (i.e., playhouses, as opposed to variety theatres). Significantly, neither vaudeville houses nor the name of the sketch in which he toured was mentioned: It isn’t all so long ago, yet I played one season with Helen Ware before she was discovered, and then with J.E. Dodson as de Maupret to his Richelieu, and was given a good notice by Alan Dale, which confirmed my suspicion that I was quite a good actor. It secured me as well an increase in salary.2

Indeed, were it not for Russell Merritt and George Pratt’s meticulous account and chronology of Griffith’s stage career, 1895–1906, we would not even possess an outline of this critical decade in the development of a scenarist and director whose theatrical skills, such as they were, transferred directly into film. Despite Griffith’s determined reticence, both Merritt and Griffith’s biographer, Richard Schickel (relying wholly on Merritt), have managed to describe Griffith’s activities throughout this period. Merritt, while grasping the relationship and significance of the vaudeville sketch to early narrative film, concentrates on other aspects of these prophetically productive years. In his invaluable essay “Rescued From a Perilous Nest: D.W. Griffith’s Escape from Theatre to Film”, Merritt acknowledges that: The vaudeville stage gave Griffith important training as an actor and future screen writer … There was a considerable vogue for one-act versions of famous plays and literary works … Later, such sketches became Griffith’s principal source for his Biograph literary adaptations, the vital crib sheets that enabled him to film all those Great Works – the leviathan novels, Victorian poems, and short stories – without actually having to read them.3

Merritt and Schickel alike, aware of Griffith’s obvious deficiencies as a performer, agree that acting was not for Griffith. He was never destined to attain the sort of recognition he desired nor to acquire the aplomb, relaxed concentration, poise, and freedom from self-consciousness that would liberate his imagination and enable him to respond to other actors. Griffith, they acknowledge, was in a dead-end career from which he required “rescue” and “escape”. Briefly summarised, this three-year span of variety-house touring between 1900 and 1903 11

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began when Griffith joined J.E. Dodson’s company to play the juvenile lead role of Talleyrand in Richelieu’s Stratagem, Dodson’s abridged adaptation of Under the Red Robe. This engagement was followed by a year of touring and appearing in his own – praised – vaudeville sketch, In Washington’s Time. Finally, Griffith joined the actress Kathryn Osterman’s company to take the villain’s role in George Tilton Richardson’s dramatisation of Dwight Tilton’s (a nom de plume for Richardson and Wilder Dwight Quint) novel Miss Petticoats.4 The intended East Coast and Midwest tour ended prematurely when Osterman was injured and the company consequently obliged to disband. Griffith thereafter returned to the legitimate stage for a further three futile years, on one single occasion reviving his vaudeville sketch, but then, in 1905–1906, switched to playwriting and, finally, in desperation and acute financial need, turned to Edison and Biograph to work in motion pictures. My intent is not to contradict these earlier accounts but to suggest a reason for Griffith’s silence and to explore the import of the vaudeville sketch: what it was, the conditions in which it was performed, and its immediate and discernable link to early narrative cinema. I contend that Griffith was so quickly successful as a film scenarist because his vaudeville experience had shown him how narrative film, positioned on the vaudeville bill to meet some of the requirements of the sketch, made similar demands on storytelling and performance. It is improbable that Griffith was embarrassed to acknowledge his time in vaudeville because he believed that variety work carried less cachet than the legitimate theatre. To appear in vaudeville was not a descent from the lofty heights of the legitimate stage to the degradation of the itinerant variety artiste that some film and theatre historians might imagine. Rather, stepping into vaudeville was, in the closing years of the nineteenth century and the early decades of the twentieth, a conventional tactic for prolonging the life of a stage play whose popularity was marginal or visibly waning. It was a favoured way of earning a theatrical livelihood when the national economy, and with it, the legitimate stage, experienced fallow periods. Actors of far greater stature than Griffith – the entire Drew and Barrymore clan, Gertrude Lamson (“Nance O’Neil”) in whose company Griffith worked in 1904, and Griffith’s mentor, friend, and employer McKee Rankin – moved their dramas onto variety circuits when business slackened, then returned to the theatre when conditions improved or new roles beckoned. As Griffith was familiar with, or knew of, these and similar actors, there was no disgrace in confessing to vaudeville experience. With Griffith, however, there was a difference, and this difference sharply conflicts with his reiterated posture as a man sympathetic to the concerns of the working man. It simply does not square with the constructed image of the creator of A Corner in Wheat or The Mother and the Law or earlier Biograph one- and two-reelers in which working people resist a tyrannical management. Griffith, in contrast to these characters who demonstrate their bravery and defiant independence, entered vaudeville as a strike-breaker. To have acknowledged vaudeville experiences between 1900 and 1903 would have been to admit to “scabbing”. The circumstances that placed Griffith in the position of an opportunist who used the situation of a prolonged labor dispute to obtain an acting role in a vaudeville sketch parallel those defining the Theatrical Syndicate and the Motion Pictures Patents Company. Beginning in 1896, B.F. Keith and Edward Albee, owners of the Keith-Albee Circuit, and the Orpheum Circuit’s Morris Meyerfeld and Martin Beck contrived a means to control two major chains of vaudeville theatres – to which further circuits were subsequently annexed. These entertainment entrepreneurs imposed uniform labor practices, determining who might work on the circuits serving these theatres while blacklisting those who refused to comply with managerial fiats. Never warmly paternal, the new unified circuits imposed ruthless conditions. The owners viciously suppressed rival theatre and, extending control over performers, ended many long-standing rights. In their place were humiliating auditions (at the performers’ 12

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expense), rehearsals without pay, companies deprived of subsistence in transit or stranded on the road, extortionate agents’ fees, and abrupt and unexplained cancellations of contracts. There were complaints of abuse by local managers and of unclean backstage conditions. At the time of Griffith’s joining Dodson’s company, legitimate and variety actors, although represented by the Actors’ National Protective Union, lacked bargaining leverage, since the ANPU substantially failed to address the concerns of variety performers. In 1900, vaudeville actors organised their own union, the “White Rats”, to oppose Albee and Beck. The name “White Rats” was taken from the British variety artists’ union, the Water Rats; that name, in turn, was taken from the name of a racehorse owned by union members, its winnings donated to charity. Members of both unions pointed to the fact that rats spelled backwards became “star”. It was the White Rats’ determined strike action and a consequent shortage of dramatic sketch acts available to the Albee Circuit that created the vacuum into which Dodson – and Griffith – stepped. Beginning in 1896 J.E. Dodson had appeared in Manhattan in Edward Rose’s Under the Red Robe, a romantic melodrama newly imported from England by the impresario Charles Frohman. The immediate success of this drama of conspiracies, duels, and political intrigue led to a national tour, which lasted until 1900. By this date, rights to the play had been sold to various theatrical entrepreneurs, and Dodson’s unique hold on the role of Richelieu had ended. Dodson’s solution to his failing popularity was to enlist the sketch-writer, John Stapleton, to condense Rose’s four-act play – with an approximate running time of three hours – to a brief twenty-five-minute performance, retitle it Richelieu’s Stratagem, reduce the cast size from thirteen actors, plus supernumeraries, to a mere six, and book his diminished drama as a Keith-Albee circuit sketch. Dodson’s appeal, especially to audiences who had not seen his full-size production, thus lasted a further four months before he was again cast in another successful drama and could willingly end his vaudeville tour. His sketch, favorably reviewed in The New York Dramatic Mirror on 10 November 1900, under the headline “J.E. DODSON’S DEBUT IN VAUDEVILLE”, offered drama, which although compressed and abridged, still seemed ample. The New York Dramatic Mirror’s unnamed reviewer commented that Dodson, a noted actor, was appearing in “continuous” (i.e., non-stop) vaudeville without condescension and that his performance had ended with the phenomenon, almost unknown in variety houses, of multiple curtain calls. Dodson’s sketch was then described: The scene is laid in a chateau near Rochelle during the siege of that town. To Henri de Talleyrand, a Huguenot spy, has been allocated the task of securing an audience with the Cardinal for the purpose of securing his signature to a decree granting the Huguenots perfect freedom to practice their religion without interference. If he fails in his mission, he is to slay Richelieu. Blanche Michelle, who is in love with Henri, and who is living at the chateau, has unwittingly betrayed her lover’s secret to the Cardinal, so that the crafty old man is prepared for any emergency. Henri gains access to the chateau and meets Blanche. They are surprised by the Cardinal, who recognizes Henri at once. The girl pretends he is her cousin, and Richelieu allows him to depart, knowing he will return to carry out his plan. Richelieu sends Blanche into another room and summons his faithful attendant, Joseph. He instructs him regarding his stratagem, and Joseph retires to stand watch over the young woman, ready to murder her at the sound of a gong which is to be struck by his master in case of an emergency. Henri returns by a secret passage and confronts Richelieu. He lays the decree before him and threatens him with death if he refuses to sign it. The Cardinal warns him that if he attacks him, the stroke on the gong will seal his sweetheart’s fate. As he is in Richelieu’s power and sees only the guillotine [sic] before him, he determines that 13

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Blanche and he shall die together, so he taps the gong with his own sword and makes a furious rush at the Cardinal, who is saved by the timely arrival of the captain of the guard. A moment later the booming of cannon announces the surrender of Rochelle by the Huguenots, who are under the impression that Henri’s mission had been successful. When the Cardinal learns this, he pardons Henri, who, however, prefers to die, as he believes that Blanche has been murdered. She is brought from the other room by Joseph, alive and well; the lovers are reunited and the curtain falls on a pretty tableau.

The reviewer (Alan Dale?), after commending Dodson’s performance, added a further paragraph – which probably provided Griffith with his best notice: Mr. Dodson has chosen his supporting company with great care. Lawrence Griffith was dignified and effective as Henri, the Huguenot spy, and Gertrude Perry was thoroughly charming as Blanche. W.T. Clark as Joseph, and Mr. Neville as the captain played small parts capitally.5

That difference between a play running for approximately three hours and an abbreviated version lasting between twenty minutes and a half-hour partly explains the nature of the dramatic sketch. Griffith was to participate in and to have a hand in creating three versions of this form of compacted drama: Dodson’s cut-down melodrama, his own twenty-five-minute Revolutionary War drama, and a comedy-melodrama starring Kathryn Osterman. This latter piece, depending on the type of theatre, legitimate or vaudeville house, in which it was to play, could be performed either as a full-length drama or shrunk to a twenty-five-minute précis. Skill in sketch-writing entailed dramatising a complete narrative, devising characters who were recognisable and individually distinct while assuring that plot situations and subtle hints to characters’ intellectual and emotional states were made unambiguously evident through visible physical action. Dialogue might be employed, but its virtue lay in sparseness. The sketch actor was obliged to show rather than explain, to do rather than speak. A sketch might be marginally longer than a two-reel narrative, but the requirements for each métier, sketch and one- and two-reel film, remained similar. Although Griffith was unaware of it at the time, it was his brief period of apprenticeship as a screenwriter. As a theatrical form, the dramatic sketch entered American vaudeville as a foreign import, initially characterised as a complete drama, its playing time rarely exceeding eighteen minutes’ duration. The sketch was performed by no more than six actors, with its dialogue restricted to short lines and the explanatory narrative needed to clarify the action either printed in the program or, more often, sung by an actor at the side of the stage. Dance, usually in the form of a narrative ballet, might be a further feature, but such additions did not enable the sketch to exceed the agreed playing time. This compact and terse form of drama was the invention of the English music hall and arose, and rapidly took hold, in the early 1890s. Performers in sketches and the sketches themselves became a part of the transatlantic traffic between Britain and America. Sketches appeared in American vaudeville as early as 1895, a year before the first motion pictures were exhibited in American vaudeville theatres. Initially, the constraints of British regulations and practice together served to keep dialogue sparse. In American vaudeville, however, there were fewer constraints. As the popularity of the vaudeville sketch expanded and as more American authors and performers developed their own sketches, the quantity of dialogue increased, and the sketch’s duration lengthened above twenty minutes. By 1900 it was not uncommon to find full-length stage-plays, both comedies and melodramas, severely abridged for vaudeville. By that same date, major stars performed cut-down versions of their vehicles to vaudeville audiences. Sarah Bernhardt, for 14

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example, contrived to make a vaudeville sketch from a medley of roles in which she had formerly toured American legitimate houses. Griffith, on tour and ever observant, would have quickly grasped the typical structure of the vaudeville bill. He would have noticed that performers were engaged and their acts spaced through the program in accordance with the effect each “turn” was expected to create. He would have noted that there were two slots on the bill for sketch material and that drama was increasingly encroaching on territory formerly filled by singers, dancers, jugglers, and comics. In 1915 – in Brett Page’s How to Write for Vaudeville – the rationale for the bill’s structure was published to guide aspirant sketch writers. Page explained: There is no keener psychologist than a vaudeville manager. Not only does he present the best of everything that can be shown upon a stage, but he so arranges the heterogeneous elements that they combine to form a unified whole … We usually select a “dumb act” for the first act on the bill. It may be a dancing act, some good animal act, or any act that makes a good impression and will not be spoiled by the late arrivals seeking their seats … For number two position we select an interesting act of the sort recognized as a typical “vaudeville act.” It may be almost anything at all, though it should be more entertaining than the first act. For this reason it often happens that a good man-and-woman singing act is placed here. This position on the bill is to “settle” the audience and to prepare it for the show … With number three position we count on waking up the audience. The show has been properly started and from now on it must build right up to the finish. So we offer a comedy dramatic sketch – a playlet that wakens the interest and holds the audience every minute with a cumulative effect that comes to its laughter-climax at the “curtain,” or any other kind of act that is not of the same order as the preceding turn, so that, having laid the foundations, we may have the audience wondering what is to come next … For number four position we must have a “corker” of an act – and a “name.” It must be the sort of act that will rouse the audience to expect still better things, based on the fine performance of the past numbers. Maybe this act is the first big punch of the show; anyway, it must strike home and build up the interest for the act that follows … And here for number five position, a big act, and at the same time another big name, must be presented. Or it might be a big dancing act – one of those delightful novelties vaudeville likes so well … It is next to intermission and the audience must have something really worth while to talk over. And so we select one of the best acts on the bill to crown the first half of the show … The first act after intermission, number six on the bill… must not be stronger than the acts that are to follow … a strong vaudeville specialty, with comedy well to the fore … Perhaps a famous comedy dumb act is selected, with the intention of getting the audience back in its seats without too many conspicuous interruptions of what is going on on the stage … The second act after intermission – number seven – must be stronger than the first. It is usually a full-stage act … very likely it is a big playlet, if another sketch has not been presented earlier on the bill. It may be a comedy playlet or even a serious dramatic playlet, if the star is a fine actor or actress and the name is well known … For here in number eight position – next to closing, on a nine-act bill – the comedy hit of the show is usually placed. It is one of the acts for which the audience has been waiting. Usually it is one of the famous “single” man or “single” women acts that vaudeville has made such favourites … And now we have come to the act that closes the show. We count on the fact that some of the audience will be going out…6

The “act which closes the show” was increasingly, from 1900, the Bioscope or Vitascope: a program of mixed films, some narrative, some actuality footage. The dramatic sketch thus became an accidental model for one- and two-reel narrative films, partly through its close 15

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proximity on the variety bill to the Bioscope portion of the vaudeville or music hall program and partly because of the conditions that accompanied performance and film projection. From 1879, theatres and variety houses began turning down, or altogether off, the gas lighting in their auditoria to better accommodate the new electric stage lighting which could be focused and add color to costumes and settings. When, some fifteen years later, vaudeville theatres began to exhibit films, low levels of auditorium lighting became essential. Audiences, seated in the dark, viewed a film program of some twenty-five minutes’ duration in which approximately ten films were projected. Both sketch and Bioscope were accompanied by incidental music that interpreted situations, actions, and characters. Vaudeville audiences, thus confronted with these entertainments, were conditioned by the condensed narratives of the dramatic sketch to expect – and to understand – film narratives of comparable duration. Only three weeks passed between the end of Dodson’s tour of Richelieu’s Stratagem and Griffith’s reappearance in a new sketch – his own – so it is likely that he was writing it and seeking means to mount it even as the Dodson tour was running out of steam. Without the financial resources to mount his sketch, In Washington’s Time, Griffith leased the rights to Mary Scott’s company, newcomers to vaudeville, for a tour playing East Coast vaudeville houses from February to July 1901. No script for this sketch is known to exist. Reviewed in The New York Dramatic Mirror (August 10, 1901), it is apparent that Griffith managed to persuade Mary Scott to assign him the lead role of Paul Lawrence and that the sketch was the opening number on the bill, to be followed by fourteen additional turns. Griffith’s acting came in for unfavorable comment: KEITH’S UNION SQUARE – First place was filled by Mary Scott, a recent vaudeville debutante, and her company in Lawrence Griffith’s Revolutionary playlet, In Washington’s Time, its initial regular local production. The plot is melodramatic and full of action. Paul Lawrence, a soldier in the American army, bearing important dispatches to General Washington, stops on the way at the house of his sweetheart, Molly Seawell, and is there overtaken by Corporal Blake of the English Army, and a guard. Hearing them, Lawrence conceals himself in a tall clock, while Molly conceals the dispatches in her luxuriant black hair. The British search the house without finding their man, but the Corporal, not convinced, pretends to leave, but hides in an adjoining room, and shortly after surprises Paul and Molly together and learns the whereabouts of the dispatches. At the point of a musket he is compelling the delivery of the dispatches, when Lawrence discovers that the musket is his own, which is broken and useless. Seizing a revolver [sic] he turns the tables on their captor and makes him a prisoner. The guard returns, according to instructions, and is heard without. Covered by a revolver, the Corporal is forced, at Molly’s dictation, to tell them that Lawrence is not there and that he will rest at the house overnight, while they shall return to camp. The climax is an effective one, and the dialogue throughout is spirited, though sometimes conventional. Miss Scott showed ability in her portrayal of Molly, being forceful, earnest, and well in character. Mr. Griffith, the author, was a fervid and somewhat stagey hero. George Gaston was excellent as a comedy Tory soldier, and Jeffries Williams was satisfactory as the British Corporal. The play held the interest of the audience and was well received.

The theatrical climate in which this sketch appeared is best indicated by the other turns on Keith’s bill: Bert Howard and Leona Bland were liked in A Strange Boy, Mr. Howard’s tricks on the piano being the best feature. Condit and Morey again presented The Ties That Bind, instead of their new act that was programmed. They met with their usual success. Smith and Cook 16

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were as funny as ever in their familiar act. Expert trick cycling was offered by the Farrell Brothers, and fine acrobatic work by the Couture Brothers. A.L. Guille, the tenor, rendered three selections in a finished manner. Jordan and Welch were good Yiddish comedians, and Ed Gray delivered a monologue effectively. The programme also listed the Three Nevarros, the Casino Comedy Four, the Hoopers, Claude Thardo, and O’Rourke and Burnett. There was a change of views on the Biograph.7

When Griffith’s engagement with Mary Scott’s company ended, he experienced a full six months without an acting role, then found three months’ work in a touring melodrama company. When that stint ended, Griffith was obliged to endure almost twelve months – from April 1902 until April 1903 – of unemployment, but then was engaged by another melodrama company. This engagement lasted approximately three weeks. He again found temporary employment in a road company, but was then idle from July into September. It was in that month, toward the end of 1903, that Griffith was engaged for the society villain’s role to Kathryn Osterman’s heroine in Richardson’s Miss Petticoats, the third sketch company he was to know. Osterman is an interesting but shadowy figure in terms of the links between the legitimate theatre, vaudeville stage, and early film. Little is known of her career before 1902, apart from the fact that she toured in vaudeville with a one-woman sketch. This sketch she performed at a dressing table as she transformed her appearance from dowdy to glamorous. In 1900 this act was filmed by Biograph as The Art of Making Up, but not released until 1902. Between 1901 and 1904, Osterman made an additional thirteen Biograph films, all of which survive as paper prints. Most of these films are brief, more one set-up shots than narrative, but she appears in the title role in a three-part narrative, possibly an adapted vaudeville dramatic sketch, The Unfaithful Wife, shot at Biograph in July 1903, only weeks before she formed her Miss Petticoats company. What is remarkable about Kathryn Osterman’s appearances in film is that she was exempt from the stigma which generally attached to legitimate and variety performers who – even briefly – left the live stage for film work. From 1904, Osterman returned to the legitimate stage, appearing in Broadway comedies and musicals. Still later, she appeared in films. The only known onstage photograph of Griffith, a publicity photograph taken at the start of the 1903 tour of Miss Petticoats (the title a New England sea captain’s mistranslation of the endearment mon petit coeur), shows him in a scene with Osterman and the actress Agnes Worden, the latter in the role of Agatha’s patroness, “Aunt Sarah” Copeland. Worden is sheltering Osterman in one arm and with the other making a sweeping gesture of banishment toward Griffith. The line under this telling action is, “I tell you, Guy, nephew of mine though you are, that I would rather see Agatha dead at my feet than your wife. Now go; my house can be your house no longer.” Griffith – Guy Hamilton, the practiced serial philanderer, financial embezzler, and swindler – appears heavy on his feet and emotionless. There is no expression of guilt, shame, feigned outraged innocence, or defiance, each and all expressions appropriate to this moment. This photograph underscores the point that acting was not the career for him. A mawkish, but famously popular, novel of an orphaned young woman coming into her just inheritance and threatening to avenge herself against those who besmirched her reputation, Miss Petticoats’ plot covers a span of five years and moves rapidly from incident to incident. It easily furnished material for a five-act play. It can, however, be compressed into a few scenes, notably Agatha’s adolescence (which featured a scene of a New England clambake), the circumstances in which Agatha is compromised by Guy and Guy exposed as a predatory villain, and the episode in which she begins to exact revenge but is brought under the influence of a clergyman who loves and guides her. Regrettably, no script is known to 17

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survive. Richardson adapted his novel for a cast of twenty actors, but some of the roles may have been excised for vaudeville performances. The sketch opened at the Hyperion Theater in New Haven, Connecticut, on 11 September to an audience estimated at 2000, but the Hyperion, once a legitimate playhouse, had deteriorated and was by that date a venue for burlesque and vaudeville. From New Haven, the company moved northward to Boston, then to lesser Massachusetts cities, thence to Providence and Hartford, Connecticut, where Osterman was injured. Again unemployed, Griffith had a three-month gap, which he filled in with manual labour jobs before landing a stage role in January 1904. Apart from a fourday revival of In Washington’s Time in San Francisco in November 1904, performances in which Linda Arvidson and Griffith played opposite each other, Griffith’s vaudeville years had ended. The conclusion is inescapable. Griffith – although thereafter reluctant to admit to crossing picket lines, a reason too controversial for a now-respected film director to mention his vaudeville career – learned, from observing and performing in the sketch, how to condense a narrative into a brief span and how to make it intelligible through the agency of mimed actions and without recourse to more than the occasional word or sentence. Merritt speculates that it was from Griffith’s legitimate and vaudeville stage work that he learned the value of significant stage properties and how to invest such properties with emotional and narrative content.8 Acting in and writing vaudeville sketches served as an unintended training ground and apprenticeship for Griffith’s Biograph years. There, obliged by the constraints of the oneand two-reel film, he became a master of compressed storytelling. Some of his early Biograph films such as The Slave, A Drunkard’s Reformation (both 1909), That Chink at Golden Gulch (1910), and The Barbarian, Ingomar (1908) are instances of full-length stage dramas that Griffith has abridged. And, of course, Griffith was not unique in learning and mastering compression: H. Oceano Martinek, for British and Colonial Kinematograph, had, in 1909, directed Her Lover’s Honour, a film drama strikingly similar to Richelieu’s Stratagem, which enacted the entire drama in a ten-minute reel; Giovanni Pastrone had managed by 1911 to unite and condense Homer’s entire Iliad and episodes from The Odyssey into a thirty-threeminute The Fall of Troy. Abridging – selecting key and telling incidents and cutting out apparent narrative deadwood, learned from vaudeville or other theatrical means – was to be the name of the game in film studios for some years to follow. Other dramas, original and adapted from novels and short stories, further demonstrate Griffith’s flair for turning narrative into enactment, for finding the kernel of action and expressing it faithfully, tellingly, and – crucially for the one- and two-reel films of the early Biograph years – succinctly. DAVID MAYER NOTES

1. D.W. Griffith, with James Hart (ed.), The Man Who Invented Hollywood: The Autobiography of D.W. Griffith (Louisville, KY: Touchstone Press, 1972). 2. Henry Stephen Gordon, “The Story of David Wark Griffith”, Photoplay, vol. X, no. 1, June 1916, p. 162. 3. Russell Merritt, “Rescued From a Perilous Nest: D.W. Griffith’s Escape from Theatre into Film”, Cinema Journal, vol. 21, no. 1 (1981), pp. 2–30. 4. Dwight Tilton (pseudonym for George Tilton Richardson and Wilder Dwight Quint), Miss Petticoats (Boston: C.M. Clark Publishing Company, 1902). 5. The New York Dramatic Mirror, November 10, 1900, p. 18. 6. Brett Page, Writing for Vaudeville (Boston: Home Correspondence School, 1915), pp. 4–6. 7. The New York Dramatic Mirror, August 10, 1901, p. 16. 8. Merritt, op. cit., p. 10.

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3. D.W. GRIFFITH: A CLOSE EXAMINATION OF THE EVIDENCE IN THE BIOGRAPH COPYRIGHT RECORDS AT THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS One of the major achievements of The Griffith Project is the careful examination of the physical evidence of Griffith’s films, surviving in scattered archives, that is apparent in the essays of critical and historical analysis contributed by the many authors. The consistent application of this methodology over the course of such a long-term project demonstrates the importance of the relationship that has developed between the film archive and scholarly communities during their annual gatherings at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto since 1982. The purpose of this essay is to provide a closer look at some of the more unusual types of historical records in the Library of Congress that have been referenced in the filmographic information provided in The Griffith Project, primarily in the volumes for 1912 through 1915. In a number of essays those materials have been cited as the basis for key points of interpretation or analysis, but their wider use has been limited by a lack of understanding of what they are, where they are located, and the important details of information they contain. The evidence to which I refer is collateral to the Library’s famed Paper Print Collection and consists of a diverse body of documentation that originally accumulated in the U.S. Copyright Office, beginning with the implementation of the important procedural changes to the Copyright Law that took effect on 24 August 1912. I will argue that these materials generally contain important information about Griffith’s Biograph films, especially during the years 1912–1913, that has yet to be fully investigated and understood. The main reason why they have not yet revealed their secrets, even to the Griffith Project investigators, is because they are obscure and no widely available index yet exists to more fully describe them.1 Many pieces of that evidence also require conservation before they can be served safely to the research community. Nevertheless, as the main publication effort of The Griffith Project draws to a close, I think it important to draw the attention of more scholars to these materials so they will be added to the critical list of Griffith resources to be investigated in the future. Virtually everyone knows about the Paper Print Collection and that it consists of positive image paper strips contact-printed from the full-length original 35mm camera negatives of thousands of films, produced generally between 1894 and 1912. Originating with the production companies, the paper prints were made for the sole purpose of providing the necessary verifiable proof of existence required by law to establish a copyright registration.2 They are important to The Griffith Project primarily because the majority of Griffith’s Biograph films from the period 1908–1909 survive in the form of full-length paper print copies. Less well known and understood are the various types of collateral documentation that were also collected by the U.S. Copyright Office as part of the copyright registration process. It is these materials I will focus on in this article, because I believe they must be investigated further by those interested in pursuing more in-depth analyses of particular Griffith films beyond those produced for the Griffith Project publications. I will suggest new ways to understand and interpret these historical records because I believe they confirm information in such areas as Griffith’s role as a scenario author, the use of tinted sequences in the release prints of Griffith’s films, some specifics on the actual production techniques of Griffith and Billy Bitzer, and, perhaps most esoteric of all, the intriguing possibility that the descriptive prose of the Biograph Bulletins dating back to 1904 actually documents the routine Biograph 19

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front-office practice of repurposing the texts of scenarios written prior to the routine production of Biograph films. If this last interpretation of the documentary evidence is correct, then it means that the original scenario texts for virtually all the Biograph films from the period 1904 to 1913, including those authored and directed by Griffith, have been hiding in plain sight waiting to be discovered. THE PAPER PRINT FRAGMENTS

The Biograph Company’s generally routine practice of sending to the Copyright Office fulllength paper print copies of its films for registration ended when the U.S. Copyright Law was revised to recognize two new categories for registering motion pictures, beginning on 24 August 1912.3 Thereafter, conforming with those new procedures, Biograph and other producing companies began depositing two different formats of documentation: 1) textual documentation of the photoplay upon which the film was based, including the identity of the author, and 2) one or more images copied from the film or each scene of the film.4 From the start there was confusion among the majority of film producers about the types of materials to incorporate with their copyright applications, and a wide variety of image and text documentation were received in the Copyright Office in the ensuing years. Some companies, such as Edison, merely began sending in copies of its weekly advertising bulletins, which usually incorporated one “still” image from the film and an accompanying plot description/advertising blurb. Others sent in the required scenario or description of the photoplay with selected clips taken from a 35mm nitrate print. However, the majority – including Biograph – began sending in scenario information accompanied by “paper print fragments” consisting, like the full-length paper prints of previous practice, of selected positive images printed from each scene of the original camera negative on short 35mm photographic paper strips. In reality the paper print fragments are part of the more formally recognized Paper Print Collection. Like the complete paper print rolls, they were created by film producers to provide visual evidentiary proof of the existence of the films they represented for the purpose of establishing copyright protection. However, because they were judged too incomplete to include in the original 16mm copying program developed between the Library of Congress and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1952 and carried out by Kemp Niver, they were excluded from Niver’s published guide and the subsequent revised edition by Paul Spehr. Because they were excluded from these well known publications, the fragments have languished in obscurity waiting for the day when they will be copied, indexed and made more widely available by the Library for research.5 The Biograph paper print fragments, though they are not complete enough to reanimate and restore the original films, are worth close examination. Most consist of only two to four 35mm frames copied by contact printing from each scene in the film, but they contain details of information about specific Griffith productions that are not available from any other source. For example, the first Griffith film copyrighted using the new registration procedures was A Change of Spirit, copyrighted on 11 October 1912 and assigned the registration number LU24, meaning it was the twenty-fourth film registered after the change in the Copyright Law. For A Change of Spirit 126 prints were deposited, consisting of two frame fragments per scene with no additional information (Illustration 1). Notice in the illustration that the image is masked or cropped at the inside of the sprocket holes printed through from the negative to the paper print. The same masking is noticeable (Illustration 5) on the fragmentary images deposited for Friends (October 21, 1912; LU 51 [sic], 105 prints). That printing format of the Biograph paper print fragments changed by the time the third Griffith film, A Feud in the Kentucky Hills (October 30, 1912; LU65, 172 prints), was registered nineteen days later. 20

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Notice that the images printed from the camera negative are not masked in the same way and are actually wider, including image information that extends to the outer edge of the sprocket holes rather than the inside (Illustration 2). This detail is important because the paper print fragments for the majority of Griffith films, when examined with a magnifying glass, reveal minute pieces of out-of-frame information on set construction details, directorial framing, and scene boundary markers presumably set out by Griffith and/or Bitzer to both direct camera setups and guide actors during filming. Many examples of this kind of detail can be found in the Biograph image fragments, not only for Griffith’s films but also those made by other Biograph directors. Examples are found in Near to Earth, The Primitive Man, and The Little Tease (Illustrations 3, 4, and 6). In Near to Earth (March 15, 1913; LU484, 99 prints) a boundary marker consisting of a board and an upright sign with the number 2 is visible to the right of the image in the area between the sprocket holes, which would not be visible in the 35mm projection prints made from the negative. Set construction details are also visible in The Primitive Man (November 24, 1913; LU1651, 235 prints) and The Little Tease (April 12, 1913; LU587, 197 prints). Another type of important information recorded on the paper print fragments for a number of Griffith’s films are the notations for the color tints that were applied to specific scenes in the projection prints prepared by Biograph laboratory personnel. In addition, every individual fragment for every film is marked with codes that were used by lab personnel to assemble the prints in proper scene order. The first Griffith-directed film to be represented by paper print fragments after 24 August 1912 is The Painted Lady (October 30, 1912; LU 72 [sic], 128 prints). The fragments for The Painted Lady show not only the scene codes but, in six instances, color markings for five blue-tinted scenes and one scene marked “print dark” for the night scene in which a burglar enters a room with a flashlight. Fragments deposited for The Battle at Elderbush Gulch, The Little Tease, Two Men of the Desert, The Lady and the Mouse, My Baby, The Burglar’s Dilemma, and Brutality all contain one or more images marked with color tint information. More examples can be found among the fragments deposited for other films directed by Griffith through the end of his tenure at Biograph.6 The information in these fragments is of great importance to the archivists who are engaged in the preservation of Griffith’s films from the 1912–1913 period, because it confirms not only the specific color tints that were used in the production of Biograph films but the exact scenes to which they were applied. COPYRIGHT CATALOG CARDS

The Copyright Office Card Catalog is a vast cumulative index of all copyright registrations dating back to the nineteenth century. It is housed in the James Madison Building of the Library of Congress, in the custody of the U.S. Copyright Office. It is a complex yet efficient cumulative system for indexing and cross-indexing the key information on all copyright registrations filed in the United States. And, it is a remarkable pre-computer-age resource on the intellectual and creative history of the world since at least the 1870s. Its interest to Griffith scholars lies in the collection of original application cards that were received from the Biograph Company and filed under that heading.7 The application cards were mailed to the Copyright Office, accompanied by the required paper print fragments, scenarios, and other descriptive information. The cards were then checked by copyright office clerks, verifying stamps and other information were added, and the cards were filed.8 Those cards exist today and are available for public research through the Information Office of the Copyright Office. The copyright cards relating to Griffith and the Biograph Company received after 24 August 1912 include confirming information on the authorship of all photoplays and, for 21

T H E G R I F F I T H P R O J E C T : V O L U M E 12 1: A Change of Spirit (October 11, 1912; LU24, 126 prints). Paper print fragment showing how unmasked image area copied from the Biograph camera negative goes beyond the boundary of the standard image printed through to the original 35mm release print

1 detail: A Change of Spirit (Oct 11, 1912; LU24, 126 prints) Close-up detail from Illustration 1 showing the right side perforation printed through from the “two perf” Biograph camera negative. Interesting details of set and production design can often be seen in these marginal areas of the paper print fragments

2: A Feud in the Kentucky Hills (October 30, 1912; LU65, 172 prints). Note wider image extending almost to the outside edge of the sprocket holes printed through from the camera negative. See also the Biograph internal production number (“4008”) at the top of the fragment with other markings identifying the scene (P-2”) and the individual number of the fragment (“2”). The majority of the fragments are marked with the Biograph production number and specific scene numbers to aid in assembling release prints in correct scene order. In instances where such production numbers are found, each fragment is also sequentially numbered

2 detail: A Feud in the Kntucky Hills (Oct 30, 1912; LU65, 172 prints). Close-up detail from Illustration 2 showing how width of printed image extends beyond inside edge of the sprocket holes and revealing additional image information not extant in the surviving 35mm release prints

22

T H E G R I F F I T H P R O J E C T : V O L U M E 12 3: Near to Earth (March 15, 1913; LU484, 99 prints). An example of the type of production related information visible in the margins of many paper print fragments. Note the vertical marker with the number 2 and the small board at the right side of the image, directly below the sprocket hole, placed to establish the frame boundary for the camera and to guide the actors during the just concluded fight scene in this film.

3 detail: Near to Earth (March 15, 1913; LU484, 99 prints). Close-up detail showing markers placed to guide the actors during filming

4: The Primitive Man (November 24, 1913; LU1651, 235 prints). Note edge of braced set wall to right of image appearing vertically and just outside the image area that would have been copied to the 35mm release print. The code at the top of the fragment includes the Biograph internal production number 4158, identification of the particular scene (“P-13”), the sequential fragment number (“81”) followed by the shorthand note “BEG-of-pt-2”, marking the beginning of the second reel

4 detail: The Primitive Man (November 24, 1913; LU1651, 235 prints). Close-up detail showing set construction details visible above and below the sprocket hole on the right side of fragment

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T H E G R I F F I T H P R O J E C T : V O L U M E 12 5: Friends (October 21, 1912; LU 51 [sic], 105 prints). A portion of the 105 paper print fragments for Friends, one of the Griffith titles copyrighted after August 1912. The Biograph fragments for this period generally include from two to four frames of image from each scene in the film, including all intertitles and opening and closing title frames. In this example the Biograph production numbers are not marked at the top of the fragments

6: The Little Tease (April 12, 1913; LU587, 197 prints). W. Christie Miller enters through doorway. Note the set construction detail of the wall visible to the extreme right. Biograph production number (“4089”), scene number (“P-22”) and fragment number (“144”) at top of frame

7, 8, and 9: The Battle at Elderbush Gulch (July 1, 1913; LU893, 241 prints). Four examples from the 241 image fragments registered for this title bearing lab instructions for producing three different red and blue tinted color scenes for the fully assembled 35mm release prints

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10: The Little Tease (April 12, 1913; LU587, 197 prints). Amber

11: Two Men of the Desert

and blue tinting instructions for two scenes of the eight tinted

(August 14, 1913; LU1106, 90

sequences indentified among the 197 paper print fragments for

prints). Lab instruction for a day-

this film

for-night scene with Henry Walthall

12: Front side of original application for The Wanderer filed in the U.S. Copyright Office Copyright Catalog, indicating D.W. Griffith as author of the photoplay on which the film was based

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13: Reverse side of Biograph application for The Wanderer filed in the U.S. Copyright Office Copyright Catalog, indicating a second time that D.W. Griffith was the author of the photoplay

14: The original applications in the Catalog Card file for Lena and the Geese (June 25, 1912; J170619, full paper print) and The Lesser Evil (April 27, 1912; J168783) indicating two forms of Billy Bitzer’s name in the line requiring information on the “Name and nationality of photographer”. These application cards are from the period when motion pictures were registered in the category of photographs, before motion pictures were given their own classifications

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15: Front and back sides of Catalog Card for Griffith’s In Prehistoric Days (November 20, 1913; LU1629, 169 prints) with proof of Griffith’s photoplay authorship

16: Reverse side of Biograph application card for The Lonedale Operator (March 25, 1911; J153512) bearing the stamp-applied information, “Copies Returned Apr 4 1911…” This information indicates that the deposited copy or copies of the film were returned to Biograph because they were nitrate prints that the Copyright Office and the Library of Congress would have recognized as a fire hazard and not safe to keep in the collections

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Griffith historians, can be considered reliable sources on the subject (Illustrations 12–13). Incidentally, it is also important to note that the application cards for films registered prior to 24 August contain information confirming the cinematography credits for Biograph films during the years when all motion pictures were registered as photographs. Those cards do not contain author information, but they provide a virtually complete listing of camera operator credits for Billy Bitzer and the other Biograph cameramen (Illustration 14). Therefore, the Catalog Card file contains significant authoritative information for those who wish to verify cinematography and authorship credits for significant periods of Biograph Company history, beyond those relating to Griffith. The Catalog Cards may also shed light on why no complete paper print copies were deposited by Biograph during the period ending with the registration of Fate’s Turning on 11 January 1911 and the time they resumed with Iola’s Promise on 11 March 1912. This is one of the mysteries of the Paper Print Collection and various theories have been advanced, including that they were either lost or inadvertently destroyed prior to the establishment of the Library’s Motion Picture Section in 1942. The evidence suggested by the Biograph applications cards for this period is that, for some unknown reason, Biograph sent 35mm nitrate prints to the Copyright Office in fulfillment of the requirement to submit proof of existence of the films, and that they were returned once that proof had been verified by the Copyright Office staff. Illustration 16 shows the reverse side of the Biograph application card for The Lonedale Operator (March 25, 1911; J153512), which bears stamped information stating the deposit copies were returned on 4 April 1911. 1909 to 1912 was a period of turmoil for the Copyright Office, due to not only the rapid increase of motion picture registrations but increases in all other copyright classifications, such as books, magazines, dramas, sheet music, novels, and so forth. One of the major problems for the Copyright Office and the Library of the Congress at that time was lack of storage space, especially for nitrate film. The hazardous properties of nitrate film were well known and in 1912, when the Copyright Office had the option of accepting 35mm nitrate prints for registration, it chose not to collect them. My assumption based on the information on The Lonedale Operator application card and other titles, is that Biograph pursued the option of delivering 35mm prints to the Copyright Office, where they were duly noted and verified and then the prints were returned to sender. Why this procedure was followed for over a year and then the practice of submitting paper print rolls was resumed by Biograph, the copyright records provide no answer. This brief survey of the copyright deposit materials in the Library of Congress, relating to D.W. Griffith’s tenure with the Biograph Company, is intended to encourage a deeper focus on these materials. They may not reveal important information in every instance but, in general, they contain many details that, in the aggregate, will greatly increase the amount of detailed knowledge currently available on many Griffith films. PATRICK LOUGHNEY NOTES

1. An inventory database for the Paper Print Fragments is available through the Motion Picture and Television Reading Room of the Library of Congress. 2. The Paper Print Collection is more fully described in Kemp Niver’s Motion Pictures from the Library of Congress Paper Print Collection 1894–1912 (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1967) and Paul Spehr’s revised version Early Motion Pictures: The Paper Print Collection in the Library of Congress (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1985). 3. The Copyright Law after 1900 recognized specific classifications for all copyrightable materials, e.g., books, dramatic compositions, newspapers, photographs, etc. Motion pictures were classified

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4.

5.

6.

7. 8.

as photographs since there was no official category or classification specified for them in the law. The changes in the law introduced on 24 August 1912 officially added two classifications for motion pictures: Class L was designated for the registration of “Motion Picture Photoplays” and Class M for “Motion pictures other than photoplays, including newsreels, actualities and animation”. There is an unexplained gap of more than one year after Fate’s Turning, deposited on 11 January 1911, when Biograph stopped sending paper prints to the Copyright Office. They resumed with the registration of Iola’s Promise on 11 March 1912. The Inner Circle, copyrighted on 17 August 1912, is the last Griffith film prior to 24 August to be registered with a complete paper print. Paper print fragments exist for approximately 3,000 films from the period 1894 through 1915, representing many American and European productions, which are virtually unknown to the silent film research community. Note that many of the fragments are in poor condition and will require conservation treatment before they can be made publicly available. A Disappointed Mama (October 23, 1912; LU 53, 46 prints), written by Dell Henderson, is the first set of paper print fragments to record in handwritten notation the Biograph production number “4006” in a black area above the top frame. Thereafter the numbers appear consistently through 1913. Also see the various incarnations of the company name since it began as the American Mutoscope Company. In 1912–1913 the paper print fragments and the descriptive materials were stored separately in the Copyright Office archives. The majority of those records were transferred to the custody of the Library of Congress in the early 1950s, and in 1978 they were transferred again to the newly formed Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound division.

29

4. CROSSCUTTING, A PROGRAMMED LANGUAGE1 Research into editing since the 1978 Brighton conference has made clear some of the specific features of its emergence, particularly concerning the advent of crosscutting and other discursive techniques related to it. While we now know that recourse to crosscutting in early cinema was not limited to chase films or rescue scenes, there is still much to be done to identify the various narrative circumstances that gave rise to the relative proliferation of the technique in the period 1908–1912. For the new, post-Brighton historian, it has now been well established that D.W. Griffith did not “invent” crosscutting. Rather, he developed and systematised this method of film construction, which existed well before him, as historical studies of the past twenty or thirty years have demonstrated. In our view, however, two things render these studies problematic as a whole, as we will describe in detail below. In the first place, a few lacunae are apparent in the means used to explain the emergence of crosscutting. Scholars have also unfortunately avoided, for example, analysing and discussing less well-known but critically important films. Here we would like to try to fill these gaps and examine some of the films that have been omitted or neglected, without, of course, any pretension to solving every problem in a definitive manner. There still exists no attempt, to our knowledge, to inventory all the known examples of crosscutting before Griffith began directing films in June 1908 and to situate them in relation to each other both historically and theoretically. This is our ambition here, where we will investigate this editing technique and call into question the theoretical tenets and conclusions of its classical definition. We will also try to describe, as precisely as possible, the prevailing context in which crosscutting developed when Griffith took his place behind the camera. In order to do so, we will pay special attention to the various cases of crosscutting found in the films he made in the first few months of his career. Clearly, if we are to succeed, we must base our discussion on strict definitions of the editing techniques we will describe here. As the reader will discover, applying these definitions will play an essential role in identifying the various blind spots in contemporary theory. These blind spots are so numerous that the list of films given by film historians of every stripe and generation as supposed examples of crosscutting contains a fairly large number of titles that do not, as we will demonstrate, appear to be true examples of the technique in question. Moreover, there exist many examples of crosscutting in films made before 1909 that are rarely cited by historians. These are little-known films, it is true, but they are interesting examples of the technique, and bringing them to light will enable us to base our understanding on new information. Other films from the same period have been written about extensively and are thus better known by the community of scholars who work in the field. Foremost among these is a Pathé film that functions something like the trees for which we cannot see the woods: A Narrow Escape (Le Médecin du château, Pathé, {March} 1908),2 made a few months before Griffith became a film director. Seemingly unknown to historians of the generation of Lewis Jacobs, Georges Sadoul and Jean Mitry, A Narrow Escape has captured the attention of present-day scholars, probably because of the canonical structure of its editing and the fact that it was made several months before The Lonely Villa (Biograph, June 1909).3 A veritable precursor of Griffith’s locus classicus (the suspenseful call for help, the proximity of the threat, the last-minute rescue), A Narrow Escape has, for some, become the missing link to explain the genesis of crosscutting in the cinema. Other titles with no affinity to this locus classicus, however, and without any form of suspense, also deserve, as we shall see, to be examined with particular care. 30

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It seems to us that, if we are to understand the advent of crosscutting, it is important first of all to make a certain number of fundamental distinctions. We will therefore suggest here a new typology of the kinds of crosscutting in early cinema. The first essential distinction to be made is that between alternation and crosscutting. Alternation is a discursive configuration whose minimal form is the recurrence of each term in two series. In other words, it is impossible to speak of alternation when only one of the terms recurs (A-B-A). At a minimum, alternation requires that each series recur (A-B-A-B). Crosscutting, for its part, is only one of the forms of what we will call, to adopt a term proposed quite some time ago by David Bordwell, Janet Staiger and Kristin Thompson, alternating editing, a higher and more encompassing form than crosscutting.4 The other well-known form of alternating editing is the one known in French as montage parallèle.5 This category refers to a kind of editing that alternates between two series of motifs, imparting some form of parallelism to two situations whose temporal relation to each other is not pertinent,6 unlike the situation found in crosscutting, within which series of events supposedly unfold simultaneously in the narrative universe suggested by the film.7 Christian Metz provides a definition of this device, which, given its great clarity, is worth quoting here: The montage presents alternately two or more series of events in such a way that within each series the temporal relationships are consecutive, but that, between the series taken as wholes, the temporal relationship is one of simultaneity (which can be expressed by the formula “Alternating of images equals simultaneity of occurrences”).8

This distinction between simultaneous events and non-pertinent temporal relations (or between what French-speaking scholars call montage alterné on the one hand and montage parallèle on the other) is not cast in the same way in the English-language literature (which is why we used the French expression montage parallèle above). English-speaking scholars who wish to describe an example of montage parallèle can, of course, use the expression “parallel editing”, but the problem is that traditional English usage also admits the term “crosscutting” to convey the same idea. Worse still, English-speaking scholars can use either of these expressions (parallel editing and crosscutting) equally well to describe an occurrence of montage alterné. In an attempt to eliminate the obvious risk of confusion, in 1985 Bordwell, Staiger and Thompson proposed to reserve the term crosscutting for montage alterné and to use parallel editing for cases of montage parallèle, thereby implicitly proposing that the English copy the French: If temporal simultaneity is not pertinent to the series, the cutting may be called parallel editing; if the series are to be taken as temporally simultaneous, then we have crosscutting.9

This proposal, however, was not widely adopted and even met with certain opposition, as this comment by Tom Gunning in his book on Griffith demonstrates; in it he refers to previous comments by Eileen Bowser on the matter: David Bordwell uses the term crosscutting to cover what I am describing [“[t]he actions shown alternately are signified as occurring simultaneously in different places, most frequently fairly distant local[e]s”], reserving the term parallel editing to refer to alternation in which temporal relations are not pertinent (e.g., ideological contrasts or comparisons).… However this introduces new definitions for old terms, and I agree with Eileen Bowser that this practice can only lead to confusion.10 31

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Indeed according to Eileen Bowser, the expression parallel editing is the equivalent of both what French-language scholars refer to as montage alterné and, at the same time, of what they also refer to as montage parallèle: It should be noted, though, that since the thirties at least, the term “parallel editing” has been used for both functions and especially for the kind of cutting Bordwell and Thompson have called “crosscutting”.11

In short, before the proposal by the authors of The Classical Hollywood Cinema, there were to our knowledge no terms in English to describe, specifically and separately, montage alterné and montage parallèle.12 It is true that empirical examples of montage parallèle are not as frequent as one might be led to believe based on the position it occupies in French film theory. Indeed, as Bordwell, Staiger and Thompson remark: In the classical Hollywood cinema, parallel editing [montage parallèle] is a distinctly unlikely alternative, since it emphasizes logical relations rather than causality and chronology.13

As a result, they continue, The classical narrative seldom depended entirely upon parallel construction…. On the whole, parallel editing [montage parallèle], with its non simultaneous lines of action, was also rare in American filmmaking from its earliest years.14

One can imagine that the relatively “dysnarrative” nature of montage parallèle accounts for its rarity in classical cinema, with the result that the technique has been little theorised, at least by American scholars. Similarly, the empirical rarity of some forms of alternation explains in part historians’ and theorists’ relative silence on them. There is no accepted and recognised expression, for example, in either French or English, for what we might call “alternating editing using flashbacks”.15 The word “parallel”, moreover, given its highly polysemous nature, is in part responsible for the fuzziness found in Anglo-American film theory. When we see the expression “parallel editing” in a text, it is quite legitimate to wonder whether the author means: 1) that the editing mixes two events taking place in parallel, and thus simultaneously, or if it is meant 2) that the editing mixes two series of events, establishing a kind of parallel between the motifs of each, without ever referring to their temporal relationship. As the reader can see, the situation is relatively complex; what is the English speaker to do? The traditional meaning of crosscutting and parallel editing dictates that these two expressions not only be completely interchangeable but also that they can both be used to describe what, for the French speaker, is one thing (montage alterné) and, in a sense and in certain respects, its opposite (montage parallèle). The English speaker who decides to respect tradition is denied access to an unequivocal expression used strictly for the purpose of describing a kind of “montage that brings together and interweaves two or more alternating ‘motifs’, [with] no precise relationship (whether temporal or spatial) ... assigned to them”, as Metz describes it16 – or what French speakers call only montage parallèle. But if, on the contrary, the English speaker decides to adopt Bordwell, Staiger and Thompson’s proposal, he or she risks, because it did not catch on, creating a certain degree of confusion by giving a new definition to an old term. 32

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In spite of all this, we believe it would be best, even essential, to have a term in English, if only for the purposes of our current research, to describe unequivocally the technique indicated by the French term montage parallèle. We thus propose to use the expression “comparative editing”, which, in our discussion below and more specifically in a later phase of our research, will describe the form of alternating editing to which French-speaking scholars refer when they use the expression montage parallèle. This respects established English usage, which holds that the expressions parallel editing and crosscutting can both be used to describe the technique of montage alterné. It also respects French theoretical tradition (and most importantly the work of Metz), which has an expression for each of these two kinds of editing. In short, our nomenclature, which mixes alternating editing, parallel editing (or crosscutting, the two being synonymous) and comparative editing, is well suited to the various kinds of usage recognised by most French-speaking scholars and should not come as a shock to anyone. Table I sums the situation up:

Table I: Crosscutting in Early Griffith Films

It is important to note that these two forms of alternating editing, crosscutting (or parallel editing) and what we call “comparative editing”, are not the only two forms possible. THE FIRST OCCURRENCES OF CROSSCUTTING

The issues we have raised to this point in the present text have enabled us to establish a certain number of givens concerning the principles of film editing that employs various “configurations of alternation”. As we are now equipped with a new nomenclature, giving us a clearer idea of the theoretical and categorical issues that alternation in cinema pose, we can proceed to examine our corpus, which is made up of the earliest films containing examples of crosscutting (or parallel editing)17 identified to date, including, of course, Griffith’s first films.18 This gives us a total of twenty-eight films made between 1906 and 1909 (see the appended filmography).19 The first thing that an analysis of this body of films reveals is that the use of crosscutting is far from limited to rescue scenes alone, despite what one might have assumed. Indeed there exist a certain number of “narrative programs”20 whose underlying story necessarily presupposes some form of “doubling-up” of the action (what Metz called, in French, a “bifidation narrative”, which his translator renders as “narrative doubling”).21 In cinema, any 33

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cleavage of the action generally involves recourse to a discursive process (one of which, of course, is crosscutting) to resolve the relatively difficult problem of having to show two (or more) distinct lines of action on one quite singular screen.22 It would thus be worthwhile to take a closer look at the various narrative programs adopted by “kinematographers” (as they were often called back then) in order to study the spatio-temporal structures underlying them and to pay close scrutiny to the relations that exist among all their actants. To accomplish this, we will describe the storyline of the films in our corpus and divide them up in a way that will help us better understand the various narrative and/or film language issues that were being raised at this point in film history. GRIFFITH’S FIRST FILMS

Let’s look now at Griffith’s first films as a way of establishing the state of crosscutting when he began his career as a filmmaker. We will restrict ourselves, for the most part, to his first year as a filmmaker, beginning around mid-June 1908 with his very first film as director, The Adventures of Dollie, and extending to about mid-June 1909, when he made his famous The Lonely Villa. During this one-year period, Griffith made a total of 116 films.23 Of these, we will examine those whose storyline gives rise to some form of crosscutting, according to our definition above. This gives us a total of eighteen titles.24 We first divide this one-year period into two equal parts. Within each of these groups of films we then single out those films whose story employs the “last-minute rescue”. Table II summarises these divisions:

Table II: Crosscutting in Early Griffith Films

Of the eighteen films that use crosscutting, eleven have a storyline derived from the lastminute rescue narrative program.25 This program is thus well represented here (accounting for sixty percent of the total number of films). When we look at the data by sub-period, it is apparent that this proportion increases from one sub-period to the other. In the first subperiod (mid-June to mid-December 1908), the last-minute rescue in the form of crosscutting is present in a limited number of cases: three films out of seven, or forty-three percent.26 In the second group, however (mid-December 1908 to mid-June 1909), the proportion is greater than sixty-six percent (eight films out of twelve).27 Something appears to have happened in late 1908 and early 1909. Indeed at that time a large proportion of films employed last-minute rescues: six of the seven rescue films in the second group date from this brief ten-week period (mid-December 1908 to mid-February 1909). Of the rescue films in the second sub-period, only The Drive for a Life – which dates from March 1909, although production began in January – and The Lonely Villa were first screened outside this period. 34

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Of course, these statistics are relative, especially since it is not always easy to distinguish between what is a last-minute rescue and what is not. Here we should provide some indication of how we view the underlying structure of the narrative program in question. Stories that employ last-minute rescues generally proceed as follows: an actant-rescuer tries to save an actant-threatened from a critical situation provoked by an actant-threat. From a chronological perspective, the program supposes that there be an initial aggression on the part of the actant-threat, followed by a call for help to the actant-rescuer by the actant-threatened and, finally, the actant-rescuer’s last-minute rescue of the actant-threatened.28 In order for the situation to be as dramatic as possible, the actant-threatened should ideally be located in proximal disjunction to the actant-threat so as to be directly acted upon by it. On the other hand, the actant-rescuer is usually in distal disjunction from the actant-threatened he wishes to save.29 This is the case of The Lonely Villa, whose editing is representative of the systematic alternation between the three actants usually involved in last-minute rescues. At first, the father (who will become the actant-rescuer) is with his wife and children (the future actant-threatened). He is soon called to leave the house (a nice example of narrative doubling), and during his absence burglars (the actant-threat) attack the woman and children (the actant-threatened). Then comes the call for help and the father (the actant-rescuer) must come to their rescue. An emblematic case of crosscutting, The Lonely Villa is an excellent example of the narrative program “last-minute rescue” and an exemplary case of Griffith’s famous use of suspense. As we remarked above, it is sometimes difficult to determine when a film is a rescue film and when it is not. A good example of this is a film from the first sub-period, Behind the Scenes (September 1908), whose narrative program can give the illusion of being very close to a lastminute rescue. And yet this is not the case: while the film contains an actant-threatened (the sick child) and, to a certain extent, an actant-threat (the child’s illness), there is no trace of an actant-rescuer. In fact, the sick child cannot be saved: she suffers from an incurable disease, and even the doctor attending her bedside appears unable to help her. The film’s drama resides in the fact that the mother, while her daughter is practically at death’s door, is obliged to leave for work (she is a dancer, and “the show must go on”). The goal of this film’s narrative program is not to create suspense but rather pathos. A narrative program, moreover, is not a yoke, and all films take a degree of liberty with the canonical structure of the program they adopt. Because of the complexity of its structure, the last-minute rescue is easily adapted to all sorts of situations. In The Honor of Thieves (January 1909), for example, the actant-threatened and the actant-rescuer take the form of the same character: threatened by the presence of a candle (the actant-threat), which could set fire to the makeshift pyre on which she finds herself, Rachel (the actant-threatened) frees herself from her chains (thereby becoming the actant-rescuer) and then overcomes the thieves who had tied her up. In The Cord of Life (January 1909), the actant-threat to a young child (the actant-threatened) is the child’s own mother (without her realising it, of course): the mother (the actant-threat) starts to open a window to which is attached a cord from which her child (the actant-threatened) is suspended. The actant-threat does not always take the form of an actor: it might be a poisoned sweet (The Drive for a Life, April 1909), a deadly trap (At the Altar, February 1909) or quite simply the bitter cold of winter (The Golden Louis, February 1909). In The Drive for a Life, Harry (the actant-rescuer) stops his fiancée (the actant-threatened) from eating poisoned candies (the actant-threat). In At the Altar, a police officer (the actant-rescuer) disarms a deadly device (the actant-threat) in the church where Grigo and Minnie (the actant-threatened) are being wed. Finally, in The Golden Louis, on a cold winter’s night (the actant-threat) a lucky gambler (the actant-rescuer) looks for a little girl (the actant-threatened) who had lent him a golden louis. 35

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THE PRE-GRIFFITH FILMS We have also submitted the other part of our corpus to an analysis similar to that we have just carried out for the Griffith films. This second part of the corpus is made up of films made before mid-June 1908 (the date of Griffith’s first film as director) which contain occurrences of crosscutting. The first film on our list dates from March 1906. Thus, despite the large number of films we have combed through for this study (several thousand titles), we have been unable to find any occurrence of crosscutting before that date as we defined it at the outset of this article.30 Certainly, before 1906, there were cases of alternating editing, but in a different form than the two types we described in the first part of this article (crosscutting and comparative editing – see Table I). We have been able to identify a total of ten films throughout this nearly twentyeight-month period (from March 1906 to mid-June 1908) that meet our criteria and have divided these into two practically equal groups. Table III summarises our findings:

Table III: Crosscutting in Pre-Griffith Films

An essential point to be made about this table is that, in this small sample of titles, there is only one last-minute rescue film. Early kinematographers certainly used crosscutting before mid-June 1908, but we must presume, in light of our data, that Griffith’s films were the prime site of the combination crosscutting/last-minute rescue in the corpus of “early films”.31 While he may not have initiated this combination, he did, for all intents and purposes, systematise it. This confirms, on more solid and better documented empirical footing than has been available until now (at least that is our objective), what many contemporary film historians had already concluded some time ago. Still, before Griffith the crosscutting/last-minute rescue combination was much rarer than we might at first believe (once we limit ourselves to a strict definition of crosscutting): the film A Narrow Escape ({March} 1908)32 alone, according to the criteria we have established, contains this combination. In this film a doctor, called to a patient’s bedside, must hurry home when he learns that two thieves have attacked his family. This Pathé film’s sequence of the initial aggression and the call for help are good examples of crosscutting. The first of these two sequences is a rather special case that ties together in somewhat euphoric fashion two parallel story events: when the crooks (series A: the actant-threat) attack the family members (series B: the actant-threatened) the latter barricade themselves in a room. To this two-fold linkage is added, in the middle, a third element (series C: the future actant-rescuer). This series takes the form of two successive shots squeezed between two shots of series B, in the form A-B-C-B-A, showing the doctor on his way to tend the sick patient.33 Note also that the editing of the call for help sequence (which cuts between the doctor and his wife speaking on the telephone) contains a quite orthodox example of crosscutting. The wife (series A: the actant-threatened) speaks 36

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with her husband (series B: the actant-rescuer) over four successive shots: A (end of shot 17), B (shot 18), A (shot 19), B (shot 20).34 The next sequence, however, that of the rescue itself (the actant-rescuer travelling in the direction of the actant-threatened), contains no form of crosscutting. Unlike the typical Griffith rescue scene, the camera does not return to the site of the crime after the call for help. Once he hangs up the phone, the doctor becomes a mere “continuity agent”;35 what binds the shots until the final resolution, when the three lines of action suddenly converge in a single shot (number 26), is his return home: just when the thieves have succeeded in breaking down the door protecting the woman and her son, the doctor enters and subdues them with the help of two gamekeepers. As our analysis shows, the crosscutting used in this film – which, moreover, was the reason for its popularity among the new film historians – occurs not during the rescue itself but during the catalytic scenes that set it in motion, the aggression and the call for help. There is another film, made in 1906, which ends in a last-minute rescue quite different from the kind we have discussed; in it we find, for example, no shot isolating the actantthreat. This film, entitled The 100-to-One Shot (Vitagraph, July 1906), is often cited as an early example of crosscutting. This, to our minds at least, is not the case, if we are to apply stricter criteria than what tradition has passed down to us. The film (which we have, therefore, not included in Table III above) shows the hero rushing to (what we assume to be) his fiancée with the money he has just won at the horse races so that she and her father will not be evicted from their home. If we think of the hero’s race home as series A and the family’s eviction as series B, the film becomes a four-part sequence whose structure is A-B-A-AB. In our view, this structure is not sufficient to be described as crosscutting (whose minimum canonical structure is A-B-A-B).36 In The 100-to-One Shot, the initial segment A is made up of shots 22 and 23 (the hero jumps into the first cab to come along and races to his fiancée’s home). Segment B is made up of a single shot, number 24 (at his fiancée’s home, bailiffs prepare to carry out the eviction order). The film switches back to series A in shot 25 (the taxi stops in front of the house and the hero dashes inside). Finally, in shot 26, the two story events converge (the hero arrives with the money at his fiancée’s home just in time).37 What prevents this configuration of shots from being an example of crosscutting is the irruption of the fourth segment (AB), making a series A-B-A-AB and aborting the process of alternation begun by the first three segments (A-B-A) because it includes, in a single shot, all three actants (the actant-threatened, the actant-threat and the actant-rescuer). Thus, by extension, it includes both story events. What creates doubt about the nature of this sequence is that, spatially, the four-segment sequence is a clear case of systematic alternation (A-B-A-B), in which A is the – shifting – space of the actant-rescuer as he races toward space B, that of his fiancée’s home. In our view, however, this alternation between spaces is not sufficient to admit this sequence as an occurrence of crosscutting. Alternation between disjointed spaces is certainly a necessary condition of crosscutting, but it can in no way be sufficient on its own. We must not confuse spatial alternation with story event alternation. What the fourth segment of the Vitagraph film shows is neither event A (the hero’s race home) nor event B (the beginning of the family’s eviction) but rather a completely different event resulting from the encounter of the actants of the two previous events (making it an AB): the hero pays the bailiffs and celebrates his success with his fiancée. Furthermore, it seems to us essential that another minimum condition of crosscutting be imposed: the cuts between shots must strictly and unequivocally be motivated by the narrative and in no way by the acting.38 For a cut to be narrative in nature, the movement from event A to event B must have no profilmic motivation. This is true of the initial cut in The 100-to-One Shot between segment A and segment B (from the hero in the taxi to the bailiffs carrying out the eviction) and of the cut between segment B and the final occurrence of 37

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segment A (from the bailiffs back to the hero in the taxi). The final cut, however, between the third segment (the second occurrence of segment A, the hero arriving in front of the home and preparing to enter) and the fourth (segment AB: the father and daughter welcoming the hero, whose arrival puts a stop to the eviction), is based on the acting: the camera merely follows the hero as he dashes into the house. Let’s return to Table III and its small group of ten films. Until now we have discussed only A Narrow Escape (The 100-to-One Shot having being excluded from our corpus). We must now deal with the nine remaining films and sort out the status of each with respect to crosscutting. The first general observation to be made is that, in the beginning, this editing device was not preponderant in dramatic situations and was not used to create suspense. Indeed there is only one “dramatic” film, produced by the French firm Pathé,39 in the first group of films, made between March 1906 and April 1907 inclusively. This film was another in a series of remakes of the adaptation of the André de Lorde play discussed above. Entitled Terrible Anguish (Terrible Angoisse, Pathé, {March} 1906), it shows two thieves burgling a bourgeois home. Frantic, the wife tries to telephone her husband, who had left the home earlier on business. What indicates that the two events are simultaneous is the way the film cuts between the woman and her husband talking to each other on the telephone. The wife calls out for help (series A) while the husband listens (series B); the sequence proceeds A (end of shot 5), B (shots 6 and 7), A (shot 8), B (shot 9).40 The burglars then burst in and strangle the woman. The husband listens impotently to this tragic event, his ear glued to the receiver. The call for help thus comes to an abrupt end, with the husband having no hope of saving his wife. The underlying narrative of this film cannot be described as a “last-minute rescue” for the simple fact that there is no rescue. The other four films in this sub-period are “comic scenes” (scènes comiques).41 In the beginning, crosscutting was used for comic and not dramatic effect. In Spot at the Phone (Médor au téléphone, Pathé, {January} 1907), a man forgets his dog in a post office and telephones him from a café. A crosscutting sequence of six consecutive shots (shots 6 to 11)42 alternates between the dog in the post office and its master in the café. While the telephone conversations in A Narrow Escape and Terrible Anguish heighten “the suspense and the viewers’ involvement in the film’s action”, as Eileen Bowser describes,43 the filmmaker’s intentions in Spot at the Phone are completely different. The “conversation” between Médor and his master can only produce laughter. Indeed, in shots 9 and 11, the dog literally has his snout in the receiver, leading us to believe that he is talking to his master. The view ends when the dog leaves the post office and goes to meet his master at the café. The Pathé view I Fetch the Bread (Je vais chercher le pain, Pathé, {May} 1906) is another example of crosscutting in a comic film. When he notices that there is no more bread, a table companion at a festive dinner goes out to buy more. After buying the bread, he stops off for a drink at various places along the way. Back at the dinner, people are becoming impatient and a second guest is dispatched to buy more bread. Unable to resist, he too stops off along the way to quench his thirst. After a crosscutting sequence that lasts for more than twelve shots (from shot 6 to shot 18),44 in which we see each of the two dinner companions in a succession of different cafés, they end up meeting in one of them. In {A Bettor Taken for a Madman} (Un parieur pris pour un fou, Pathé, {May} 1906), a con artist bets an innkeeper he cannot imitate the pendulum of a clock for a whole hour. Shortly after the innkeeper has taken up his position as a pendulum, his wife comes upon him and, believing him to have gone mad, sets out to spread the news in town. A crosscutting sequence (from shots 4 to 18) alternates between the con artist trying to cause the innkeeper to lose his concentration (series A) and the woman running through the streets of the city (series B).45 In each of these two story events, a diegetic element indicates the advance 38

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of time: at the inn, the minute hand of the clock moves ahead by five or ten minutes with each change of shot, while the crowd accompanying the woman outside grows in size. Finally, in the film Bobby and His Balloon (Toto aéronaute, Pathé, {November} 1906), when Bobby (Toto in the French version) sails off in his hot-air balloon, his mother boards the first car she finds and sets off in pursuit. During the chase, a crosscutting sequence shows Bobby throwing objects onto passers-by below (series A) and his mother speeding along in the car (series B).46 We should note here that all these films were produced by the French firm Pathé. This would seem to corroborate the hypothesis of one of the present authors, that the appearance of these new editing techniques can be accounted for by the fact that Pathé had no strong institutional ties with any cultural series and that it had neither a canon nor an aesthetic program to maintain (unlike the Lumière brothers, for example, who came out of the series “photography”, or Méliès, who came out of the series “stage entertainments”).47 The number of films to use crosscutting in the second group of films in Table III (May 1907 to June 1908 inclusively) is the same as the first group: five. Two of these five films in the second group are comedies: Janitor’s Tea Party (Thé chez le concierge, Gaumont, {May} 1907) and Runaway Horse (Le Cheval emballé, Pathé, {January} 1908). In Runaway Horse, a crosscutting sequence from shots 3 to 1348 cuts between images of a delivery-cart horse eating a bag of oats in front of a building and the deliveryman mounting the stairs inside to carry out his delivery. The Gaumont view Janitor’s Tea Party also cuts between indoors and outdoors, also for comic effect. From shot 5 to shot 1549 there is systematic cutting between the concierge’s lodge and the outside of the building. While the concierge and his guests celebrate, the building’s residents ring the bell in vain, unable to gain admittance because the revellers’ din covers the sound of the doorbell. The three remaining films in this group are dramatic films, including A Narrow Escape, which we discussed above. One of the two others is called The Mill Girl (Vitagraph, September 1907), about which Eileen Bowser has written a detailed analysis, to which we refer the reader.50 In this film, bandits in the pay of a jealous lover have been sent to eliminate a rival in his sleep. Lying in bed, he hears (series A) the conspirators preparing the attack outside his room (series B).51 Our last title, a Danish film called A Drama from the Age of Chivalry, or For a Woman’s Sake (Et Drama fra Riddertiden, eller For en Kvindes Skyld, Nordisk, {August} 1907), also features a jealous suitor. This film’s editing is a rather special case, creating as it does two crosscutting segments showing the same action from different points of view. In a medieval castle, a man trying to be united with his lover is murdered by a rejected suitor. The first segment shows the woman tying sheets together to make a rope (series A). She attaches one end to the window and throws the rope out for her lover to climb up. One floor below, the rejected suitor sees the rope fall right before his nose and takes out his sword to cut it (series B). Our analysis of the alternation of this first segment gives the structure A-B-A-B-A-B. The following segment shows the action a second time, with an A-B-A-B-A structure: the lover arrives at the castle, climbs the wall and then plunges to his death (series A) while the woman throws him the knotted sheets, watches him climb the wall, and is seized with horror by his fall (series B). However, there are too many uncertainties around the editing of the version we were able to view52 for us to arrive at any definitive conclusion about this quite singular film.53

As the reader of the present article can attest, it is now possible, thanks to recent developments in early cinema research, to trace the development of a device as important as crosscutting. Naturally, much remains to be done in this respect: alternating editing is a 39

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complex configuration whose large number of devices film theory has perhaps not yet completely identified and clearly defined. We hope to return to this topic and examine in particular switch-back editing which, according to commentaries of the day at least, was distinct in some respects from crosscutting (with its A-B-A rather than A-B-A-B structure). Many occurrences of this device can be found in early films; examples include The Kleptomaniac (Edison, 1905), which is often seen – mistakenly, in our view – as an example of crosscutting, and The Cripple and the Cyclist (producer unknown, 1906). What we have attempted to set out here is the state of film language before Griffith’s arrival as a filmmaker, essentially with respect to crosscutting. We must now continue to study this editing technique in Griffith’s films beyond the first year of his career and also, as we mentioned above, in contemporaneous work. We will also have to take into account other forms of alternation and try, first of all, to give them definitions that are consistent with the new nomenclature we introduced in the first part of this article. ANDRÉ GAUDREAULT AND PHILIPPE GAUTHIER Translated by Timothy Barnard

APPENDIX: FILMOGRAPHY Diachrony of Crosscutting (1893–1909) The following filmography is made up of two lists of films in which crosscutting is used in early cinema: first, those made before D.W. Griffith became a film director in June 1908; and second, those made by Griffith in the first year of his career. The authors of the present article have been unable to find any other occurrence of crosscutting – in the strict sense of the term defined above – in the corpus of films they have screened in the course of their previous research. N.B.: The films are listed in chronological order (by date of their first known public screening). 1) The Pre-Griffith Films: The Very First Occurrences of Crosscutting To determine the date of the first screening of the non-Griffith films, we consulted production logs and the work of researchers who have provided reliable sources for their information. Our principal sources were the catalogue compilations prepared by Henri Bousquet54 (for Pathé films) and the catalogue of the American Film Institute (AFI).55 Nevertheless, it has occasionally been impossible for us to determine a film’s date with precision. In these cases, we indicate the date of the first known screening in brace brackets.56 Each film’s title is given initially in English (as found in the AFI catalogue) and then in its original language, if this was other than English.57 For each title, we indicate the institution whose copy of the film we consulted. {April} 1906 I Fetch the Bread (Je vais chercher le pain, Pathé) Cineteca del Friuli in Gemona (from the series More from the Enchanted Studio) {A Bettor Taken for a Madman} (Un parieur pris pour un fou, Pathé) {Danish Film Institute}

Sub-period 1 (March 1906 to April 1907) {March} 1906 Terrible Anguish (Terrible angoisse, Pathé) Centre national de la cinématographie (France)

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{January} 1907 Bobby and His Balloon (Toto Aéronaute, Pathé) British Film Institute (London) Spot at the Phone (Médor au téléphone, Pathé) Cinémathèque Royale (Belgium)

Woman’s Sake (Et Drama fra Riddertiden, eller For en Kvindes Skyld, Nordisk) Museum of Modern Art (New York)

Sub-period 2 (May 1907 to June 1908)

{January} 1908 Runaway Horse (Le cheval emballé, Pathé) Centre national de la cinématographie (France)

September 1907 Mill Girl (Vitagraph) Library of Congress (Washington, D.C.)

{May} 1907 Janitor’s Tea Party (Thé chez le concierge, Gaumont) Centre national de la cinématographie (France)

{March} 1908 A Narrow Escape (Le médecin du château, Pathé) Centre national de la cinématographie (France)

{August} 1907 A Drama from the Age of Chivalry, or For a

2) Griffith’s First Films For D.W. Griffith’s films, we have been able to give the precise dates of their first screening, which are provided in various volumes of The Griffith Project.58 All the Griffith films to which we have had access are held at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. February 1909 The Golden Louis At the Altar

Sub-period 1 (mid-June 1908 to mid-December 1908) August 1908 The Greaser’s Gauntlet The Fatal Hour

March 1909 The Prussian Spy The Medicine Bottle

September 1908 Behind the Scenes A Smoked Husband

April 1909 A Drunkard’s Reformation The Road to the Heart The Drive for a Life

November 1908 After Many Years The Guerrilla The Song of the Shirt

May 1909 The Eavesdropper June 1909 The Lonely Villa

Sub-period 2 (mid-December 1908 to mid-June 1909) January 1909 The Honor of Thieves The Cord of Life

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NOTES

1. André Gaudreault and Philippe Gauthier wrote this article under the aegis of GRAFICS (Groupe de recherche sur l’avènement et la formation des institutions cinématographique et scénique) at the Université de Montréal, which is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and the Fonds québécois pour la recherche sur la société et la culture. GRAFICS is a member of the Centre for Research into Intermediality (CRI) at the Université de Montréal. The authors would like to thank Dominique Noujeim for her assistance while carrying out research in preparation for this article. The authors are also indebted to the students who worked for the “History and theory of configurations of alternation in cinematographic editing practices” research project funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), Pierre Chemartin and Nicolas Dulac. They would also like to thank the following scholars for their advice: Richard Abel, Rick Altman, Eileen Bowser, Ben Brewster, Donald Crafton, Tom Gunning, Charlie Keil, David Levy, Charles Musser, Bernard Perron and Jan Olson. We would also like to thank the archivists who have made access to the films possible: Charles Silver and Ron Magliozzi at the Museum of Modern Art (New York); Mike Mashon and Josie Walters-Johnston at the Library of Congress (Washington, D.C.); Éric Le Roy and Caroline Patte at the Centre national de la cinématographie (France); Monique Faulhaber at the Cinémathèque française (France); Luca Giuliani at the Cineteca del Friuli (Gemona); and Gabrielle Claes at the Cinémathèque Royale (Belgium). Finally, the authors would like to thank Timothy Barnard for his translation and Paolo Cherchi Usai for his invitation to contribute to this volume and his patience in waiting for this piece to be ready. 2. Given the limited period under observation, we believe it is wise to indicate the month in which the films we discuss were released. At this level of work, a considerable amount of time can be said to exist between a film released in January 1908 and another released in December 1908 (even though both could be said to be made in the same year). With respect to D.W. Griffith’s films, the precise screening date given is that found in the volumes of The Griffith Project. For the other films, production logs have been consulted by the present authors or adopted from the work of other scholars who have clearly identified their sources. Nevertheless, it has occasionally been impossible for us to determine a film’s screening date. In these cases, we indicate the date of the first known screening in brace brackets. 3. Tom Gunning has identified several film narratives similar to that of The Lonely Villa, which was initially inspired by a play called Au téléphone written by André de Lorde and Charles Foley and performed for the first time in 1901 at the Théâtre Libre in Paris. See Tom Gunning, “Heard over the Phone: The Lonely Villa and the de Lorde Tradition of the Terrors of Technology”, Screen, vol. 32, no. 2 (1991), p. 189. 4. This is what these authors assert when they write: “Strictly speaking, crosscutting can be considered a category of alternating editing, the intercalation of two or more different series of images.” David Bordwell, Janet Staiger and Kristin Thompson, The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985), p. 48. 5. Other forms of alternating editing exist. Think, for example, of Christian Metz’ concept of pseudo alternation and of Raymond Bellour’s conceptual pair superior alternation/earlier alternation. See Christian Metz, Film Language: A Semiotics of the Cinema, trans. Christopher Taylor (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974 [1968]), p. 164, and Raymond Bellour, “To Alternate/To Narrate (On The Lonedale Operator)”, trans. Inge Pruks, in Raymond Bellour, The Analysis of Film, ed. Constance Penley (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000), pp. 262–277. 6. Christian Metz calls this kind of construction “parallel syntagma”: “montage brings together and interweaves two or more alternating ‘motifs’, but no precise relationship (whether temporal or spatial) is assigned to them – at least on the level of denotation”. He adds: “this kind of montage has a direct symbolic value (scenes of the life of the rich interwoven with scenes of the life of the

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poor, images of tranquility alternating with images of disturbance, shots of the city and of the country, of the sea and of wheat fields, and so on)”. Christian Metz, op. cit., p. 125. 7. Some definitions also insist on a spatial criterion – that the two series of events must unfold in different or widely separated locales. This criterion is found mostly in Anglo-American definitions and also in a few rare French-speaking authors. 8. Christian Metz, op. cit., pp. 128–129. 9. David Bordwell, Janet Staiger and Kristin Thompson, op. cit., pp. 48. Emphasis in the original. 10. Tom Gunning, D.W. Griffith and the Origins of American Narrative Film: The Early Years at Biograph (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991), p. 126. Emphasis in the original. This quotation is found in note 53 of Chapter 4 (we have included in square brackets the complete reference on page 95 of the body of the text, just before the footnote, to which Gunning refers in the note). 11. Eileen Bowser, The Transformation of Cinema, 1907–1915 (New York: Scribner’s, 1990), p. 58. 12. We do find in Gunning another expression to describe something like montage parallèle: “contrast editing”. But this expression is not as encompassing as montage parallèle because it connotes only a single kind of parallelism between two series (editing can be used to tie two series not only to contrast them but also to create an analogy, a contradiction, a metaphor, etc.). Tom Gunning, op. cit., p. 77. 13. David Bordwell, Janet Staiger and Kristin Thompson, op. cit., p. 48. 14. Ibid., p. 211. 15. In his syntagmatic analysis of the film Adieu Philippine (Jacques Rozier, 1962), the idea of giving a name to such a configuration occurs to Metz, who proposes in his running commentary on the film (he does not go so far as to include it in his Grande Syntagmatique) the expression “alternate flashback”. Christian Metz, op. cit., p. 163. He returned to this idea in a footnote to another chapter in the same volume (“Some Points in the Semiotics of the Cinema” [p. 104, unnumbered footnote]): “For example, one finds ‘alternating syntagmas’ that interweave a ‘present’ series with a ‘past’ series (a kind of alternating flashback), and in which consequently the relationship of the two series can be defined neither by simultaneity nor by the term ‘neutral temporal relationship’”. Metz identified the phenomenon but no one, to our knowledge, has picked it up. 16. Christian Metz, op. cit., p. 125. 17. For the sake of simplicity and in order to avoid any confusion, from this point on in the present text we will use the expression crosscutting to refer to the device known as montage alterné in French (and which is sometimes indiscriminately called in English, as we just have shown, “parallel editing”). 18. We will limit ourselves here to the study of crosscutting. We hope to return to this topic in the near future, however, and examine other forms of alternating editing, particularly comparative editing. Our work will result in a book presently in preparation, whose topic will be “Griffith and Crosscutting during the Biograph Years”. 19. The corpus under study here was established by excluding two types of films. Given the limited status of this text, we have restricted ourselves, first of all, to films made by Griffith between June 1908 and May 1909. Naturally, we intend to examine other films of the same period in a later stage of our work. We have also excluded from our corpus films that use point-of-view (POV) alternation. The reason for this is that these are borderline cases that do not meet our definition of crosscutting. The kind of alternation used in POV alternation films is a highly peculiar kind of alternating editing, in which attraction takes precedence over narration. It is not, however, crosscutting. The main function of this configuration, at the time, was to provide viewers with a kind of visual pleasure, to surprise, astonish and amuse them. In these films, subjective shots have more of a monstrative function than a narrative one. Nevertheless, this kind of alternation deserves to be taken into account in our overall thinking on this topic, and we are only momentarily setting it aside.

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20. The expression “narrative program” is used here in a different, more pragmatic sense than that employed by Greimas and Courtès (A.J. Greimas and J. Courtès, trans. Larry Crist et al., Semiotics and Language: An Analytical Dictionary [Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982 (1979)], pp. 245–246). By narrative program we mean a series of actions carried out by the film’s agents (or “actants”) and organised so as to form a unified whole. An example is chase films, which join chasers and chased in a unified narrative program, even if each one of the “actants” follows its own “program” (according to the formula “chasers-who-chase + chased-who-try-to-escape = the chase”). Here we borrow Greimas and Courtès’ term “actant”. Greimas and Courtès describe actants as “beings or things that participate in processes in any form whatsoever, be it only a walk-on part and in the most passive way”. See Greimas and Courtès, op. cit., p. 5. For the sake of simplicity, we will henceforth use the term actant to refer to a person, group, animal or inanimate object. 21. “... true alternation ... establishes a narrative ‘doubling’ in the film ...” Christian Metz (1974), op. cit., p. 164. 22. Throughout film history, filmmakers have got around this difficulty through the use of various strategies, including: 1) the joint presence of simultaneous actions in the same field of vision (the wide screen or shooting in depth); 2) the joint presence of simultaneous actions in the same frame (superimposition, split screen, etc.); 3) the presentation in sequence of simultaneous actions (actions which are presented as occurring simultaneously, with the second of these actions to be shown appearing on the screen only after the first); and 4) montage alterné of simultaneous actions. On this point see André Gaudreault and François Jost, Le récit cinématographique (Paris: Nathan, 1990), pp. 113–116. 23. This figure was arrived at by consulting volumes one and two of The Griffith Project. Paolo Cherchi Usai (ed.), The Griffith Project. Volume 1, Films Produced 1907–08 (London: BFI Publishing, 2000) and The Griffith Project: Volume 2, Films Produced January–June 1909 (London: BFI Publishing, 2000). 24. See the filmography appended to the present article. At the present stage in our research, we have been unable to examine every one of the 116 Griffith films. A few rare examples may have eluded us. We will catch up with these films later in our research. 25. There are a few examples in early cinema of last-minute rescue films that do not employ crosscutting, but we will not discuss them here. 26. The three rescue films in the first group are The Greaser’s Gauntlet (August 1908); The Fatal Hour (August 1908); and The Guerrilla (November 1908). We have excluded from the group the film Behind the Scenes (September 1908), even though its story is similar to a last-minute rescue. We will return to this film below. 27. The eight rescue films in the second group are The Honor of Thieves (January 1908); The Cord of Life (January 1909); The Golden Louis (February 1909); At the Altar (February 1909); The Prussian Spy (March 1909); The Medicine Bottle (March 1909); The Drive for a Life (April 1909); and The Lonely Villa (June 1909). 28. Here we have adopted, with slight modifications, the definition of the last-minute rescue proposed some time ago by one of the authors of the present article. See André Gaudreault, “Temporality and Narrative in Early Cinema (1895–1908)”, in John Fell (ed.), Film Before Griffith (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), pp. 311–329. 29. The spatial relation between two actants is considered to be one of distal disjunction when the two spaces they occupy are distant from each other (and unable to speak to each other without the aid of amplification or communication media) and to be one of proximal disjunction when these two spaces are nearby each other (but not contiguous). The spatial relation is one of contiguity when the two spatial segments abut one another. For a more in-depth discussion of the spatial relations involved in contiguity and proximal and distal disjunction, see André Gaudreault and François Jost, op. cit., pp. 90–98.

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30. Thus some titles that are repeatedly cited as early examples of crosscutting were not admitted into our corpus. We will outline the reasons for these exclusions below. 31. At least in the corpus of films produced before the last film of those under discussion here, The Lonely Villa (mid-May 1909). 32. And made just a few months before Griffith began directing films in mid-June 1908. 33. The alternation can be summarised as follows: A (shot 11), B (shot 12), C (shots 13 and 14), B (shot 15), A (shot 16). Note that the underlying structure of this sequence, if we ignore for the moment series C, is of the sort A-B-B-A, which does not correspond exactly to the orthodox crosscutting structure A-B-A-B. In addition, if we were to join the two occurrences of series B, we could theoretically reduce this A-B-B-A structure to a simple A-B-A structure, and the sequence would contain no crosscutting. The irruption of a third series between these two occurrences of series B is why we disregard this “infraction” of the norm and consider this sequence to be crosscutting. 34. In our numbering of the shots, we have followed Bernard Perron’s shot analysis of the film. See Bernard Perron, “Scène/hors-scène. L’alternance dans Le Médecin du château (1908)”, in Michel Marie and Laurent Le Forestier (eds), La firme Pathé Frères 1896–1914 (Paris: Association française de recherche sur l’histoire du cinéma, 2004), pp. 165–176. 35. André Gaudreault and Frank Kessler, “L’acteur comme opérateur de continuité, ou: les aventures du corps mis en cadre, mis en scène et mis en chaîne”, in Laura Vichi (ed.), The Visible Man: Film actor from Early Cinema to the eve of modern cinema (Udine: Forum, 2002), pp. 23–32. 36. For similar reasons, we have also excluded from our corpus the following films, whose structure, in each case, does not meet the minimum requirements to refer to it as an example of crosscutting: Attack on a China Mission (1901, Williamson & Co.); Burglary by Night (Dévaliseurs nocturnes, {December} 1904, Pathé); The Kleptomaniac (February 1905, Edison); The Watermelon Patch (October 1905, Edison); The Cripple and the Cyclist (Le Cul-de-jatte et le cycliste, 1906, producer unknown); Dogs Used as Smugglers (Les Chiens contrebandiers, {July} 1906, Pathé); Drunken Mattress (Le Matelas épileptique, {December} 1906, Gaumont); Artful Husband (Ruse de mari, {February} 1907, Pathé); Dog Police (Les Chiens policiers, {May} 1907, Pathé); The Boy, the Bust and the Bath (August 1907, Vitagraph); Trainer’s Daughter, or a Race for Love (November 1907, Edison); The Elopement (December 1907, Biograph); Her First Adventure (March 1908, Biograph); and Old Isaacs, the Pawnbroker (March 1908, Biograph). The following films appear to have a similar structure, based on the detailed descriptions we have found of them (we have been unable to screen them, however, to confirm this): {The Detective} (Le Détective, {April} 1906, Pathé); Mephisto’s Son (Le Fils du diable à Paris, {June} 1906, Pathé); Little Blind Girl (La Petite Aveugle, {November} 1906, Pathé); Distress (École du malheur, {March} 1907, Pathé); A Slave’s Love (Amour d’esclave, {May} 1907, Pathé); A Hooligan Idea (Idée d’apache, {May} 1907, Pathé); Diabolo (Le Diabolo, {July} 1907, Pathé); and Tommy in Society ({October} 1907, Pathé). We will have to return to all of these films in a later stage of the present study. 37. Our shot analysis of this film includes intertitles (including the title card) in its numbering of the shots and is based on the copy held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. 38. This distinction is based on the actor/narrator dichotomy established by one of the authors of the present article. See André Gaudreault, Du littéraire au filmique. Système du récit (Paris and Quebec City: Armand Colin and Nota Bene, 1999 [1988]). An English translation of this volume will be published in early 2009 by the University of Toronto Press under the title From Plato to Lumière: Narration and Monstration in Literature and Cinema. 39. This film is classified as a “scène dramatique” in the Pathé catalogue. See Henri Bousquet, Pathé Frères: les films de la production Pathé, Vol. 1 (1896–1906) (Bures-sur-Yvette: Henri Bousquet, 1996), p. 924.

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40. Our shot analysis of this film includes intertitles (including the title card) in its numbering of the shots and is based on the copy held at the Centre national de la cinématographie in France. 41. The expression “scènes comiques” also comes from the Pathé catalogue. See Henri Bousquet, op. cit. 42. Our shot analysis of this film includes intertitles (including the title card) in its numbering of the shots and is based on the copy held at the Cinémathèque Royale in Belgium. 43. Eileen Bowser, “Le coup de téléphone dans les films des premiers temps”, in Pierre Guibbert (ed.), Les premiers ans du cinéma français (Perpignan: Institut Jean Vigo, 1985), p. 220. 44. Our shot analysis of this film includes intertitles (including the title card) in its numbering of the shots and is based on a print in the series More from the Enchanted Studio distributed by Blackhawk Films in 1976, which the Cineteca del Friuli in Gemona, Italy, kindly allowed us to consult. 45. The alternation takes the following form: A (shot 4), B (shot 5), A (shot 6), B (shot 7), A (shot 8), B (shot 9), A (shot 10), B (shot 11), A (shot 12), B (shot 13), A (shot 14), B (shot 15) and A (shot 16). Our shot analysis of this film includes intertitles (including the title card) in its numbering of the shots and is based on a video copy of unknown origin held by GRAFICS, which, according to our inquiries, probably came from the Danish Film Institute. 46. The alternation takes the following form: A (shots 14-15-16), B (shots 17-18-19), A (shots 20–21), B (shot 22). Our shot analysis of this film includes intertitles (including the title card) in its numbering of the shots and is based on the copy held at the British Film Institute in London. 47. This hypothesis was recently put forward by André Gaudreault in “Les vues cinématographiques selon Pathé, ou: comment la cinématographie embraye sur un nouveau paradigme”, in Michel Marie (ed.), La firme Pathé Frères (1896–1914) (Paris: Association française de recherche sur l’histoire du cinéma, 2004), pp. 237–246. 48. Our shot analysis of this film includes intertitles (including the title card) in its numbering of the shots and is based on the copy held at the Centre national de la cinématographie in France. 49. Our shot analysis of this film includes intertitles (including the title card) in its numbering of the shots and is based on the copy held at the Centre national de la cinématographie in France. 50. Eileen Bowser, The Transformation of Cinema, 1907–1915 (New York: Scribner’s, 1990), pp. 60–61. See also, by the same author, the article “Toward Narrative, 1907: The Mill Girl”, in John. L. Fell (ed.), Film Before Griffith (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), pp. 31–43. 51. The alternation takes the following form: A (shot 13), B (shot 14), A (shot 15), B (shot 16), A (shot 17) and B (shot 18). Our shot analysis of this film includes intertitles (including the title card) in its numbering of the shots and is based on the copy held at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. 52. The copy we screened is that held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. 53. For more information about this singular film, see in particular Martin Sopocy, James Williamson: Studies and Documents of a Pioneer of the Film Narrative (London and Madison: Associated University Presses and Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1998), pp. 300–302; Ron Mottram, “The Great Northern Film Company: Nordisk Film in the American Motion Picture Market”, Film History, vol. 2, no. 1 (1988), pp. 71–86; Eileen Bowser (1983), op. cit., pp. 31–43; Marguerite Engberg, Registrant over Danske Film, 1896–1914 (Copenhagen: Institut for Filmvidenskab, 1977); and André Gaudreault, “Detours in Film Narrative: The Development of Cross-Cutting” [1979], in Thomas Elsaesser (ed.), with Adam Barker, Early Cinema: Space, Frame, Narrative (London: BFI Publishing, 1990), pp. 133–150. 54. Henri Bousquet, Catalogue Pathé des années 1896 à 1914, Vol. 1 (1896–1906) (Bures-sur-Yvette: Henri Bousquet, 1996) and Catalogue Pathé des années 1896 à 1914, Vol. 2 (1907–1909) (Buressur-Yvette: Henri Bousquet, 1993). 55. The American Film Institute Catalog Silent Film Database can be consulted online at .

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56. We use brace brackets to indicate any imprecision or approximation in the data we provide (free translations of film titles, approximate release dates, etc.). We believe that brace brackets are preferable to square brackets or parentheses because they are little used in most writing, thereby reducing the risk of confusion on the part of the reader. 57. We were unable to find an English title for the film Un parieur pris pour un fou, which we have freely translated as {A Bettor Taken for a Madman}. 58. Paolo Cherchi Usai (ed.), The Griffith Project: Volume 1, Films Produced 1907–08 (London: BFI Publishing, 2000) and The Griffith Project: Volume 2, Films Produced January–June 1909 (London: BFI Publishing, 2000).

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5. OUT ON LOCATION: D.W. GRIFFITH AND FORT LEE In 1925, with his career just past its peak and the successes of his early days still fresh in memory, Linda Arvidson (writing as “Mrs. D.W. Griffith”) published an extraordinary memoir of the time she spent living and working with the great director. Although only a dozen years had passed since Griffith had stopped making films for the Biograph Company, this ancient history had already taken on the aspect of legend. When the Movies Were Young contributed its share to the growing Griffith mythology, but the intimacy of their relationship still gives Arvidson’s memoir a level of authenticity unavailable to other critics or commentators. Whatever the problems of their own relationship, she remained well positioned to record the most personal aspects of her husband’s daily struggle to make something of this motion-picture business. When the workday was over, just what was it that still occupied Griffith’s attention? What part of this job could he let go of, and what problems did he continue to obsess over? As she remembered it, there was only one thing that her husband was “always overly fastidious” about.1 It was not story material, although her book frequently underscores his search for appropriate and compelling material. And it was not performance style, either, although those pages are packed with anecdotes about Griffith’s discovery and development of many silent-screen favorites. Camera work? Décor? Editing? Important, certainly, but never seen here as an obsessive focus for the great director’s attention. No, the only issue that seems to have elicited this level of concern was something that other analysts have almost never cited: discovering the problems and benefits of filming a motion picture on location. Working away from the studio? Like its main local rivals, Edison and Vitagraph, the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company was engaged in an industrial competition involving a wide variety of patentable technologies. Biograph may be better known today for its projector and its camera, but its most sophisticated piece of technology was probably its famous studio at 11 East 14th Street, said to have been the first motion-picture studio in the United States lit entirely by artificial light. Rival producers preferred the “daylight studio” (something resembling a greenhouse) to the “dark studio” created by Biograph, but the facility that Griffith inherited in 1908 was a technological wonder that allowed him to ignore the vagaries of sunlight entirely. If he wished, he could have worked there just as efficiently at midnight, in a thunderstorm, or throughout a dismal and overcast New York winter. But for all his technical interests and accomplishments, Griffith was never very happy shooting in artificial light. As late as 1920 (when other producers were painting over the glass roofs of their greenhouse studios), he built a great open-air stage for himself at Mamaroneck, New York, ignoring the chill winds blowing in from Long Island Sound. Back at Biograph, where the sophisticated “dark studio” must have been designed to save time by increasing production efficiency, Griffith appears to have used any excuse to run outside and film in the open air. Biograph’s camera department records include a separate column listing each film’s “location”, the site where the bulk of the filming had taken place. Oddly enough, “studio” was itself indicted as one of these locations, just like Sound Beach, Shadyside, or Little Falls. Of course, any location he selected allowed Griffith certain possibilities and excluded others, and to film on 14th Street was a decision with its own set of pros and cons (in that case, a tradeoff between adequate elbow room and better control of mise-en-scène). The same sort of compromises applied to a decision to film in Coytesville, Edgewater, or Fort Lee, New Jersey. 48

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Today we can see that Griffith developed one style of organizing and manipulating space when he worked in the studio, but employed a different style when shooting at one of his other “locations”. His peers certainly did the same thing. But did each of his exterior choices offer him the same benefits? Was every field, farmhouse, or set of railroad tracks pretty much the same? An old Hollywood adage suggests they usually are. “A tree is a tree, a rock is a rock”, the saying goes. The line was even appropriated by King Vidor for the title of his autobiography. But Vidor was attacking this attitude, not validating it. That was the way bureaucrats thought, not film artists like Vidor and his role model, D.W. Griffith. Fortunately, we have a great deal of information about Griffith’s choice of location during his Biograph period, especially through 1911 when the camera department records suddenly stop. The studio was conveniently located near most of the city’s bridges and rapid transit lines, and expeditions could just as easily have been sent east (to Brooklyn), south (to Staten Island), north (to Westchester and the Bronx), or west (to New Jersey). Biograph crews could have gone off in any direction, seeking fresh views and uncrowded locations, but studio records indicate that they did not. Unlike his local rivals, the Biograph director almost never shot in Brooklyn, Staten Island, or the Bronx. Griffith preferred to go west. The memoirs of Griffith’s early associates – Linda Arvidson, Lionel Barrymore, Billy Bitzer, Gene Gauntier, Lillian Gish – have comparatively little to say about their studio routine, but lots of juicy anecdotes about location work. Many of these stories deal with summertime junkets to Cuddebackville, New York, where the company could avoid the heat and humidity of the city while filming Westerns and country romances up near the Delaware and Hudson Canal in Orange County. But a trip to Cuddebackville was basically a working vacation, a junket that sometimes involved twenty-five people making several different films over a period of as long as two weeks. Day trips to nearby locations were far more common, however, and because the project at hand was always more focused, each of Griffith’s favorite locations had to have something specific to offer. There were several trips to Westfield, New Jersey, for example. The town was near the Watchung Mountains and easily accessible by rail. A good location for An Arcadian Maid or The Song of the Wildwood Flute, but Griffith would shoot only a few films there. Atlantic Highlands and the area near Sandy Hook were fine for sea stories like After Many Years or Lines of White on a Sullen Sea, but not much else. The Passaic River area near Paterson and Little Falls offered forested riverbank, while Hoboken was a busy commuter port with its own ferry terminal. Griffith shot in towns like these (all of them close to rail or ferry stations) when he needed a specific location effect. Yes, at times he might even turn eastward, especially if he needed the type of farm that could only be found in Connecticut, or Jamaica, Long Island. But as a default filming location, the company would generally travel to Fort Lee, New Jersey. FINDING FORT LEE

Perched on a towering palisade, Fort Lee was a Revolutionary War settlement on the western shore of the Hudson, a river now spanned (since 1931) by the George Washington Bridge. Relatively close to the big city, at least on paper, the area had until recently been shielded from commercial development by the huge stone outcropping that was its most dominant feature. But trolley lines reached there in the 1890s, when Palisade Park was constructed at the southern end of Fort Lee.2 By the end of the nineteenth century, tourism was already a significant local industry, and the small town was dotted with more than its share of inns, taverns, hotels, stables, and saloons. Many private properties were already geared to seasonal rentals, like the stately Victorian at the corner of Hammett Avenue which the Maurice Barrymore family occupied each summer. Local residents understood the needs of visitors like 49

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these, and were not averse to leasing out their horses, their homes, or anything else that might catch a New Yorker’s interest. In 1907 Gene Gauntier and Sidney Olcott discovered Coytesville, the unincorporated northern sector of Fort Lee. Gauntier, a key figure in the local Kalem operation, saw it as a time capsule, “the same sleepy village it had been for a hundred years, with winding dirt roads and clapboard houses nestling among rose and lilac bushes, an ideal background for pictures”. She was particularly taken with Rambo’s Hotel, a modest roadhouse on First Street only blocks from the Coytesville trolley terminus. Rambo’s could provide food, dressing rooms, and horses, and stand in when needed as a generic western or “Civil War” structure. Proud of her discovery, she later claimed that “hundreds” of films had been shot at Rambo’s by Kalem and the many rival companies which followed.3 Indeed, as Paul Spehr has pointed out, by September 1912 there could be as many as seven or eight companies filming in Fort Lee each day, Biograph and Reliance once even working different sides of the same fence simultaneously.4 But if Fort Lee quickly became crowded with visiting filmmakers, Gene Gauntier herself deserved much of the credit. According to Linda Arvidson, it was Gauntier, working as Biograph’s combination scenarist and “location woman”, who first led the company to the area in 1908.5 At that time there were two basic ways of getting from downtown Manhattan to downtown Fort Lee – both routes designed to feed visitors into Palisade Amusement Park as quickly as possible. A traveler could take the 42nd Street ferry to the West Shore terminal at Weehawken in Hudson County. From here the Palisade Line would take him north into Bergen County, through Fairview, Cliffside Park, Fort Lee, and Coytesville. This was a long way to travel by streetcar. As late as 1911 The New York Times reported an attempted Great Train Robbery-style holdup on the Palisade Line, just as the car entered the lonely stretch of woods opposite Palisades Park. “Every little hamlet between Fort Lee and Hoboken” was alerted, posses were formed, and the woods soon filled with armed men totting shotguns and revolvers.6 A faster route depended on the ability of the new subway system (opened in 1904) to carry passengers rapidly up the west side of Manhattan to the 130th Street ferry terminal.7 This boat crossed directly to the village of Edgewater at the foot of the Palisades. The Edgewater district had once been home to a number of elegant Victorian resort hotels, but by the late nineteenth century the area had become heavily industrialized. The cliffs had been ravaged by a quarrying operation, while the southern end of Edgewater, an especially brutal landscape filled with oil tanks and chemical factories, was inappropriately known as Shadyside. Arvidson hated Shadyside, “never a tree, a spot of green grass, or a clinging vine; only sand, rocks, and quarries from which the baked heat oozed unmercifully”.8 During the period Griffith worked here, fires, explosions, and fatal industrial accidents were not uncommon. Toxic and carcinogenic pollutants poisoned the landscape and were carried by the winds across the river to New York, assaulting the residents of luxurious Riverside Drive. “Malodorous and corrosive fumes from the Shadyside/Edgewater industries plagued Manhattan for years”, notes historian Robert J. Baptiste.9 But this was probably the closest “rugged” location available to any New York producer, and Biograph shot films like The Greaser’s Gauntlet and The Renunciation here.10 To get above this wasteland, the Fort Lee Line left the Edgewater terminal and began a hair-raising climb up the Palisades. It emerged just above Palisade Amusement Park, turned north onto Palisades Avenue and then west along Fort Lee’s Main Street towards Leonia.11 This was all right for commuters and tourists, but to move a large film unit in this manner was clearly impractical. Already one of the nation’s leading producers, Biograph would often have the heavy trunks loaded with costumes and camera equipment trucked ahead in the early hours of the morning by their own driver, “Hughie”, whose slower route would even50

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tually intersect with the rest of the personnel in Fort Lee. Of course, there is also plenty of evidence, ranging from the joint memoir of film pioneers Fred Balshofer and Arthur Miller to the Buckbee Detective Agency reports collected by the Motion Picture Patents Company, to suggest that many of the smaller companies did cross the Hudson as lightly provisioned as if they were off on a picnic.12 After arriving in Edgewater, the more established film crews were met by one or more chartered wagons, frequently under the direction of local resident Dick Brown (remembered by Linda Arvidson as “old man Brown”). Brown and his son would take visitors around the area by wagon, serving as both trucker and guide. According to a 1931 New York Times report, Brown and his horse Jupiter were the first locals to bring filmmakers to Fort Lee. He claimed to have deposited the first group in front of Norman Coyle’s saloon at the corner of William and Main Streets, adjacent to the (still standing) Bethany Methodist Episcopal Church. “Norman,” he said, “here are some laddie-bucks who want a saloon and a church in proximity. You are fairly next to a church, so here they are.”13 Not losing a beat, Coyle immediately sent someone off for the key to the church. In her history of Fort Lee, Lucille Bertram reports that this congregation had “disbanded” between 1889 and 1904, which suggests that access to the empty building might readily have been available, for a price.14 Brown’s story also reminds us that these local scouts would have had considerable power in steering filmmakers to one hotel or another, a strategy they would already have developed while handling tourists. FIRST STOP, COYTESVILLE

Biograph records indicating a location in Fort Lee, Edgewater, Shadyside, Palisade, Coytesville, Englewood, or Leonia are all referring to the same general district, a handful of Bergen County communities serviced by the Edgewater ferry line. Eventually the whole area was generically thought of as “Fort Lee” by visiting filmmakers – not because all the filming took place there, but because the hotels they needed to operate from were usually Fort Lee hotels. But even within this small community, people like Griffith needed to decide which end of town they preferred: the more rustic Coytesville area “discovered” by Gene Gauntier, or the Main Street district with its churches and saloons, promoted by guides like Dick Brown. The two sectors were nearly a mile apart, separated by a swath of undeveloped forest into which most local streets simply dead-ended. If you had only one or two days to shoot your film, you did not want to waste precious time dragging your camera and crew up and down Linwood Avenue or Hudson Terrace in order to get from one end of town to the other. The memoirs of Gene Gauntier or Linda Arvidson would lead us to think that Rambo’s was pretty much the only place to settle in, and fail to mention any other local hotel by name. Even Lionel Barrymore remembered “having most of our meals at a restaurant which I believe was called Rambeau’s.”15 But while Rambo’s was obviously a favorite local hangout for the visiting Biograph company, it would only have been a convenient base for those “sleepy village with winding dirt roads” films prized by Gene Gauntier. Films of a less rustic character would have to be shot elsewhere. So what exactly was it that Griffith found so useful about the northern end of Fort Lee? The Rambo building itself may have been heavily utilized by visiting filmmakers as a western saloon, stage depot, sheriff’s office, or generic country store, as various memoirs suggest. But this seems to have been a strike against it, at least as far as Griffith was concerned. In examining a large (but not complete) number of his Fort Lee productions, I have never seen an obvious use of the Rambo building. Rambo’s was Griffith’s headquarters, not his location, and he appears to have avoided this overexposed landmark whenever possible. There were plenty of other old frame houses within walking distance. Biograph’s second-tier directors may not have been so choosy. In August of 1912, just after leaving Biograph for 51

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The Coytesville area of Fort Lee, New Jersey (from the 1911 Sanborn map). The large empty area is the top of Hammett’s Hill, the location of The Battle and the site of the permanent sets constructed by Biograph in 1911 and 1912. The building shown at the corner of this property was known as the “Maurice Barrymore House”; the actor and his family spent summers here at the turn of the century. Rambo’s is represented by the three buildings (house, saloon, and stables) shown on 1st Street near the printed word “1st”. The property extended back to Hammett Avenue and included two additional barns or stables. The streetcar right of way that bisects the area marks the Palisade Line, which began at the ferry terminal in Weehawken. It would have been convenient for both tourists and filmmakers coming from Manhattan. St. Steven’s Episcopal Church, featured in The New York Hat, is at the intersection of Washington Avenue and 5th Street. The Champion Studio, one block north at the end of 5th Street, is identified as “Buffalo Moving Picture Co.”

Keystone, Mack Sennett shot The Grocery Clerk’s Romance at Rambo’s with a team of exBiograph actors: Ford Sterling, Fred Mace, and possibly even Mabel Normand.16 This is a simple split-reel comedy, probably shot in a single day, which echoes the films Sennett had been making for Biograph for over a year (especially An Interrupted Elopement and He Must Have a Wife, which Sennett, Sterling, and Normand had completed only a few weeks earlier). Before arriving in Los Angeles on 28 August Sennett would make a handful of Keystone comedies on the East Coast, and he had no time for flourishes. There are no interiors. Sennett uses the front, side, and back yards of Rambo’s as his location, as well as the street in front of it and, most likely, the plot of empty land behind. Perhaps the film had already been planned before Sennett and his actors jumped ship. Of course, it might have been embarrassing to run into the rest of the Biograph crew at lunch under the Rambo grape arbor, but Griffith’s unit seems to have spent most of August at more distant New Jersey locations, returning to Fort Lee only to make The Painted Lady. And that was shot at the other end of town. If Griffith had so little use for Rambo’s as a working location, then what was he doing there? Why the long trip across the river, up the Palisades, and into the woods? Why not go back to Westfield or Little Falls, not to mention Brooklyn or the Bronx? And why pick a spot that other filmmakers had already been working over since at least 1907? Linda Arvidson suggests an answer when she talks about working in another small New Jersey town, Atlantic 52

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Highlands. The experience was a nightmare. A film crew was a freak attraction which drew crowds that needed to be held back with ropes. Obnoxious idlers would laugh and make annoying remarks in the middle of a scene, especially a love scene. “We felt like monkeys in a zoo”, Arvidson recalled. Griffith was even more annoyed, humiliated that the company was “doing our work in the street, like ditch diggers”.17 But things were different in Fort Lee. Thanks to people like Gene Gauntier, the residents had already shifted from a tourist economy to a filmmaking economy. They knew the drill, and were less likely to line up as hecklers than as extras. Fred Balshofer’s New York Motion Picture Company came here to work in 1909 because “the people in Fort Lee were accustomed to the movie companies using their homes (for a small fee, of course)”. His cameraman, Arthur Miller, had the same recollection. “Any morning the sun shone there would be extras waiting at Rambo’s hoping to be chosen by one of the different companies that came to Coytesville.”18 By the end of that year even readers of The New York Times knew what was going on here: The fields and woods about historic Fort Lee, just above the Hudson, are the scene nowadays of a continuous performance of extremely animated theatricals…. The native population has become accustomed to bands of Indians yelling and dashing about the roads and bypaths, to troops landing on the river bank, and every variety of battle, murder, and sudden death at their very doors.19

The first permanent studio in the area, Champion, would open a few months later just four blocks from Rambo’s.20 The woods above Fort Lee were now swarming with filmmakers, both licensed (Biograph, Pathé) and independent (Champion, IMP). Detectives hired by the Motion Picture Patents Company had their hands full trying to decide who was who. It was true that many of these companies were bumping into one another, but for someone like Griffith it was even more important that the locals were “accustomed” to what he was doing: not just willing to rent him a team of horses, but savvy enough to keep out of his way while he was trying to work. It is hard to pinpoint specific locations for Griffith’s Coytesville films. He generally avoided the few relatively modern public buildings in the district, which included three churches, a school, a firehouse, three other hotels, and Boyle’s Casino (which offered dancing and bowling, but no alcohol). The one obvious exception is the prominent use of St. Steven’s Episcopal Church in The New York Hat, a modern story. But many of the Coytesville subjects were Civil War pictures, and these could take advantage of the large stock of anonymous Victorian homes that dotted this lightly populated district. It was in Coytesville that Griffith first investigated the issues that would obsess him about this war, in films like The Guerilla, The House with Closed Shutters, Swords and Hearts, and most notably, The Battle.21 The Battle was shot on 8 and 9 September 1911 on a large piece of undeveloped property in the northwest corner of Coytesville known locally as Hammett’s Hill. Although the neighborhood is heavily built up today, it is still possible to get a sense of the topography if you drive west along Myrtle Avenue as it suddenly drops down toward Jones Road at the foot of the hill (an intersection now bisected by State Highway No. 4). The back end of Rambo’s property extended to Hammett Avenue, which bordered this acreage, so the actors could walk directly from an upstairs dressing room right onto the “location”. This was a tremendous convenience, and probably explains why the Biograph company patronized this rather dumpy roadhouse (described on the Sanborn insurance maps simply as a “saloon”) rather than one of the larger and better equipped hotels nearby.22 And the hill itself was more than just an interesting landscape, but a useful piece of visual punctuation that allowed Griffith 53

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to film long shots while blocking unwanted background action in the distance. He could also have Bitzer set up his camera on top of the hill and look down at the action, always one of his favorite angles, but one more frequently seen in his California pictures. While the locals may have been accustomed to the usual antics of visiting filmmakers, production of The Battle was far more elaborate, requiring not just an occasional horse or wagon, but massed formations of costumed extras firing antique weapons. Was Lionel Barrymore one of these extras? Although he does not appear again at Biograph for almost a year, several sources identify him here as a wagon driver. It would be tempting to have Barrymore working a bit part on this film, especially because the Maurice Barrymore home, which he may have frequented in his younger days, was the only private dwelling located on the vast Hammett’s Hill property. Unfortunately, Barrymore never mentions this film in his autobiography, and instead indicates that on 11 September his new vaudeville skit, an adaptation of Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s The Rivals, opened in Brooklyn. Under the circumstances, it seems unlikely to me that he would have been driving wagons around New Jersey forty-eight hours earlier.23 But a reporter for one local paper, The Palisadian, did show up, and left what must be the earliest description of D.W. Griffith at work. “The director of the moving picture forces” was perched on a tree stump, reminding his extras that “the same fellows who ‘died’ yesterday must ‘die’ today”, berating them for not putting “more life in it”, and mocking his star for the listless way he surveyed a pile of corpses. “Here, Charlie West! You’re walking like an old woman! Get out of that, will you!”24 Robert Henderson reproduces a 23 August 1911 postcard sent by Billy Bitzer to George V. Predmore, owner of the inn that Biograph patronized at Cuddebackville, New York.25 “We are going to do a big war picture at Fort Lee this week. Then an easy one and then Cuddebackville.” There are some interesting things in this note. First, we know that The Battle was not shot until 8 and 9 September, later than Bitzer expected, and so the “easy one”, probably The Long Road, had to be moved up at the last minute instead. Bitzer also told Predmore he would “be up with the Indians in a couple of weeks”, but Biograph records indicate that the subsequent Indian picture, Love in the Hills, was shot at Suffern, New York, much closer to the studio. In fact, Griffith never returned to Cuddebackville, and instead worked in the Fort Lee area almost exclusively through the end of 1911. As Ben Brewster and Russell Merritt have pointed out, Biograph even constructed a standing Western set in Coytesville in the autumn of 1911, a large frontier stockade that appeared in at least two films shot in November.26 According to the Biograph Bulletin, the protagonists of A Tale of the Wilderness (now lost) “view from a distance the approach of a party of settlers”, the sort of high-angle perspective that might advantageously be shot from the top of Hammett’s Hill. Similar angles appear in Billy’s Stratagem, a film which takes further advantage of the old set by blowing it up. Merritt also suggests that an interior setting for the latter film was built on an open-air stage, and not back at the studio as is usually assumed. The clue here is the use of fire, an effect which would never have been attempted inside the brownstone studio on 14th Street. But we should remember that Griffith frequently built settings like this on location. “We had to develop a large crew who built outdoor stage sets on wooden platforms”, Bitzer recalled in his memoir, still grumbling about the added workload imposed by his new director.27 We know that rival producers regularly built such outdoor interiors, and that Griffith had been working on open-air stages at Biograph’s Los Angeles “studio” since his first trip there in 1910. Several years later, when he made such elaborate features as The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance, he still seems to have preferred sunlight to studio lamps. There is a general impression among today’s historians that only small-time operators who lacked their own fully equipped studios (Balshofer and Laemmle, for example) 54

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would be stuck using open-air interiors. But Griffith does not appear to have shared this prejudice, and I suspect that more of his East Coast “interiors” were filmed outdoors than historians have allowed. Demonstrating this, unfortunately, is rather hard to do – unless the set is being burned down.28 But if Griffith did move freely from studio-made interiors to location-built interiors, any theory that links his articulation of interior space to the specific confines of the 14th Street studio may need to be re-examined. After spending the winter of 1912 in California, Griffith returned to Fort Lee with more “Hollywood” notions, including the construction of a permanent Western town setting on the Hammett’s Hill property. Russell Merritt suggests a range of titles shot on this Coytesville backlot in the summer and fall of 1912, including Friends; Heredity; An Adventure in the Autumn Woods; In the North Woods; and The Chief’s Blanket (the last two directed by Wilfred Lucas).29 Films like this would previously have required a location trip of some duration to Cuddebackville, but no more. By this point, Griffith was treating all of Fort Lee as his personal back lot: Westerns, Civil War pictures, and “ranch” exteriors at Coytesville; modern stories – whether city or country – around Main Street. This meant that in September 1912 he could move from one genre (Heredity) to another (The Musketeers of Pig Alley) simply by changing hotels. MAIN STREET MOVIES

Thanks to the cooperation of Fort Lee’s Historical Society, Public Library, and Film Commission, I was able to consult many period maps and photographs documenting the town during the years Griffith worked here. Because he was not trying to disguise the downtown area as the old South or the Wild West, it is easier to identify his use of specific homes, storefronts, saloons, hotels, and other local landmarks here than up in Coytesville. “New Jersey scenery” was already a slur in the pages of The Moving Picture World as early as 1910, and Griffith appears to have shied away from the use of overly familiar locations like Rambo’s for just this reason. Yet he had no trouble shooting exteriors for one hundred films in and around Fort Lee between 1908 and 1912, a regimen which should have quickly exhausted the local scenic potential. Gene Gauntier prized Coytesville as a “background for pictures”, where you could always find something interesting at which to point the camera. Griffith saw something else. He was not concerned with documenting the life of Fort Lee, but in using Fort Lee as the raw material out of which a hundred different locations might be imagined. This is why Griffith tends to avoid the use of any specifically recognizable landmark. For example, on 26 September 1908, 20,000 people attended the unveiling of Fort Lee’s Revolutionary War Monument on Palisades Avenue, while a battleship fired salvos in the Hudson. It was in all the papers. Four months later the statue appeared very prominently in The Cord of Life, but once was apparently enough and Griffith seems to have never used it again. The best-known local attraction, Palisade Amusement Park, was purchased in 1910 by future movie moguls Joseph and Nicholas Schenck. The park unveiled its first great roller coaster that same year, and eventually tried to offer everything one could find at Coney Island (artificial surf was generated in an enormous salt water pool). But you would never know this from looking at Griffith’s Biograph films. He occasionally makes use of some of the park’s natural scenery – the hero is mugged on one of its wooded pathways in The Cord of Life, and the ice-cream social in The Painted Lady is held here – but there is never a glimpse of any specifically identifiable attraction.30 In a way, Griffith was trying to undocument Fort Lee, to turn a real place into an anonymous “Everytown”. This makes the search for specific filming locations a bit of a challenge, because Griffith employs creative geography to rearrange the landscape of the town and even the situation of individual buildings. But a surprising number of these locations can still be 55

T H E G R I F F I T H P R O J E C T : V O L U M E 12 This is a composite image created from two frames of a panning shot in The Lonely Villa. The Bigler Hotel is at the left. The road going off into the distance is Bigler Street, which merged with Hudson Terrace before going directly through the woods to Coytesville. The “gypsy camp” in the film occupied a vacant lot just across the street to the right. Montage Courtesy of Blue Point Graphics

This frame enlargement from The Curtain Pole (1908) shows a rare long shot of Ferrando’s Flats taken from Eichoff Street. The two adjacent buildings seen on the 1911 map have not yet been built. Courtesy of Pat Loughney

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identified, not with the help of memoirs or newspaper accounts, but through a detailed examination of such visual clues as the decorative architectural elements found on the various saloons, storefronts, and private homes that the residents of Fort Lee made available to him. The elaborately filigreed pediment and peculiar porch railings of the Guntzer House, for example, an idiosyncratic masterpiece of the “carpenter gothic” style, make it easy to identify as Griffith’s Lonely Villa. But as we will see, even the mundane storefronts on Main Street can be differentiated by a close look at the construction of their doorways and window bays. Even if Griffith had been interested in finding 100 different places to shoot these films, he certainly did not have the time. With only a day or two available for location work he needed to be able to shoot quickly and efficiently, paying more attention to logistics and lighting than anything else. The Curtain Pole, for example, shot on 16 and 22 October 1908 contains at least eighteen different camera setups taken on Fort Lee exteriors.31 All the recognizable locations are photographed from the south in order to take advantage of natural lighting, a necessity when working with the slow negative stock and inefficient lenses of the day (the great advantage of working in Biograph’s “dark studio” was that every aspect of the lighting – angle, intensity, color temperature – was under complete control). But because Griffith could not depend on arc lamps and Cooper Hewitts while shooting on location, the position of the sun was a significant factor in determining which sites he was able to photograph, and from what angles.32 While Mack Sennett appears to drive hither and yon in his frantic search for a replacement curtain pole, every identifiable camera position is located within a radius of three or four blocks from the center of Fort Lee’s downtown business district. Although the film shows four or five local hotels or saloons (free advertising?), there are no views of Rambo’s or other Coytesville landmarks, which were a mile away on the other side of town – too far away to bother with, no matter how interesting. This suggests that while working the Main Street neighborhood Griffith and his company must have booked space in a Main Street hotel. Although Rambo’s advertised itself as “Moving Picture Headquarters” in a 1911 Fort Lee banquet program, it had plenty of competition at the other end of town.33 There were quite a few saloons in this area much larger than Rambo’s, and perhaps a dozen better class hotels, at least some of which would have been competing for the business of visiting filmmakers. While it is impossible to say exactly where the company was based when working downtown (those memoirs talk of nothing but Rambo’s), four of the larger hotels seem to have played an especially significant role in the local motion picture industry. As the Palisade Line entered Fort Lee from the south, the first building it passed was Cella’s Park Hotel, a large Victorian structure with an attached dance hall and beer garden, as well as outbuildings housing stables and servants’ quarters. Fred Balshofer made this his first stop when he came to Fort Lee in 1909, and in 1916 Photoplay singled it out as the most important motion-picture hostelry in town.34 But when Old Man Brown trucked Griffith and his company up to Fort Lee from Edgewater, the first hotel they would have passed was Bigler’s, located near the intersection of Main and Bigler Streets. Bigler’s was not directly on Main Street but off at a bit of an angle, allowing a more interesting camera position. There was also a large plot of empty land across to the east, which allowed Griffith to pan from the hotel to a neighboring “gypsy camp” in The Lonely Villa. Three blocks west of Bigler’s was Schlosser’s Fort Lee Club Hotel. Schlosser’s was an important social and political center, and the site of Fort Lee’s municipal council meetings. But it was on the south side of Main Street, and the entrance was further shaded by porches and large trees. Not a good photographic location, but the place to stay if you needed to meet the people who mattered in Fort Lee (Schlosser’s occasionally appears in the Biographs as a distant view down Main Street). About 150 yards west of Schlosser’s, where Main Street turned sharply off to the north57

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west, was Ferrando’s Park Hotel, another large Victorian resort complex. Ferrando’s was set well back from Main Street on a key plot of ground in the center of town. The Palisade Line trolley to Coytesville passed directly to the west, while on the east side of the property was a four-story brick commercial building, known locally as Ferrando’s Flats, which housed two storefronts at street level and apartments above. This remarkable structure would become Griffith’s favorite Fort Lee location, one he would exploit from every conceivable angle during the five-year period he worked there. It was, of course, on the north side of the street. But what was especially useful was the fact that its southern exposure was completely unimpeded: the building stood at the northern end of the T-shaped intersection of Main Street and Eichoff (now called Gerome), and the land on the southeast corner opposite was almost completely vacant. Bitzer could expect direct sunlight here all day long, even as late as November or December.35 In a rare long shot revealing almost the entire building, the Flats can be seen for a moment in The Curtain Pole as Sennett drives down Eichoff Street with the crowd in hot pursuit, the empty lot to its right shielded by a fence plastered with advertising posters. But Griffith preferred to offer this building in bits and pieces, situating it in a creative landscape largely constructed in the editing room. He usually did not want to show audiences that it was standing in isolation, with nothing at all like it anywhere in that part of Fort Lee. In almost every film he takes pains to expose only part of the building, photographing it either from the west (as in The Cord of Life, The Miser’s Heart, The Narrow Road, or The New York Hat), or the east (The Italian Barber, The Musketeers of Pig Alley), never revealing the largely vacant landscape within which it was situated. In The Narrow Road and The Cord of Life, for example, nearly identical camera positions (more than three years apart) show us the windowed store front on the east side of the building, a double doorway entrance at the center, and the curve of Main Street off to the right. If the window awning is down, as in The Miser’s Heart and The Narrow Road, it blocks much of our view and we can see nothing specific about the street in the distance. The town could be anywhere. If it is up, as in The Cord of Life, we can see that there are trees and modest wooden buildings down the street, suggesting a less congested and more suburban environment which makes the hero’s quick walk over to the rugged Palisades far more plausible. That degree of rusticity would have been inappropriate for, say, The Miser’s Heart. And when Griffith wanted a specifically suburban setting, as in The New York Hat, he would place the camera even closer to the window, entirely avoiding the tenement-style building entrance and emphasizing the tree-lined streetscape in the distance. As Russell Merritt puts it, “From city slum to American pastoral with a single repositioning of the camera!”36 Of course, there were only a handful of local buildings that Griffith could easily pass off as an urban structure. He would occasionally make use of the new First National Bank building on the southeast corner of Main Street and Palisades Avenue, a block east of Schlosser’s. An impressive stone structure recognizable by its prominently curved window grates, the bank was next door to a small wooden storefront (302 Main Street) which is just visible in Her Awakening, and more prominently featured in The Miser’s Heart. In the latter film, Eddie Dillon leads the police past this shop while taking them to the building where he saw little Edith Haldeman dangling from a window (Ferrando’s Flats, of course, but more of that later). The use of “south side” locations in Griffith’s Fort Lee films appears to increase after 1910, and seems related to the introduction of reflectors and perhaps a faster film stock or more efficient lens. This would help explain the absence of these locations in such earlier films as The Curtain Pole. Main Street’s wooden storefronts, each constructed individually by local builders, were especially distinctive. Most stores in Fort Lee displayed their goods in bay windows that 58

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projected over the sidewalk by a foot or two, and the carpentry on every window was unique. For example, the windows of 302 Main Street, seen in The Miser’s Heart, might seem at first glance identical to those of the pharmacy used in For His Son. But on closer examination the style of window framing, and especially the pair of consoles (decorative brackets) which support each window, are recognizably different. That pharmacy, by the way, was a real one, Richter’s, located at 210 Main Street.37 Identifying the recurring appearance of windows with identical architectural details turns out to be an excellent way of determining Griffith’s favorite locations, no matter how he tries to disguise them through clever camera angles or set dressing. Although I have not been able to examine all the films, it should be possible, in theory, to identify every use of Ferrando’s Flats by checking the window treatments. But others who also wish to strain their eyes peering at mullions and lintels should be aware of one caveat: in the winter of 1912 the windows were replaced. Films shot here through 1911 show a plain windowsill and rather chunky console. By 1912 the window sill is scored, or fluted, while the console is rounded and more finely turned. One imagines Mack Sennett tossing somebody through it and Biograph having to pay for the replacement! This sort of analysis, or course, requires a freeze-frame capability. Casual viewers, whether in nickelodeons or college classrooms, would never be expected to notice, so Griffith was essentially free to misdirect his audience in creating this artificial landscape. But our ability today to closely examine his use of these locations reveals just how sophisticated Griffith had become in both his understanding of montage and manipulation of mise-en-scène. THE SUNNY SIDE OF THE STREET

The Cord of Life provides an excellent example of the way Griffith used pieces of Ferrando’s Flats to suggest entirely different buildings. The establishing shot, looking east, shows nondescript merchandise in the window of the right-hand storefront and a conventional tenement doorway with people walking in and out. The same camera position is used later when the hero returns to save his daughter. But in the middle of the film we see the Flats shot from another angle, and apparently representing a different building. Griffith puts the camera across the street pointing to the west. Now we see the left side of the building, housing a barbershop, next to an apparently empty one-story building in the middle of the frame, with Ferrando’s Park Hotel visible in the background at the extreme left. The hero (Charles Inslee) is talking to a policeman (Mack Sennett) in front of the small empty building, and they cross Main Street while walking toward the camera. There is no suggestion that the large commercial building on the right had earlier been established as Inslee’s home. Indeed, without extensive photographic analysis it would be impossible to identify these two views of the Flats as the same building, which was exactly Griffith’s intention. The 1908 Sanborn map identifies the business occupying the left-hand storefront as a barbershop, as in the film, while the storefront on the right is described as “vacant”. Having an empty storefront to work with was another advantage for Griffith, and a further reason for him to favor that particular side of the building (which he does consistently through 1912). Biograph actors could block the sidewalk and walk in and out of this doorway as much as they liked. While these maps provide only a snapshot of the town’s commercial activity, the number of vacant storefronts reported in both 1908 and 1911 (the two relevant editions) suggests that there were plenty of empty stores for filmmakers to work with throughout this period. Griffith would use these others as well, if necessary, but he always returned to the Flats – even when, as in 1911, they seem to have housed a “cigar factory”. In both The Cord of Life and The Miser’s Heart a small child dangles perilously from the window of a crowded tenement dwelling. Both films indicate the entrance to this building through an establishing shot of Ferrando’s Flats. But The Cord of Life later shows the endan59

T H E G R I F F I T H P R O J E C T : V O L U M E 12 The downtown area of Fort Lee, New Jersey (from the July 1908 Sanborn map). Ferrando’s Flats, Griffith’s favorite Fort Lee location, dominates the intersection of Main Street and Eichoff Street. Although there are relatively few buildings indicated here, note that four of them are hotels

gered infant against a shingled wooden wall, while The Miser’s Heart features an entirely different building with brick walls. Griffith, of course, understood the principles of the Kuleshov effect long before Kuleshov did, and in each case his audience accepts the proposition that the front of the building belongs to the upper portion shown later in the film. In fact, in one of the films, it actually does. I have no idea where the building with the wooden shingles may have been, but I do know that it was not Ferrando’s Flats, which was always an all-brick structure. This means that in The Cord of Life Griffith begins by presenting two angles of the Flats and offers them to us 60

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as two different buildings, as described above; he then shows us a child dangling from an obviously different building (made of wood), and convinces us that it is the upper portion of the first building. This artificial architecture is all handled very casually and successfully. But when he restaged this same dramatic incident nearly three years later for The Miser’s Heart, Griffith decided to stop all this fooling around and just use the rear of the actual building introduced in the establishing shot. I am certain that the scenes of Edith Haldeman hanging out the window were actually shot at the back of Ferrando’s Flats. In fact, the camera position in the extreme long shot (there are several different camera positions covering this action) is from Ferrando’s Park Hotel.38 It is impossible to be completely certain, however, about the shots of Eddie Dillon at the base of the building, looking up and (apparently) seeing little Edith. There is no establishing shot – the “money shot” – showing the two of them in the same frame. Why does Griffith still resort to montage here? Perhaps because hanging a child out of a window called for some modest safety measures, such as a pile of mattresses on the ground, which would have been visible in a long shot. Yet given the geographic economy we see in these films (“don’t travel any farther for a setup than absolutely necessary”) it would have been logical to just go around to the back of the same building he was already using. As a matter of fact, we might ask why he did not shoot it that way in 1909. What we know of Griffith’s Fort Lee working habits suggests several possible explanations, each of which reveals something interesting about how his approach to location work had changed over the years: 1) In 1909 he would have avoided filming in the shaded backyard of Ferrando’s Flats, and probably used the first available building whose upper floors offered a good southern exposure. By the time he made The Miser’s Heart Griffith was much more comfortable working away from direct sunlight; 2) The Cord of Life is more interested in illustrating a chase across Fort Lee than in the dramatic possibilities of the “window” scene, an exterior which is disposed of in two brief shots. But by the end of 1911 a simple run across town was no longer enough to hold anyone’s interest, while the parallel-editing possibilities of the window scene now seemed much more promising; 3) Judging from his increasingly frequent use of the front of the building, it might be expected that by 1911 Griffith would also be familiar with the photographic possibilities of the back and the roof (also shown in the film); 4) The use of Ferrando’s Park Hotel as a camera position suggests that by now he was not only more familiar with this particular location, but had a good working relationship with the owners. Griffith’s most artful and spectacular use of the Flats, of course, can be seen in The Musketeers of Pig Alley, a film long regarded as having been shot not far from the studio on the “Lower East Side” of Manhattan. It was Russell Merritt who first identified Fort Lee as the true location, in his essay on the film in Volume 6 of The Griffith Project. While Biograph records do not indicate locations for 1912 productions, Merritt recognized similarities between the buildings shown here and others known to have been shot in Fort Lee earlier.39 The significance of Merritt’s discovery goes far beyond mere local history. This is not just a matter of putting up a historic plaque on some New Jersey street corner, but an invitation to reconsider some of the most cherished myths regarding Griffith’s contribution to film art. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Merritt’s claims is that they are completely counterintuitive. Given the law of geographic economy cited earlier, Biograph would be expected to film slum neighborhood scenes in some relatively nearby slum neighborhood. True, 11 East 14th Street was not especially close to the traditional precincts of the Lower East Side, but it was certainly closer than Fort Lee. Griffith’s Biograph films have long been valued for their “amazing degree of nearly documentary details”, an observation which typically focuses on his films of tenement life, like Bobby the Coward or The Musketeers of Pig Alley, and then spreads outward to the rest of his work.40 But unless Kuleshov is your kind of documentarist, Griffith must 61

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have had something else in mind when he staged films like these in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Perhaps Tom Gunning was already onto this in 1991, when he avoided the trap of locating The Musketeers of Pig Alley in some specific Manhattan alley, and instead referred to “Griffith’s masterpiece of … realist arrangement”, where “careful observation of the vitality and spontaneity of the Lower East Side” works to “recall the New York slum photographs of Jacob Riis”.41 But exactly where or how this arrangement took place he leaves to others. Today we know that Griffith returned to his familiar “New York street” in Fort Lee, positioned the camera in front of Ferrando’s Flats looking west (as in The Italian Barber), the best angle for crowding the frame with shop windows, and decorated his set with carefully chosen props and costumed extras. As Lillian and Dorothy Gish pass each other on Fort Lee’s Main Street, the striped awning labeled “Candies” marks the one-story building next door to the Flats, while the shingled wooden wall just visible beyond it at the extreme left belongs to Ferrando’s Fort Lee Auditorium (about which more in a moment). But that still leaves us with the problem of explaining the location of the alley. On this point I cannot agree with Merritt, who suggests that the alley had already appeared in The Narrow Road and The Miser’s Heart. It seems to me that at least three different exterior spaces in The Musketeers of Pig Alley are connected through montage: the front of Ferrando’s Flats; an alley approximately ten feet wide and thirty feet deep, surrounded by three brick walls; and another back area featuring a lot of wooden construction and a wooden door for the musketeers to make a dramatic entrance. The area with the wooden door I have been unable to locate, although there is no reason to believe it was contiguous with the Flats, as implied by the film. The famous view of the alley, frequently cited as an allusion to the photography of Jacob Riis, was certainly not photographed near the Flats, which offered no such architecture. Riis published How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York in 1890. The Musketeers of Pig Alley does seem to quote several of its best known images, including “Bandits’ Roost” and “Gotham Court”, the probable inspirations for Griffith’s alley, “The Old Clo’e’s Man – In the Jewish Quarters”, a source for his redressing of the entrance to the Flats, and even (if we believe he really was pillaging this book) “The Official Organ of Chinatown”. Riis publishes a photo of a man wearing a Chinese coat and hat walking past a telephone pole on Mott Street, part of a chapter in which he suggests that the Chinese immigrant, unlike the Italian or Jew, is probably inassimilable.42 So in The Musketeers of Pig Alley Elmer Booth is startled by the sudden appearance of a Chinese man carrying a bundle of laundry, going about his own business and oblivious to the behavior of the resident gangs. Asian extras are used so rarely in Griffith’s films that this appearance must have had some specific justification. And Fort Lee, of course, was able to supply the extra: according to the 1908 Sanborn map, a “Chinese Laundry” was operating at 318 Main Street, just across from Bigler’s Hotel. The problem of locating the alley used for this famous scene is made more difficult by the obvious scarcity of photographic documentation of specific alleys in Fort Lee. The scene demands brick walls on three sides, not just one or two. Perhaps the scene was not shot in Fort Lee at all? But if it was, there only seems to have been one possible location: the Palisade Market Building at the corner of Cumbermede Road and Palisades Avenue, just opposite the entrance to Palisade Park. This was a multi-story brick apartment building at the southern end of town, a property Griffith might have used more frequently if it was not located at the intersection of two busy trolley lines. It is visible in the background of one shot in The Cord of Life as the various characters approach the rusticated entrance to the park. The 1911 Sanborn map shows that this building had a niche, or airshaft, of exactly the same dimension shown in Griffith’s film. The problem is that this alley opened to the northwest, and would have been difficult to light. In the film, the area toward the back of the alley is rather dark, 62

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and clearly in the shade of the building. But the main action at the front is well lit, probably because it was away from the shadow line (which can be seen on the ground) and may even have benefited from another of Bitzer’s local discoveries, the use of reflectors.43 FROM PRODUCING TO EXHIBITING

Sometime between 1909 and 1911 the Ferrando family continued to build up its property on Main Street by opening Fort Lee’s first motion-picture theater, Ferrando’s Fort Lee Auditorium, just to the left of the one-story building seen briefly in The Cord of Life. Once a schoolhouse, it was moved to the site from its original location two blocks away. Remarkably, Ferrando’s Auditorium would remain Fort Lee’s only theater until the construction of a purpose-built cinema in 1919 on the corner of Main Street and Center Avenue, one block west. Griffith definitely did not want to show a movie theater two doors down from his allpurpose tenement location at Ferrando’s Flats, especially a movie theater that looked like a converted country schoolhouse. Consequently, it rarely appears in the Biographs, and is never identified as a movie house. It can be seen briefly in The Burglar’s Dilemma, and more prominently in By Man’s Law (1913, directed by W. Christy Cabanne). It is probably also the hall used for “The Grand Dance of the Jolly Three” in The Musketeers of Pig Alley, but we see too little of the façade here to be certain. Why was a nearby movie theater never mentioned in any memoirs or company records? Would Griffith and Bitzer simply have ignored it? Would a crew working on location, even

Detail of downtown Fort Lee, New Jersey (from the 1911 Sanborn map). Sometime between 1908 and 1911 the Ferrando family erected a one-story commercial building adjacent to the Flats, as well as a motion-picture theater (Ferrando’s Fort Lee Auditorium). Unlike the 1908 map, this edition does indicate the right of way of the Palisade Line streetcar

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in the nickelodeon era, have no use for a convenient local screening room? Then again, Biograph was not the only film company in Fort Lee. In February 1911, for example, the Société Francaise des Films et Cinématographs Éclair began construction of their own local studio and laboratory just two blocks west of Ferrando’s. The large number of permanent Éclair employees right down the street might have considered the Auditorium part of their turf, discouraging much attention from Griffith and his day-tripping Biograph crew. Much more research is needed before we can even begin to get to the bottom of this: we do not even know, for example, if the Auditorium showed licensed or independent releases. So was it a magnet in attracting the Biograph company from their base at Rambo’s at the other end of Fort Lee? Or did it just spoil their view of the best location in town? In any case, by 1911 Griffith had the equivalent of a standing “New York street” available to him on a well-lit section of Main Street in Fort Lee, with enough vacant land to the east and west to afford convenient camera positions. Because all the property was controlled by the Ferrando family, a single permission could gain access to the Flats, the movie theater, and the small commercial building in between. It also seems logical that the company would have rented any rooms they needed at Ferrando’s Hotel – a package deal – unless they simply took advantage of vacant space in the Flats itself. Biograph certainly kept the Flats busy during the years they were working in Fort Lee, but unlike their own standing set in Coytesville they occasionally had to share this location with the competition (and not just Éclair). When Mary Pickford quit Biograph for Carl Laemmle’s IMP she may have left the company, but she did not leave Fort Lee. She did not even leave Ferrando’s Flats, which play their usual role in, for example, While the Cat’s Away (1911, directed for IMP by Thomas Ince). In his essay on The Musketeers of Pig Alley, Merritt claims that Griffith “had not shot any outdoor footage in New York since mid-1910”, but is at a loss to explain why Biograph would have abandoned the city so completely in favor of various suburban locales, most of them in New Jersey. By looking in detail at the choices that guided his work in Fort Lee, I think we have probably discovered most of the reasons. Griffith disliked working in public, and staging a melodrama in the middle of the East Side tenement district would have attracted an intolerable amount of attention. Even if he could have controlled the crowds, there was no way to achieve adequate lighting at street level, given the narrow width of the streets and the height of surrounding buildings. Working in a place like Fort Lee, where the community was accustomed to servicing both tourists and filmmakers, he had dependable access to familiar (and well-lit) locations, as well as to the hotels, dressing rooms, and other facilities needed for shooting in the field. The inhabitants of Fort Lee were strictly professional in their attitude toward the filmmakers who worked there every day, but they still took an unselfconscious pride in the role they themselves were playing in this new industry. So it should come as no surprise that it was Fort Lee that hosted the first festival of D.W. Griffith films nearly one hundred years ago. On Tuesday evening, 27 April 1909, Marvin’s Motion Pictures booked the large public hall at Cella’s Park Hotel for a “Monster Exhibition of Biograph Pictures, The Scenes of Which were Laid at Fort Lee and Coytesville, N.J.” As reported in The Fort Lee Sentinel: An attractive feature of the entertainment will be the fact that all of the outdoor scenes of the pictures were photographed in the vicinity of Fort Lee and Coytesville, which means the bringing before us upon the motion picture screen of spots near and dear to us, lifted into prominence by important episodes of a comic and dramatic nature.44

Before the opening of Ferrando’s Fort Lee Auditorium, films must have been shown in the local hotels, several of which had suitable public spaces generally used for meetings or 64

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dances. The Sentinel emphasized that the films had been “specially selected with a view of presenting the most thrilling and interesting subjects made by this company, entailing much time and expense in their collection” (in other words, the show was curated). Eight specific films were described (although unspecified others were said to be included), divided into those “Taken at Fort Lee” (Tragic Love, The Cord of Life, The Clubman and the Tramp, The Salvation Army Lass, and The Lure of the Gown) and those “Taken at Coytesville” (A Call of the Wild and The Guerrilla). I Did It, Mama! was also on the bill, although not listed as having been made in the area. It was probably shown because Biograph distributed it on a split reel with The Lure of the Gown. The short descriptions of these films given in The Sentinel are generally derived from blurbs contained in the Biograph Bulletin, but a few seem to have been prepared by someone with specific local knowledge of their production. For example, “in The Guerrilla, in the final scene where the Guerrilla is overpowered by the lover in a sword combat, while the scene is apparently stage work, or acting, the man falls really from the effects of a blow on the head with the saber, which resulted in his being placed under the care of the surgeon for several days.” All of the films were produced locally between September 1908 and February 1909, which makes the absence of The Curtain Pole (shot in October) an especially curious omission. Was the film already overexposed at these Fort Lee screenings? Did it contain too much free advertising for Cella’s local competition? Or was it just being held in reserve as the inevitable “encore” reel? “In conclusion we will say that in nearly every one of the subjects there are some of the townsmen present, and the entertainment will undoubtedly afford many of us an opportunity to see ourselves as others see us.” Watching films was fun, but making them was even better, and the townsmen did not have to wait long for their next opportunity. Two days after the screening at Cella’s, on 29 April, Griffith was back in town again to begin work on his next Fort Lee production, The Lonely Villa. RICHARD KOSZARSKI Thanks to Lou Azzollini (Blue Point Graphics), Lucille Bertram, Russell Merritt, and Paul Spehr for their help with Griffith’s locations. For more information on Fort Lee’s film history please visit . NOTES

1. Mrs. D.W. Griffith [Linda Arvidson], When the Movies Were Young (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1925), p. 85. See the excerpts from this book reprinted in Richard Koszarski, Fort Lee, The Film Town (Rome: John Libbey, 2004), pp. 59–66, hereafter referred to as FLFT. 2. This palisade, a geological formation, is known locally as “the Palisades”. The main road running along it was called Palisades Avenue during the period Griffith worked here, but is today Palisade Avenue. The local amusement park was first called Palisade Park, but later Palisades Park. It was serviced by the Palisade Line trolley. The town of Palisades Park, at the southwest corner of Fort Lee, lies several blocks west of both the geological formation and the former site of the Amusement Park (closed in 1971). 3. Gene Gauntier, “Blazing the Trail”, Woman’s Home Companion, October and November 1928, excerpted in FLFT, pp. 22–25. 4. Paul Spehr, The Movies Begin (Newark, NJ: Morgan and Morgan, 1977), p. 48, cites such a report from The Moving Picture World. 5. Arvidson, p. 85. Biograph had worked in the area before, on films like Personal (1904) and The Fire-Bug (1905), but their use of the Fort Lee area does seem to have jumped dramatically in 1908.

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6. “Robbers Hold Up Car Near Fort Lee”, The New York Times, October 16, 1911, p. 1. This holdup occurred around the time Griffith was in Fort Lee shooting The Miser’s Heart and The Failure. 7. Maps I have consulted show this ferry terminal at 130th Street, although some references put it at 125th street (the location of the nearest subway station), while the Buckbee Detective Agency reports filed with the Motion Picture Patents Company say 128th Street. 8. Arvidson, p. 85. 9. , “The Chemical Industry of Shadyside (Edgewater), New Jersey, a History by Robert J. Baptiste”, accessed November 23, 2007. 10. One of the few Biograph films to make direct use of this industrial landscape was By Man’s Law. 11. The Palisade Line can be seen in The Fatal Hour, Griffith’s ninth film as a director. And if one looks very hard, a trolley running down Main Street can be seen reflected in the shop window in The New York Hat, just as the shopkeeper removes the hat from the show window. 12. See Fred Balshofer and Arthur Miller, One Reel a Week (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), pp. 24–37, and Buckbee Detective Agency Reports reprinted in FLFT, pp. 25–27, 31–33, 39, 41–43. 13. Parke F. Hanley, “Ghosts in the Cradle of the Movies”, The New York Times Magazine, May 31, 1931, p. 15 (reprinted in FLFT, pp. 337–338). See also Arvidson, p. 84. 14. Lucille Bertram, Fort Lee (Portsmouth: Arcadia, 2004), p. 57. 15. Lionel Barrymore, We Barrymores (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1951), p. 150. Barrymore recalls the name à la française, perhaps because in 1909 he had just returned from an extended stay in Paris, where he had tried to make his name as a painter. 16. Although Mabel Normand is identified in several sources as appearing in this film, she is not one of the two female leads. She may appear as a crowd extra. Thanks to Brent Walker for sharing this film with me. 17. Arvidson, pp. 87–88. 18. Balshofer and Miller, pp. 27, 32. 19. “Woes of the Moving Picture Man”, The New York Times, December 19, 1909, p. SM 11. Reprinted in FLFT, pp. 39–40. 20. The Champion studio building is the only historic studio structure still standing in Fort Lee. See “Abernathy Boys in Pictures”, The New York Dramatic Mirror, July 9, 1910, p. 23. Reprinted in FLFT, p. 76. 21. Gus Becker, who had worked at Rambo’s since 1912 and was still running the place in 1974, would later insist that Griffith had shot The Birth of a Nation in Coytesville, an impression shared by many old timers who remembered the filming of various Civil War pictures and confused them with Griffith’s later film. Lawrence Vianello, “On Location in Fort Lee”, The Dispatch, April 18, 1974. Reprinted in FLFT, p. 21. 22. Class issues may also have been involved. Actors may not have been so welcome in some of the better local hotels, many of which did not even serve alcohol. When the film companies eventually abandoned Fort Lee, Rambo’s shifted its focus to sports, and the walls were decorated with autographed pictures of well-known prizefighters. 23. The claim that Barrymore appears in The Battle can be found in such sources as Robert Henderson, D.W. Griffith, the Years at Biograph (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1970), p. 217; Graham, Cooper, Steven Higgins, Elaine Mancini and João Luiz Vieira, D.W. Griffith and the Biograph Company (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1985), p. 126; Steven Higgins, DWG Project, #370, in Paolo Cherchi Usai (ed.), The Griffith Project: Volume 5, Films Produced in 1911 (London: BFI Publishing, 2001); and Richard Schickel, D.W. Griffith: An American Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984), p. 165. Schickel places Barrymore in both The Battle and Swords and Hearts, referencing Barrymore’s memoir, We Barrymores, four times. “One of those early extra

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jobs was in Swords and Hearts and he [Barrymore] recounts a comic anecdote about its shooting”, he tells us at one point. Unfortunately, Barrymore never says he appeared in either film. Schickel repeats the actor’s stories and simply guesses which films Barrymore might have been talking about, making it seem as if Barrymore had supplied the titles. For Barrymore’s actual recollections see Lionel Barrymore, We Barrymores, pp. 139–151, 303; my guess is that he was probably referring instead to The Informer. 24. “Making Moving Pictures”, The Palisadian, October 1911, p. 21. Reprinted in FLFT, p. 66. 25. Robert M. Henderson, D.W. Griffith, The Years at Biograph (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1970), illustration insert. 26. Ben Brewster, “A Tale of the Wilderness”, DWG Project, #381, and Russell Merritt, “Billy’s Stratagem”, DWG Project, #387, both in Paolo Cherchi Usai (ed.), The Griffith Project: Volume 5, Films Produced in 1911 (London: BFI Publishing, 2001). 27. G.W. Bitzer, Billy Bitzer: His Story (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1973), p. 68. Reprinted in FLFT, pp. 67–69. 28. In 1941 a set of murals illustrating the history of Fort Lee were installed in the local post office. The film industry was not represented by one of the great glass studios or a view of Pearl White on the Palisades, but by a western “interior” being shot on a simple platform set in a wooded clearing. See illustration in FLFT. 29. Russell Merritt, “Heredity”, DWG Project, #435, in Paolo Cherchi Usai (ed.), The Griffith Project: Volume 6, Films Produced in 1912 (London: BFI Publishing, 2002). 30. “Fatty” Arbuckle, who was making films for Sennett in Fort Lee in 1916, did shoot much of A Reckless Romeo at Palisades Park. 31. See the sequential frame enlargements from The Curtain Pole in FLFT, pp. 70–75. The use of only two interior settings in this film, as well as the very brief shooting schedule, makes this another candidate for the possible use of location-built interiors. 32. Although Barry Salt has written extensively about the way in which the technological limitations of early cinema equipment affected the aesthetic choices of the first filmmakers, Griffith scholars have made little effort to apply these lessons to an understanding of his Biograph films. 33. “Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association of Bergen County’s Second Annual Picnic and Games”, October 4, 1911. Reproduced in FLFT, p. 10. 34. Balshofer, quoted in FLFT, p. 35; “Fort Lee’s Famous Hotel”, Photoplay, December 1916, p. 42. 35. A later structure of the same general bulk occupies this space today. But it is still possible to stand in front of the new building (Kiky’s Jewelers at 221 Main Street) and appreciate how Griffith was able to play with the curve of Main Street to achieve various scenic effects. 36. Russell Merritt, “The Musketeers of Pig Alley”, DWG Project, #434, in Paolo Cherchi Usai (ed.), The Griffith Project: Volume 6, Films Produced in 1912 (London: BFI Publishing, 2002). 37. Except for 221 Main Street (the current address of the old Flats building), street numbers given in this article follow the 1911 Sanborn map; contemporary addresses have been renumbered. 38. In the long shot, part of the advertising sign painted on one side of the Flats is obscured by the roof line of Ferrando’s Fort Lee Auditorium, an angle only possible from the hotel. 39. Merritt’s identification of Fort Lee as the location of The Musketeers of Pig Alley is certainly correct, but he is less accurate in attempting to identify specific buildings. It is not enough to study the lettering on awnings, as he does in DWG Project, #434, because owners might change these awnings from time to time, and Griffith’s property men could easily manipulate them to turn a candy store into a saloon, or vice versa. For example, the awning sign reading “CLOTHING”, which can be seen on the Flats in both The Narrow Road and The Miser’s Heart, appears to have been pinned up there for the occasion. Examining fixed architectural elements, as well as period maps and photographs, reveals that Griffith was not using one building on “Catherine Street” and another “at the other end of the street”, but often only one structure –

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Ferrando’s Flats on Main Street – over and over and over again. As Merritt says, “Griffith and Bitzer’s camera artistry has played tricks on us all” – an admission that includes this author, who failed to realize that The Musketeers of Pig Alley had been shot in Fort Lee at all until he read about it in Merritt’s essay. 40. Tom Gunning characterizes Bobby the Coward in this fashion in DWG Project, #351, in Paolo Cherchi Usai (ed.), The Griffith Project: Volume 5, Films Produced in 1911 (London: BFI Publishing, 2001). 41. Tom Gunning, D.W. Griffith and the Origins of American Narrative Film (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991), p. 274. 42. In the edition consulted, Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York (Williamstown, MA: Corner House, 1972), these illustrations are found on pages 63, 100, 117, and the frontispiece. “A Market Scene in the Jewish Quarter” (p. 111) also seems to predict Griffith’s characteristic use of the right-hand side of the Flats with the street curving off in the distance. 43. Bitzer (p. 84) claimed to have discovered the use of reflectors in Fort Lee when “white gravel beneath their feet” provided some unexpected fill for the back-lit figures of Mary Pickford and Owen Moore, allowing him to shoot into the sun for pictorial effect. The technique would also have allowed him to bounce sunlight into otherwise shaded areas, a useful location strategy. 44. “Marvin’s Motion Pictures Monster Exhibit of Biograph Pictures”, The Fort Lee Sentinel, April 24, 1909. Marvin’s display ad ran alongside a much larger news account promoting the showing. Thanks to Lucille Bertram for sharing this rare piece of local news coverage. Unfortunately, only scattered issues of The Fort Lee Sentinel exist to document daily life in Fort Lee during the period Griffith worked there.

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6. MICROBES, ANIMALS, AND HUMANS: THE ESCAPE AND THE POLITICS OF UNDESIRABLE BREEDING

“‘The Escape’ is more than a drama. It is a supersermon.”1

In one of numerous write-ups from 1915 on D.W. Griffith, Harry C. Carr, devoted film buff and renowned columnist in the Los Angeles Times, shared an anecdote with Photoplay’s readers apropos The Escape (Majestic Motion Picture Co., 1914). Carr’s yarn sheds lights on D.W. Griffith’s ongoing experiments with filmic storytelling and especially the director’s penchant for allegories. According to Carr, Griffith has a mild mania for “allegory.” Recently at a performance of “The Escape,” I was the guest of Mr. Griffith’s assistant. In the middle of the piece one of these allegories suddenly flashed upon us. It showed a number of young ladies in their nighties gazing soulfully through the window of a big, church-like room upon the surf of the broad Pacific. “I dare say,” said the Griffith assistant confidently, ‘that only about a dozen people in the house really understand that.’ “If you are counting me in that dozen, cut down the census to eleven,” I said. “What does it mean?” “Search me,” said the chief of staff with cheerful candor.2

A review in the Chicago Tribune probably alludes to the same seemingly enigmatic imagery: “Another scene brings with breathtaking emphasis the fact that the picture alone is empowered to bring poetry into life – it is the allegorical bit showing ‘the little souls borne in from the sea of life.’”3 Griffith’s style and the fine-grained aspects of the film’s storytelling escapes us, since The Escape unfortunately is one of the director’s few lost feature films. The sequence noted by both Harry C. Carr and Kitty Kelly in the Chicago Tribune did not attract other commentaries in the register of allegory – apart from “Sime”’s quip in Variety that “‘allegory’ and Griffith are becoming too friendly”4 – it was instead the introductory prologue that provided food for allegorical thought among critics. Preceding the core story, spectators were treated to a prologue illustrating reproductive processes from microbes to frogs to farm and domestic animals to humans. This paratextual introduction was sometimes advertised with a standalone title, “The Origin of Life”. The full-reel prologue formatted the embedded six-reel story as a Lehrstücke5 by placing a family chronicle in relation to patterns of non-human development and breeding leading up to putatively ill-advised human procreation. When the film returned to Clune’s Auditorium in Los Angeles for a third week in November 1914 after two weeks in July, a notice in the Los Angeles Express in addition to the much-discussed prologue mentioned an otherwise uncommented epilogue, unfortunately in vague terms: “A wonderful epilog is attracting much attention from lovers of beautiful things.”6 Already in February 1914, Mutual announced that The Escape would come with a prologue devised by Daniel Carson Goodman, who also wrote the script for The Battle of the Sexes (1914). According to the New York Review, Goodman had “discovered the first cell of life and … motion pictures of the different steps in his biological experiments will be used” by 69

T H E G R I F F I T H P R O J E C T : V O L U M E 12 Advertisement in the New York Review, June 6, 1914, section II, p. 4

Griffith “as a novel introduction to what promises to be the greatest drama ever presented on the vital subject of eugenics.”7 Mutual’s announcement prompted a poetic commentary on the editorial page in one of Hearst’s newspapers: The Atom and the Cell Choose their partners very well; The Molecule gets suited to a T; The tiny Protoplasms Bridge love’s dark abysmal chasms; They’ve all got a lot on me.8

Given the scarcity of comments concerning the inserted allegorical scene(s) and the epilogue, we will in the following devote attention to the much more noticed prologue, which ushered in a uniquely complex storytelling device. Its prime function was to award the core story an exemplary, allegorical status. Prologues flourished in American films in the mid-1910s, but 70

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foremost for introducing actors/actresses or authors from whose literary work a particular film was adapted. In this essay, I will contextualize the prologue in The Escape and its allegorical implications by looking at the few and far between sources documenting the lost film. As a backdrop, I will place Griffith’s The Escape in the realm of socio-medical dramatic productions sandwiched in between the stage and screen versions of Paul Armstrong’s drama The Escape. The centerpiece story in The Escape was set in the tenement slum on the Lower East Side in New York City and zoomed in on the bleak fate of the Joyce family, advertised as an allegorical object lesson in eugenics. The marketing of the film in New York thus cautioned prospective patrons not to marry “until you see ‘The Escape’”.9 Paul Armstrong’s drama, on which the film was based, was constructed along melodramatic lines and featured scenes with strong effects calculated to stir the spectators’ emotions. The bare bones of the core story can be summarized like this: the Joyce family lives in a tenement house in New York’s slum district. Father Jim’s brutal regime turns the otherwise gentle son Larry into a sadist. When Jim Joyce has hit Larry severely in the head with a stove lid, the attending physician, the eugenically inclined Dr. von Eiden, encourages May, the oldest daughter in the family, to become a stenographer and move uptown and seek her luck outside her father’s destructive radius of influence, an advice she heeds, but not without misgivings. Father Joyce had tried to force May into marrying a local man, instead May’s sister, the consumptive Jennie, ends up with the aptly nicknamed Bull. Meanwhile, Larry’s cruel streak after being hit is most conspicuously demonstrated on a cat. Soon enough May is unable to support herself and sees no other options than to accept the overtures of a wealthy senator. She becomes his secretary and mistress, but refuses to marry him. The story then follows the Joyce children’s respective fate. After being maltreated by Bull, his and Jennie’s child dies. Bull turns Jenny’s life into a hell and forces her into prostitution. May tries to save her sister, but in spite of her ministrations Jenny finally succumbs to consumption. When Larry discovers his dead sister, he kills Bull. After trepanning, Larry is nursed back to his former gentle nature. May eventually manages to escape from both the ghetto life and dependency out of wedlock by accepting Dr. von Eiden’s marriage proposal.10 The friction and pointed contrast between prologue and story proper set up an overarching dichotomy between nature’s putatively rational selection patterns illustrating, as it were, the adage from Herbert Spencer’s biology, “the survival of the fittest”. This thesis is evidenced in the prologue on micro-level in laboratory experiments and in higher stages of development by careful farm breeding of sheep, pigs, and horses in pointed contrast to the randomness and unchecked human procreation depicted in the prologue’s concluding part and transferred to the Joyce family in the full-fledged story. The prologue thus offers reading frames for the upcoming story by shifting emphasis away from and repositioning an otherwise runof-the-mill ghetto melodrama to a pamphlet-like, embedded allegorical tale, albeit with far from clear-cut conclusions, of the vicissitudes of a dysfunctional family. The prologue lines up a paradigm of procreation patterns leading up to a final, anomalous section featuring a roster of imprudent marriages between partners coded as unfit for procreation. From a would-be eugenic perspective, however, the storyline’s inability to unequivocally differentiate between the causal mechanisms in play for social malfunction complicates a straightforward allegorical reading. Is it the Joyces’ poor genetic make-up that produces allegedly unworthy forms of human life and thus behavior, one hence wonders, or is it the degrading influences from a bleak and debasing environment that explain the grim fate of the family? The explanatory value of the eugenic thesis is seemingly undercut by the intertwined patterns of causality between genes and environment, vacillations affecting the outcome of 71

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the object lesson. After all, May eventually manages to escape in spite of her hereditary background; Larry seems beaten into his temporary cruelty and does not necessarily appear to be genetically programmed to such behavior, while Jennie is totally victimized by a brutal father forcing her to marry an even crueler man. Better if not being born into such an environment might be the moral lesson according to the gospel of eugenics, albeit May, genes apart, seems to have a promising future in store after having escaped from her sordid environment. This predominantly social version of eugenics operated with premises inspiring sweeping conceptions of the interplay between heredity and environment. A critic summarizing Griffith’s thesis alleged: “Until our slums are peopled with eugenic husbands and wives we must expect such a pitiable waste of life as is found here. That, in substance, is Mr. Griffith’s thesis.”11 The muddled balance between heredity and environment inspired the progressive journal The Independent to label its succinct review of the film “pseudo-eugenics”. Reminding readers that May of course carries the same genes as her brother – bad or not – she still marries a physician “who should know better, for their children or half of them are likely to turn out as bad as their uncle and grandfather”. Moreover, “in a state ruled by eugenists such a marriage would be prohibited and we fear that the play would also, on the ground that it teaches a false and hence immoral lesson”. The article concluded that, “so long as dramatists insist upon happy endings they must let heredity alone or choose a better set of characters”.12 Griffith’s obsession with creating atmosphere, his desire to immerse audiences in documentary veracity and poignant details provide, if you will, a description of the Joyces’ crippling environment militating against eugenic abstractions and allegorical translation by virtue of its sheer thickness and rich texture. The mastery in capturing teeming Lower East Side life in all its bustling oppressiveness pushed hereditary matters to the background. The atmospheric aspects of the film, the truthful – unrivaled according to some – depiction of the life in the ghetto, impressed several critics; for example, the signature “Grid” in Billboard: “One of the principal features of this play is the wonderful manner in which the atmosphere of the story has been retained. The picture is staged in the slums of lower New York, showing the streets crowded with children and carts. The Bowery and other streets are portrayed, together with exteriors of the houses and saloons.”13 The preparations for creating atmosphere and environmental veracity were apparently meticulous. Donald Crisp (Bull McGee) and Robert Harron (Larry) had lived three months in the Mulberry Bend neighborhood for absorbing color and had haunted Lower East Side dance halls in the evenings studying types. F.A Turner (Jim Joyce) had stayed for only a short period, while the female leads, Blanche Sweet (May) and Mae Marsh (Jennie), had lived in a settlement home with a chaperone. Blanche Sweet here contracted scarlet fever, which delayed the production and forced the company to shoot the interiors in Los Angeles after relocating to the West Coast.14 Dance halls and nightlife also provided the context for Griffith’s The Battle of the Sexes, which was speedily produced when The Escape came to a halt. When Paul Armstrong’s play The Escape opened in Los Angeles, the reviewer in the Los Angeles Times drew the eugenic conclusion from environmental premises in the drama: “Children born in the slum are woefully handicapped in the race of life. Many of the boys become criminals, many of the girls turn out ‘bad.’ It were better for most of them if they had never seen the dim light that makes their day.”15 In the absence of the scientific context later supplied by the film’s prologue – juggling rational versus irrational procreation patterns – the play’s eugenic conclusions had to be environmentally grounded as the result of (melo)dramatic developments without allegorical options to weigh in. Thus a playful review of the film version attributed the play’s failure in New York to “the omission of microbes as heralds to the company of Broadway actors”.16 The brunt of the responsibility for The Escape can be distributed between three men: Paul 72

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Paul Armstrong (Photo courtesy of the Library of

Daniel Carson Goodman (Photo from Bookman,

Congress)

August 1913, p. 623)

Armstrong (1869–1915) for the drama, D.W. Griffith for directing the film, and Daniel Carson Goodman (1882–1957) for the film’s prologue. In 1912, legendary theater tycoon Oliver Morosco (1876–1945) waxed eloquently on Paul Armstrong as an exemplary playwright of the future and predicted an era when the stage titans in the popular imagination would be eclipsed by authors of star caliber. According to the impresario, the play The Escape was a case in point with its even balance between the parts, which militated against the backbone of the old star system billing actors and actresses predominantly identified with one or two domineering roles; for example, James O’Neill as Edmond Dantès in The Count of Monte Cristo, a part he played more than 6,000 times on stage as well as in 1913 before the film camera. The “ultra-modern actor”, Morosco argued, should take on a spate of parts rather than specializing in just a few roles. This diluting multiplicity instead places the author in the limelight as “the new star in the dramatic heaven”.17 Morosco of course had a vested interest in touting Armstrong’s stellar qualities prior to the opening of The Escape, which had its first stage production at the Burbank in Los Angeles on 27 October 1912, apparently after the New Theater in New York had turned down a first version.18 Moreover, Morosco – together with a few other managers – often top-billed themselves as presenting this or that production, or within such a frame elected to showcase a particular actor, actress, or playwright. Such billing practices in Morosco’s view represented an intermediary phase on a changing theatrical firmament. Simultaneously, the feature films were making inroads as legitimate attractions and the formerly ironclad division between the legitimate stage and the vaudeville scene was partly giving way; for instance, via so-called playlets as vaudeville turns, developments affecting the star system. Paul Armstrong had enjoyed considerable stage success with his melodramatically charged dramas, particularly Alias Jimmy Valentine, The Deep Purple, A Romance of the Underworld, 73

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and Via Wireless, among a handful additional plays. Several titles were filmed, some more than once; for example, The Escape, which was remade in 1928.19 Armstrong often collaborated with other authors – Rex Beach, Wilson Mizner, and Winchell Smith – and his information about the underworld came directly from first-hand sources, primarily James Brown, a temporarily reformed criminal more or less adopted by Armstrong before Brown, tragically also for Armstrong, again was sentenced to several years in Sing Sing. Before taking on playwriting, Armstrong worked as a licensed master on a steamship on the Great Lakes and later turned to journalism, initially as a reporter at the Chicago Record-Herald. It was journalism that prompted him to take up the drama. His first play, The Heir of the Hoorah, was produced in 1904. His career as playwright lasted a decade up until his death in 1915. Morosco’s stage production of The Escape in Los Angeles featured Florence Stone in the role of May Joyce, the play’s candidate for escape. In spite of a fair balance between parts, May no doubt is the drama’s leading role and focal point for the escape irrespective of Morosco’s contention. When the play opened in Chicago at the Grand Opera in early March 1913, Helen Ware performed May’s part, and at the Lyric Theatre in New York Catherine Calvert was featured when the play opened on 20 September 1913. Calvert had previously played the lead in Armstrong’s The Deep Purple at the Lyric, and became the author’s second wife in late 1913. Rumor had it that Armstrong never watched a film version of his plays, but that he and his wife were on their way to Pathé’s offices for a private screening of Via Wireless when he became seriously ill and had to be taken to his home on Park Avenue where he died of a heart condition on 30 August 1915. He had previously undergone treatment at the Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore, apparently to no avail.20 Irrespective of whether Armstrong had seen any film versions of his dramas or not, Clune’s Auditorium in Los Angeles in its ad for The Escape quoted an upbeat wire from Armstrong to Griffith: “Congratulations to you. Have just seen ‘The Escape’ and think it is the greatest motion picture in the world. Hello, genius.”21 When Armstrong’s play finally reached New York, the author had turned co-producer. The drama’s underpinning, a watered-down version of eugenics bordering on Lamarckian notions of inheritance of acquired traits, was under intense debate in theatrical circles during 1913. The eugenic commotion had been stirred by a French problem drama by Eugène Brieux, Les Avariés, known as Damaged Goods in the United States, a title under which it was subsequently filmed. Damaged Goods was shown for an invited audience of legislators, social workers, and doctors on 9 March 1913 at the Fulton Theatre under the shared sponsorship of several sociologically inclined organizations and of the journal Medical Review of Reviews. Mayor William J. Gaynor had expressed his misgivings concerning the drama in an open letter to the theater manager, Frederick H. Robinson. An editorial in The New York Times agreed and talked about a morbid interest in a play, which however in itself was not considered immoral. Overall, the editorialist doubted the stage’s efficacy “as a practical engine of moral reform, holding that its purpose is aesthetic, not ethical”.22 After the private performance in New York, the play was performed in Washington, D.C., again for an invited audience of legislators, clergies, and reformers. The play opened for the public during the spring of 1914 at the Fulton Theatre in New York. The drama’s sensational topic was syphilis, which a married man had contracted from a prostitute, whom in turn had been infected by a well-to-do customer. The latter was treated and cured, while she was left to fend for herself. In her bitterness, she decided to take revenge on other men by sexually passing on the disease. The eugenic lesson was that medical examination ought to precede marriage, a practice that soon was to be instituted in Wisconsin. In the drama the husband eventually infects his own child, the quintessential innocent victim, before taking his own life. Brieux’ drama, translated in the early 1910s, and its subsequent stage versions came to 74

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the fore at a time when a group of feature-length white-slave films began to indent the American film market, Traffic in Souls and The Inside of the White Slave Traffic.23 More or less simultaneously, stage plays flaunted prostitution as a subject matter; for example, The Lure (also filmed by Blaché Pictures, Inc., in 1914) and The Fight. Vice and sexual hygiene, as speculative, titillating subject matters and/or as part of progressive reform efforts, were very much in vogue on the stage and screen around the mid-1910s. The key word for these works was sociological, thus latching onto an emerging discipline dear to the hearts of the progressive reformers and their numerous organizations, which were vocal forces in the American political landscape.24 According to some commentators, such films and plays only flaunted sociology for other purposes. Thus, in the opinion of the New York World, “the real motive behind the production [of the film version of The Escape] is merely sensational – a field which the motion picture industry might well leave to fake reformers among playwrights.”25 A critic in the New York Morning Telegraph disagreed concerning the film version: “There is much that is sensational in the drama – nothing that is sensationalism.”26 When W.J. Robinson published his pamphlet Fewer and Better Babies in 1915, eugenically inspired better-babies contests had already emerged as a booming, potentially benchmarking movement. As the Los Angeles Examiner bluntly put it when describing a local competition under the auspices of the Better Babies Congress, “babies are judged like little animals for development, mental and physical, and general conditions, not looks.”27 Besides such popular endeavors, scientific organizations made conspicuous inroads. In 1914, the first national conference on race betterment was organized within the framework of the Race Betterment Foundation in Battle Creek, Michigan. A second conference was organized in 1915 and hosted within the confines of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition held in San Francisco, which had an overall emphasis on progress.28 Betterment and progress emerged as salient keywords for progressive initiatives in line with modernity’s optimistic outlook for future state of affairs across the board. Racist ideas under the vague banner of eugenics thus circulated among progressive reform groups in coalition with influential medical and scientific bodies; they were simultaneously popularized in featured articles in Sunday newspapers, and soon found new pulpits on stage and screen. In the eugenic frenzy in New York City in the fall of 1913, Paul Armstrong had to make a case for The Escape at the Lyric by stating that he had offered the scenario for his drama to the New Theater way ahead of the introduction of Brieux and his play in Gotham. He was hence not capitalizing on a recent trend with his play. Mixed reviews for The Escape in Los Angeles had turned more negative in Chicago. Percy Hammond in the Chicago Tribune, for example, noted the author’s penchant for melodrama and sentimentality and considered “the method of construction so crude that it needs disguise behind speedy episodes”. Furthermore, he maintained that the editorializing on eugenics wrapped around a family on the Lower East Side was ultimately lost among the dramatic effects.29 In an advance article, Hammond had read the play as a protest against easy marriages of the sort later showcased in the film’s prologue. Still, as he observes, May escapes the trap of heredity – or, rather, a dehumanizing environment – and eventually ends up married to a doctor. Hammond refrains from speculating on the off-story prospects, but as the drama ends, May after the successful escape might even have entertained the idea of having children. In a sense, given her new environment, her genes now have socially improved; thus she is fit to procreate. Critics in New York were even less impressed by Armstrong’s drama than their colleagues in Chicago. The unsigned review in The New York Times is indicative of the play’s Gotham reception: “Incidentally there is a charming blend of pistols, poetry, platitude, treacle and trepanning, with such long lapses of inactivity or anything really approaching drama that even the friendly enthusiasm at the end of curtain could not conceal the fact that word ‘escape’ in 75

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another sense loomed large in the imagination of a portion of the audience.”30 After the unfavorable and at best mixed critical reception in New York, promoters Rowland & Clifford still bought the play for a road show.31 Around the same time, the Majestic-Reliance Company struck an agreement with the Paul Armstrong Company to produce film versions of The Escape and A Romance of the Underworld within four months. When no films had transpired in February, Armstrong’s legal counsel went after the Majestic people.32 Majestic claimed that the production of The Escape had been delayed by the illness of Blanche Sweet. The production had proven to be more complicated than expected, and the company had allegedly spent more than $100,000 during the protracted bicoastal shooting in New York for exteriors and later interiors in Los Angeles. The film was finally ready to be shown at the prestigious Cort Theater in New York in early June by the distributor, Mutual, while the film rights for A Romance of the Underworld reverted back to Armstrong. However, the film was not produced until 1918 and featured Armstrong’s widow, Catherine Calvert. She embarked on a screen career in the lean aftermath of her husband’s death and was featured in film roles from 1916 to 1923. Prior to the opening in New York, the film was shown for members of the Chicago Medical Society at an after-hours screening at the La Salle Opera House. Kitty Kelly in her report in the Chicago Tribune ventured one of the fullest accounts of the prologue’s last and most problematic part – the leap from farm breeding to humans before the film proper moved over to the Joyces for purposes of caution: Then comes the contrast between the natural laws and those followed by men and women. A picture of a dance is shown. It is a party given in a small home. Various types are exhibited, the gum chewing girl with a Bowery walk; a rou[é]; a sensuous fat dullard; a lanky callow youth; a slip of an undersized woman, sickly, weak, and underdeveloped; lastly, a robust, normal girl in the flush of youth. The dancing ceases. The normal girl, panting from the dance, attracts the roue. He finds her alone and makes advances. While he is fondling her the father enters. They are to be married, they explain in confusion. “What are your wages?” asks the father. The little anemic man’s reply is satisfactory and the parent gives his consent. The callow youth is mated to the undersized woman. The dullard takes as his bride the gum chewing girl with the suggestive walk. The moral has been drawn. Only human beings permit passions and money to be the guiding factors in selection of mates, the film explains. Then the story begins.33

The prologue’s section on humans, as described by critic Kitty Kelly, picked up the speed from the animal part featuring racehorses as its conclusion. A crude typology of anything like human alpha candidates is presented as cautionary specimens sporting an assortment of alleged disqualifying defects in the mating game. From the prologue’s hastily formed partnerships, presented in pointed contrast to the rest of the prologue’s evolutionary story, the relay reaches the Joyces. Given the name, one assumes the family is of Irish stock. Irish immigrants formed a large group on the Lower East Side having escaped famine and bleak prospects back home since the mid-1800s.34 The elaborate prologue was an attempt at providing a stronger scientific backdrop, by eugenically upping the ante for the film in relation to what Armstrong’s drama, as well as Brieux’ Damaged Goods, had offered. Griffith’s film opened in June 1914 in New York, in July in Los Angeles, and in Chicago in January 1915. Newspaper and film magazines in their outlines devoted most space to the technical accomplishments in the opening part of the prologue.35 Here the team under Daniel Carson Goodman had managed to capture microbes by marrying the microscope with the 76

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film camera. The Movie Pictorial offered several accounts of the prologue, but refrained from mentioning the human types and their mating: The play proper (if one can call it “proper”) is preceded by a good deal of delving into the amoeba, or original cell life, conducted by Dr. Daniel Carson Goodman, working with a lens capable of magnifying the primal organic cells to 100,000 times their natural size. The processes of reproduction in the lowest form of animal life are shown, the purpose being to impress in the matrimonially inclined that even there nature takes the outmost care to attain perfection of type by natural selection. Or, in simpler terms, Dr. Goodman goes to infinite pains to illustrate the moral that the microbe that marries for wealth or social position is an enemy of society. The preliminary pictures work us up from the microbes to skeletons of frogs and sheep, and thence to the care taken in the breeding of dogs and horses. At this point, we are deemed ready for Paul Armstrong’s drama of “The Escape.”36

After medical studies and a doctoral degree from the Washington University, in St. Louis, Daniel Carson Goodman conducted post-gradual work at the universities in Heidelberg and Vienna for four years, before he decided to pursue a career as a novelist. His first novel, Unclothed, was published in 1912. He became an instant celebrity when self-appointed antivice crusader Anthony Comstock indicted the publisher for Goodman’s next novel, Hagar Revelly (1913), on grounds of indecency. A Federal Court speedily acquitted the publisher. A play version of the novel opened on 19 April 1914 at the Royal Theatre in the Bronx. Goodman’s presence in the headlines made him interesting for the film industry and he was contracted as scenarist by Majestic-Reliance.37 In 1915 he was hired by Lubin to write twelve features per year at a salary, which was reported to be the largest ever “paid for such services” – $60,000.38 He later directed a few films for his own company, but was also working for William Randolph Hearst and was present on the yacht Oneida that fatal day in 1924 when Thomas H. Ince became deadly ill or was shot under mysterious circumstances. Speculations still are rife concerning the circumstances surrounding Ince’s death, especially since the Los Angeles Times in an early edition claimed he was shot, only to remove the piece in the subsequent editions of the newspaper. In a magazine piece from 1915, Goodman adopted a virtually eugenic perspective on the development of film, foreseeing a glorious future for pictures appealing to spectators’ intelligence and emotions after the soon-to-happen demise of the chase and stunt serials and their visceral assault on the spectators’ attention: To my mind the flowering of the evolutionary process in motion pictures has brought about a change, so far as the manufacturing end is concerned, in the usual order of stunt pictures and dramatic climaxes. Today we find audiences tired of the physical stunts, jumping over cliffs, hair-breadth escapes from moving trains, etc. I have watched faces in a moving picture audience and note the fact that a face will depict surprise, or horror, or emotional tenseness in direct proportion to the emotional value contained within the picture. I will illustrate what I mean by saying, whereas an auditor is held spell-bound for from three to five seconds by a plunging automobile, which fact only surprises him and is not emotional, he is held for an indefinite period by the working out of a dramatic situation which catches his heartstrings and his mind. This is the new order. The primal influence upon people is through their understanding and on their emotions rather than by blatant sounds against their eardrums or by some terrifying thing which affects only their vision. There is a conviction within me that within one 77

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year not a picture over one reel in length will have a stunt of the physical kind in it. This means better stories on the part of the manufacturing concerns to meet the higher and more intelligent demands of the moving picture audiences.39

Concerning The Escape, Goodman garnered unreserved praise for the microbe sequences in the prologue. His achievement in capturing the invisible world by marrying the film camera and the microscope and projecting images allegedly enlarged 100,000 times was extolled by comprehensive accounts in the New York Morning Telegraph and New York Tribune. However, Goodman’s work was far from a pioneering effort in putting the unseen world and its inhabitants on the screen. In October 1909, Jean Comandon presented his “moving pictures of the smallest micro-organism discernible through the most of magnifying instruments” for the Academy of Science in Paris.40 Soon Comandon began presenting microscopic films produced by Pathé, and Gaumont and Éclair among others followed suit.41 Still, Goodman’s work was lauded for taking the invisible realm to a new level of cinematic visibility. “A number of films have been made recently which show micro-organisms darting about as seen through a microscope of comparatively low magnification, but Dr. Goodman has succeeded in showing much larger views illustrating in detail life processes of individual specimens.”42 To obtain the protoplasmic particles, Goodman went into a malarial swamp and dipped a can of water from around decayed vegetation. In his laboratory he covered straw litter from a stable with his water. Then he trained his microscope on the mass and watched the developments of living organisms from the mass. Finally he selected some of the most likely specimens for photographing and after studying their habits he began to isolate some for the camera. In a specially contrived vessel he placed a particular protoplasm that is known to multiply itself by the self-dividing process. In time the individuals of the culture began to extend their long cylindrical bodies, then to split lengthwise, the cleavage growing greater until the two parts were only held together by their tips after which with a quick movement the two separated and swept away only to begin again the process of self-partioning within a few seconds.43

In its appreciative review, the Theater Magazine praised the film above the play, not least thanks to the “prelude”. Moreover, “the preliminary treatise, unusual as it is in a place of entertainment, authoritative enough in a scientific way, absolutely true in its philosophy, in no way offends, and greatly instructs.” Moreover, the film “has thrilling scenes, a moving story and characterizations of great fidelity to type”.44 The fullest account of the film was published in the New York Review. The appraisal reeled off in anecdotal fashion by focusing on a woman journalist’s resolve to remain unmarried after having visited a press screening at Mutual’s projection room at 71 West 23rd Street. Uncharacteristically, readers were informed, the woman refused to motivate her “remarkable decision in the short space of time required to run off the seven-reel D.W. Griffith feature film”. In terms of genre, the film is described as a “‘sex drama,’ but with none of the opprobrium usually attached to the term”. The handling of the “delicate subject” does not offend, still the production team’s scalpel “laid bare the whole offending chanere [sic], which is eating away at the vitals of later-day civilization”. The prologue is characterized as “a wonderfully told rehearsal”. Apropos its final part, the sample of humans, audiences are shown “how little natural selection has to do with the mating of the sexes”, this in pointed contrast to the breeding of animals and selection processes for lower forms of life. This leads over to a brief discussion of the medical requirements for obtaining a marriage license in the state of 78

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Advertisement for The Escape, New York Evening Journal, June 3, 1914, p. 13

Cartoon outline of The Escape, New York Evening Journal, June 2, 1914, section II, p. 1

Wisconsin. In some fashionable suburbs outside New York, eugenic marriages were now apparently in vogue according to a eugenic code. The story in The Escape, however, concerns different human material and an environment, “New York’s East Side, where the dregs of all nations mate and bring forth their progeny in such profusion.” This is one of the bleaker captions of the result of American immigration policies. The roughest character in the film, Bull, is described as “a savage physical type with overpowering carnal appetites”. In conclusion, the film is highly recommend for instructing the young: “Fathers who have hitherto refrained from explaining problems of sex to their sons may with perfect impunity permit them to view this film and mothers who have avoided a most delicate subject in conversation with their daughters need have no fear that even [the] slightest blush will mount to their unsullied cheeks.”45 Glee, irony, and multiple scathing asides permeated George Henry Smith’s review in the Globe and Commercial Advertiser; in the latter category for example: “only this baby happened to be in the moving picture”, “this man [Griffith] gets more salary than the president of the United States”, “doctors in moving pictures are young and handsome”, “moving picture directors know all this so audiences can have guessing contests”. After rhetorically having posed the question “What good does it do?” several times, Smith deduced: “The people who are 79

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in poor circumstances cannot see the play, or do not want to, and those who can afford it do not need the lessons this play is intended to teach.” As a final plea, Smith implores: “Give us something that will carry us away from the sordid side of life. There are only two classes of people – those who know the world and those who do not. The former can never be touched by ‘The Escape,’ and the latter would not understand it.”46 The ironic mode also informed the review in the New York Sun. The anonymous writer described the prologue as “a gay little introduction to Mr. Armstrong’s melodrama, which was as drab and monotonous in action as it was in the pictures yesterday”. And the reviewer summed up: All the scenes of the play as well as the fattening, which is customary on the films, was very well produced. The comic relief was provided by some good old manipulation of a beer bottle. That was better, however, than the combination of gloom and microbes. Nobody could laugh at the frisking of the merry little amoeba over the screen or take pleasure in the revels of the other cellular actors in the protoplasmic first part. Nor was it entertaining to see a boy, even in the sacred cause of eugenics, wring a cat’s neck.47

In Variety, “Sime” (Simon J. Silverman) considered the film a waste of Griffith’s talent and reflected apropos the producer: “Is the Mutual still judging its pictures by the picture public of five years ago or two years ago, that wanted the mellers because they held thrills? There is a public for mellers yet, but not for misery nor for vice … Were it not for the agitating against vice films, they would have died aborning.”48 The reception was overall a mixed affair reflecting the critics’ stance vis-à-vis the eugenic project, which ran in tandem with vice issues as dramatic topics on stage and screen. Politically the issue was contested, which the intense debates prompted by the marriage laws in Wisconsin bring to evidence. 1914 was a busy year for Griffith. Even if The Escape is lost, the film’s investment in eugenics deserves to be remembered in relation to his parallel work on The Birth of a Nation, which occupied most of his time that year. In both cases, matters of race and issues of slavery and immigration were, however, featured as controversial, divisive topics and read in historical terms in one film and in the other as key concern for America’s future by looking at one of the country’s epicenters of immigration. The connection between the two films is obvious. JAN OLSSON NOTES

1. New York Morning Telegraph, May 31, 1914, p. V:3. 2. Harry C. Carr, “Directors. The Men Who Make the Plays”, Photoplay (June 1915), pp. 80–85; quotation on p. 84. 3. Chicago Tribune, January 18, 1915, p. 10. 4. Variety, June 5, 1914, p. 19. 5. This means “didactic piece”. 6. Los Angeles Express, November 14, 1914, p. 6. The Escape returned for a fourth week on October 3, 1915. 7. New York Review, February 28, 1914, p. 4. 8. New York American, February 18, 1914, p. 20. 9. See Figure 1 and in addition, for example, New York Tribune, June 7, 1914, section III, p. 6. 10. See also Patricia King Hanson (ed.), The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures Produced in the United States: Feature Films, 1911–1920 (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1988), p. 244, as well as Paolo Cherchi Usai (ed.), The Griffith

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Project: Volume 8, Films Produced in 1914–15 (London: BFI Publishing, 2004), pp. 12–13. 11. The New York Dramatic Mirror, June 10, 914, p. 42. 12. The Independent, August 31, 1914, p. 313. 13. Billboard, June 13, 1914, p. 49. The New York Tribune had previously praised the scenes from the slum: “It is doubtful whether such realistic views of rooms in the slum as those in this subject have ever been shown on the motion picture screen before.” June 7, 1914, section III, p. 7. 14. Los Angeles Times, August 2, 1914, section III, p. 1. 15. Antony Anderson in Los Angeles Times, October 28, 1912, section III, p.4. 16. Movie Pictorial, July 4, 1914, p. 22. 17. Los Angeles Times, October 20, 1912, section III, p. 1. 18. The New York Dramatic Mirror, September 24, 1913, p. 10. 19. Fox’ 1928 remake, directed by Richard Rosson, had little in common with Armstrong’s drama and Griffith’s version besides the characters. May was turned into a nightclub hostess in the sordid dive district in New York City, which provided the main setting and atmosphere for the story. She eventually escapes to domestic bliss in a pastoral environment. Raoul Walsh was allegedly in touch with Armstrong when he wrote The Escape and he later procured the film rights from Griffith for a remake. However, Fox assigned Walsh to other films and the direction ended up in the hands of Rosson. For the background, see Los Angeles Times, August 25, 1927, p. A8. 20. Washington Post, September 26, 1915, p. MT3. 21. Los Angeles Times, August 2, 1914, section III, p. 1. 22. New York Times, March 2, 1913, p. C6. 23. For a discussion of white-slave films, see Shelley Stamp, Movie-Struck Girls: Women and Motion Picture Culture after the Nickelodeon (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), chapter 2. Danish filmmakers had pioneered the genre a couple of years earlier. 24. Louis Reeves Harrison addressed the newfangled sociological interest in his review claiming that “Sociological plays are new, and it is no easy matter to make them so entertaining that that the purpose will be felt, rather than unpleasantly obvious”. The Moving Picture World, vol. 20, no. 11, June 13, 1914, p. 1515. The reviewer in The New York Dramatic Mirror (June 10, 1914, p. 42) focused on the prologue in this respect: “The notion of prefacing a sociological drama with pictures of microscopic organisms to show how carefully nature guards the reproduction of microbes, in contrast to the procreatic carelessness of humans, appealed to the novelty-loving mind of the D.W. Griffith.” 25. New York World, June 7, 1914, p. M10. 26. New York Morning Telegraph, May 31, 1914, p. V3. 27. Los Angeles Examiner, March 9, 1915, section I, p. 5. 28. For a discussion of the San Francisco conference, see Wendy Kline, Building a Better Race: Gender, Sexuality, and Eugenics from the Turn of the Century to the Baby Boom (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001); the proceedings were published as Proceedings of the 1st-3rd Race Betterment Conference, 1914–1928 (Battle Creek, Michigan: Race Betterment Foundation, 1914–28). The history of eugenics in the United States is discussed in depth in Mark Haller, Eugenics: Hereditarian Attitudes in American Thought (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1963) and Daniel Kevles, In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity (New York: Knopf, 1985). For a general perspective on eugenics, see also Steven Selden, Inheriting Shame: The Story of Eugenics and Racism in America (New York: Teachers College Press, 1999); for an inquiry of cinema’s eugenic history, see Martin S. Pernick, The Black Stork: Eugenics and the Death of “Defective” Babies in American Medicine and Motion Pictures Since 1915 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996). 29. Chicago Tribune, March 9, 1913, p. B1. 30. New York Times, September 21, 1913, p. 15. The promptbook for The Escape is available at the

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Billy Rose Theater Collection, Performing Arts Library, New York, and so is a contact sheet holding seventeen images from the White Studio Theatrical Photographs. 31. Variety, November 28, 1913, p. 10. 32. Ibid., May 29, 1914, p. 20. 33. Chicago Tribune, May 15, 1914, p. 11. In New York City, the film was also shown for an invited audience “composed of physicians” (New York American, June 4, 1914, p. 6). 34. See for example, Thomas Keneally, The Great Shame: A Story of the Irish in the Old World and the New (London: Chatto & Windus, 1998). 35. The account in the New York Press (June 8, 1914, p. V5) elected to focus on the musical accompaniment improvised on a Wurlitzer-Jones by Dr. G.W. Ronfort, formerly organist at Our Lady of Sorrow, Chicago’s largest Roman Catholic church. 36. Movie Pictorial, July 4, 1914, p. 22. 37. Goodman discussed the nuts and bolts of scenario writing in a featured Sunday article in the New York Times, April 19, 1914, p. SM6. 38. The New York Morning Telegraph, July 18, 1915; The Moving Picture World, July 31, 1915, p. 796; The New York Dramatic Mirror, September 2, 1915. 39. Caucasian, August 24, 1915. For an account of the pervasiveness of the type of stunt pictures Goodman refers to, see Robert Mannerin, “Perils of the Movies”, Theatre Magazine, vol. 19, no. 158, April 1914, pp. 186–187, 202. 40. See for example, New York Times, October 31, 1909, p. C3. 41. For a full account French cinema’s wrestling with invisible natural phenomena, see Marina Dahlquist, The Invisible Seen in French Cinema before 1917 (Stockholm: Aura, 2001), chapter 3. 42. New York Tribune, June 7, 1914, section III, p. 7. 43. New York Morning Telegraph, May 31, 1914, p. V1. 44. Theatre Magazine, vol. 20, no. 161, July 1914, p. 4. 45. New York Review, May 30, 1914, p. II:4. 46. Globe and Commercial Advertiser, June 3, 1914, p. 8. 47. New York Sun, June 2, 1914, p. 7. 48 Variety, June 5, 1914, p. 19.

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7. O FEMME ÉTONNANTE!: WOMEN IN D.W. GRIFFITH’S FILMS D.W. Griffith’s heroines have endured more than threats to life and limb from villains, predators and deceivers.1 The daughters of the “father of cinema” also have suffered slings and arrows from critics of their cinematic plight. In general, the Griffith woman endures disdain for her passivity, her virginity, her sexual diffidence, the “Victorian” values her character represents, the inevitability of her journey from the house of her father to the house of her husband where her story seems to stop and her sexuality is firmly regulated. In short, she has been judged for exhibiting those characteristics that bind rather than free women from the ideological toils of paternalistic control; she becomes an emblem or badge of an undesirable and negatively constructed femininity. She sounds a warning to those who would struggle for complex and complicating rather than polarized and simplifying images of women’s lives. Indeed, Griffith works in the melodramatic mode in which polar oppositions are drawn to resolution with the inevitability of magnetism or gravitational force. The terms in which the narrative is framed, once accepted, either fulfill or block a desired return to wholeness; and even the expectations that are blocked often contain the seed of reconciliation somewhere beyond the limits of the tale (the end of What Drink Did [1909], for instance). Griffith never stops working in this mode, even when more progressive or ostensibly modern narrative strategies become the fashion and lead to more open-ended or seemingly progressive results. But if (as suggested by so many contemporary critics) melodrama is considered not simply as a repressive and regressive form, but rather as a site of excess that dramatizes psychic distress and cultural strains in extravagant and dramatic gestures, Griffith’s oppositions and the femininities they construct become far more interesting than the clichés with which they have been identified, condemned and dismissed. Just as they test the potential of the nuclear family to sustain the social status quo, they examine, as well, the relationship of female sexuality and desire to the whole edifice of social relations the family portrait anchors. Many of the essays in the Griffith Project volumes have suggested that sexuality, particularly the sexuality of women, in Griffith’s films is more complex than it seems on first viewing. While it is not possible to ignore the political uses to which Griffith put his conceptions of womanhood – some of them quite disturbing, unsavory and obnoxious – I would suggest that it is indeed possible to read the domestic ideal in Griffith’s work without always reading an ideal domesticity (indeed, quite the contrary in some cases). Further, while Griffith certainly privileges the maternal “purpose” of a woman’s life, the femininities modeled in his films sometimes provide a framework for heroism not at all connected with maternal sacrifice. This “heroic” position is not unrelated to the crisis in masculinity that appears in Biograph films such as The House with Closed Shutters (1910), Swords and Hearts (1911) and The Informer (1912), and which receives such an interesting exposition in Tom Gunning’s essay on The White Rose (1923; see DWG Project, #607, Volume 10). A duality in masculinity, sometimes styled as a weakness of character, sometimes as a failure to deliver the solution to the dramatic problem, creates the narrative gap into which a woman must step to “deliver the day”. And, in fact, that heroism – especially when it is framed in the female loyalties noted in the later features by Michael Allen in his book Family Secrets: The Feature Films of D.W. Griffith – can be catalytic in effecting a change in the community into which the woman is finally integrated despite melodrama’s unifying and regulating aims. 83

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THE HOME

Melodrama, as a mode, works to harmonize – and, yes, regulate – anomalies that create perceived social, political, sexual, class, racial anxieties. Recognizing a challenge to the status quo, the melodramatic narrative stages a conflict between starkly contrasting terms (good/evil), and then seeks to resolve the difference by the narrative’s end. As a conservative form, its resolutions must exclude some terms in order to include others for the sake of moral lucidity – and for women, what is almost always excluded is a productive life outside the social responsibilities of marriage and motherhood. The home stands as the firm foundation of social relations, and the female, so often poised at a window waiting for the wandering, adventuring male, guarantees the stability toward which the narrative yearns. There is no denying that plenty of passive female characters in Griffith’s films provide the moral force that charges the hero’s adventure in the public sphere with emotion and meaning. The woman at home represents the “reason” to venture, fight, endure, excel. Her literal image (par excellence as the pocket portrait of Elsie Stoneman in The Birth of a Nation [1915]) resonates as memory token and promises that order and wholeness can be restored after the disorders that created the drama have been “righted”. When, as in Lines of White on a Sullen Sea (1909), the token “fails” to effect reunion and reconciliation, the narrative resolution elicits tears of pity rather than tears of joy. When, as in The Birth of a Nation, the token succeeds, ideal (represented by the woman’s image) coincides with ideology (the man’s perspective) in the founding of a new community that abolishes the gap in which disorder has brewed. (In The Birth of a Nation, differences between North and South are resolved by excluding the “difference” of mixed-up races that ostensibly would alter national, but surely Southern, identity literally “beyond recognition”.) In short, in many of the Biograph films, the woman’s image, especially as incorporated in the final family portrait, guarantees a safe (because it is made recognizably familiar) reconstitution of a status quo in which the spectator is fully invested. Griffith’s first film, The Adventures of Dollie (1908), already ends in a version of this formal image of familial harmony: father, mother, girl-child reassembled after a trauma of a kidnapping separated them. In these earliest narratives, the female character is “mother”, the stable point toward which the family image gravitates. But Griffith varies and even plays with the constituent elements of this image throughout the Biograph years, “taking” the family portrait over and over again in different emotional, psychological and ideological tints and tones. Because he works through much the same material again and again, his own process eventually brings him to versions of the story that point at the margins rather than the domestic heart of gender politics, and it is in these variations that femininity (like politics and eventually ethnicity and race) shades and changes as it is resituated within repeated narratives and standardized iconographies. The position of women in Biographs about the Civil War is a case in point. Between 1908 (The Ingrate) and 1912 (The Informer) Griffith worked out the Civil War scenario from various perspectives, including the possibility of male cowardice fairly early on (The Honor of His Family, 1910). Women, usually mothers or sweethearts rather than wives or daughters, remain in the home to represent everything that the civil conflict ruptures: domestic stability, family harmony, family loyalties, trust, generational continuity, communal identity. But this image is connected to – and this is important – a masculinity constructed to defend these values. So the cowardly male threatens the ability of the story to come to closure in an endorsement of the very virtues the image of a woman in the home supposedly “secures”. In The House with Closed Shutters the chivalric codes of the antebellum American South are supported by the ideal femininity of the firebrand sister who whips up the passions of the local males in support of the Confederacy. Dorothy West, situated in the domestic parlor, is taxed to the limit of her physical ability to perform a gesture that will adequately communicate the ardor with which her character is committed to “the cause”. So strenuous is her 84

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dedication, that when her weaker and alcoholic brother (Henry Walthall in his “cad” persona) fails in his mission, she springs from their home in male guise to complete his task. Ultimately, she gives her life on the field of battle (a staging that looks like an interesting rehearsal for Ben Cameron’s charge in The Birth of a Nation). What happens when brother and sister change not only roles, but gendered positions in melodrama’s visual economy? As the sister assumes the “masculine” position on the battlefield exteriors, she also assumes her brother’s identity, i.e., she becomes the man of the family. The requirements of “honor” (that is, preservation of family identity) leaves only one “solution” to the dilemma that results. If the sister is “masculinized”, the brother must be “feminized”, i.e., confinement in the home behind closed shutters literally changes his gender identity as action “in the world” changed his sister’s. And for the latter third of the film he is “courted” by suitors who remain faithful to “her”. This gender swap suggests the intense interdependency between the home and the world in maintaining the order the narrative expects to deliver. The most satisfying resolution, a confirmation of social relations by marriage, cannot issue from this inversion of genders, sibling relationships or roles in The House with Closed Shutters. The situation is figured not only as shameful, but mad. On the other hand, the film suggests that when masculinity “fails”, women may step into the gap that opens and act “for” them, with no sense of transgression attaching to the transvestite act. (Comparative cases would be Swords and Hearts and The Informer, in which women assume the “male” role with more hopeful results.) But while the female demonstrates her ability to wear the trousers when necessary, the male is in no way able to provide a domestic center – in fact the madness imputed to the grieving “sister” becomes the reality for the hidden brother who has been forced to play “her”. It is punishment for a failure of “masculinity” over which the authority of the grim ancestor in the family portrait presides. I do not mean to imply that the Biographs are sexually progressive. The trouser role that appears as early as 1908 (The Planter’s Wife) largely “permits” women to act in the male arena as agents of paternal domesticity. But the trouser role also gives a Biograph version of how very much gender is constructed by a range of actions and iconography – and by inference how “heroism” can be ascribed to female characters who enter narratives normally reserved for male agents. The caveat, of course, is that female heroes usually act to restore the home, even if that resolution is beyond the scope of the film’s actual telling. At the end of Biograph production, however, domestic relations take on a strange and strained tone, and serious marital strife – including domestic abuse – is explored. Although the female character is initially situated in the domestic image, her prayers at the window no longer can “yearn” family harmony into existence. In The Mothering Heart (1913), for instance, a chasm opens between the roles of mother and wife. Although the film resolves in a family portrait of sorts, it seems a grim and questionable one – and, I believe, stretches the spectator’s ability to endorse the reunion of husband and wife, and therefore to be satisfied that the film’s trauma will be overcome. On the one hand is the strong maternal inclination of Lillian Gish’s character, “the mothering heart” – Griffith’s all-too-familiar assertion of woman’s essential nature. But, although the plot seems to be “about” the disruption her husband’s infidelities introduce into the home, it is the woman (the first images clearly imply) who may not ideally be suited for marriage. Against her better judgment, she acquiesces to her suitor’s pleas for marriage. Once they are married, she plunges into the union as though it is a project. She works to provide money for the home. She cossets her husband and puts herself aside for him. But all her efforts to “mother” him do not successfully engage his sexual fantasies, which are ensnared by the dark-eyed vamp of the piece. As sensibility and appetite get separated in the masculinities of the features, marriage and maternity separate here with results that unsettle the possibilities of a comforting resolution. 85

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The film’s sympathies are clearly with “the mothering heart”. The “eye” of the film lingers on Gish’s screened beauty as a guarantee of the character’s good faith. Thus, there is no indication that this wife has failed her husband. In fact, she is portrayed as doing everything she can to maintain the home and carry out the “prime directive”: motherhood. Nonetheless, marriage fails her and once she is betrayed by her husband’s infidelity, the role of motherto-be trumps the role of wife. Unlike women who have previously remained faithful to alcoholic or abusive husbands (in What Drink Did, Brutality [1912] or Death’s Marathon [1913], for instance), this woman packs her bags and leaves her marital domicile to bear and raise her child on her own – a “transgression” the film tacitly endorses as justified. No memory tokens are created to dramatize longing for reunion; no second thoughts are offered; no images that yearn for reconciliation are generated. Indeed, The Mothering Heart is one of the first times (outside a comedy) that a female character is allowed to express outright anger at marriage’s failure to deliver security and happiness. The “mothering heart’s” displays of temper are all the more visually shocking because they emerge from Lillian Gish’s otherworldly and idealized femininity. One could read her baby’s death as a punishment for abandoning the marital home – but I do not believe that the film gives serious support to this reading. If anything, the narrative sacrifices the child to chasten the adulterer (rather like the child’s death in What Drink Did chastens the drunk). The Mothering Heart goes to a different and more alarming “inevitability”: the reconstitution of the “family portrait” (mother, father and child’s corpse) is “wrong”, an inadequacy that is measured by staging the mother’s rage over the baby’s death. The scene in which Lillian Gish beats the flowers from rose bushes with a stick is unique among the many times that women howl with pain in Griffith’s movies. The response to the baby’s death starts in familiar catatonia: emotional and psychic overload immobilizes the character. But immobility soon moves to anger as Gish removes the physician’s consoling hand from her shoulder in a starkly cold performance of anger. And in the rose garden, that fury rises to a visual scream of grief and violence – a staging that strikes directly at the iconography of virginity and the fantasy of fecundity established in so many flowering Biograph bowers. The scene stands with Anna Moore’s denunciation of her betrayer in Way Down East (1921) as an instance in which a woman screams against her own fate as well as the fate of her lost child. “The mothering heart” protests against both disasters. The family portrait appears at the end of The Mothering Heart: yes. But the film’s imagery and structure suggest that the recovered husband is a poor substitute for the lost child, and that a woman’s desire (for children in this case) is in fact separable from matrimony – a gap between desire and marriage that will challenge the very constitution of community of Way Down East. THE WORLD

Various female characters separate themselves from the “home” to act in the “world” at the same time that their sexuality is critical to the issues the narrative wishes to resolve. As Griffith depicts her, Judith’s stature in Bethulia depends at least partially on her pious and sheltered widowhood. Her dilemma is thus bound in ironies: she who is chaste must enact the role of temptress; she who is innocent outfits herself for murder. Unlike the Bible story, in which Judith dispatches Holofernes with much preparation but no great hesitation, the assassination Griffith stages explicitly conflicts with the reawakening of Judith’s desire – and implicitly contradicts the nurturing relationship her charitable acts form with her community in Bethulia. For the good of Bethulia, Judith’s heroism must encompass wantonness and murder – “sins” lavishly prefigured in a close-up of Blanche Sweet scrubbing her face with penitent ashes as her Judith prepares for her task. 86

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Spatially, Griffith maps Judith’s dilemma on a right to left lateral that expresses an almost magnetic attraction between the virtuous widow and the wanton foreign general who awakens her at the same time that he must be her political victim. Because Griffith defines this relationship geographically across the contended plains of Bethulia, Judith’s personal dilemmas become a trauma that the community must absorb as well. She must publicly be judged upright, even though her action ostensibly transgresses the modesty of her female role, her passion temporarily immobilizes her and threatens her mission, and her heroism encompasses the transgressive acts of seduction and murder. Judith ventures from her window to question the limits of Bethulian ethics. The final image of Griffith’s film is not a reassertion of family values, but rather communal awe of a woman who dares assume this criminal persona to confirm and preserve the moral identity of her community. A femininity poised between the individual conviction of virtue and the judgment of public authority will be echoed again and again in the features, and in fact represents Griffith’s persistent investment in melodrama as a mode of social and moral commentary – increasingly an examination of the judgments rendered about women. I would not argue that Griffith’s practice does not limit or even “totalize”, but I do question whether the final product always endorses the “dominant ideology” quite as resoundingly as some critics would suggest. But Griffith’s films also encompass complications, ambiguities, contradictions and material that refuses to be absorbed into the “inevitable” wholeness toward which the narratives seem to tend (as the example of The Mothering Heart illustrates). In other words, his narratives often dramatize the contradictions of “Victorian” femininities to such an extent that the spectator cannot endorse the resolution even when it is staged. To some extent, this result is structural. Melodrama must resolve. Once the terms of its polarities are set, the narrative will head toward the resolution no matter what. If the initial premise is granted (in The Birth of a Nation, for instance), the spectator can be taken into very uncomfortable emotional and moral territory by melodrama’s “inevitabilities”. The point is to fully consider the terms that Griffith proposes and follow them where they really do lead. Thus, Judith’s graphic trajectory from right to left, from pious solitude at her window to the sybaritic and sexually charged privacy of Holofernes’ tent is staged not only as a dramatic adventure, but as a journey of desire sublimated for communal ends. The journey of the Mountain Girl in Intolerance (1916) is comparable. Her virginity is not sterile; it is charged with sexual longing that drives her to a sort of manliness in defense of her chosen desires (in which the construction of an idealized Belshazzar plays no small part). She vigorously rejects control of her sexuality (and in this respect, it is interesting that Constance Talmadge expressed a preference for such “trouser roles”).2 Both personally, in respect to the Rhapsode’s advances, and publicly, in the marriage market, the Mountain Girl insists on choice. She becomes a hero of the polity as well as a devotee of the monarch on whom she has fixed her affections, and it is with this dual private-public resonance that her doomed character resounds. This association of the fate of women with the constitution of the community becomes a central concern of Griffith’s features – taking an ideal turn especially whenever Lillian Gish is cast in the central role. One of Gish’s signal assets as an actor is the ability to embody femininity as a universal as well as to portray a character role. Her acting is subtly individualized and Griffith loved to look at moments in which emotional conflict fleets through her performance. But she also was able to convey the moral value behind the character. So, just as her characters express virtue or innocence, they also stand for the possibility of virtue and the viability of innocence in a given social situation. In this way, Gish is the perfect partner for an artist who considers the delineation of moral polarities a critical narrative and didactic tool. In her portrayals of women, the “marriage scenario” is more than just the contentious passage to the house of her husband. More critically, her femininity is constructed to pose a 87

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problem to the community that if not solved will be catastrophic, i.e., if the question posed by the woman is not resolved, the “story” of rebuilding consensus cannot end. In Broken Blossoms (1919) the traditional marriage scenario is blocked for Lucy in a number of ways. The women of her community expose the limitations on their economic mobility and social status as an explicit warning. In a sense, there is no female “commerce” that “pays off” in this film, and Lucy is well informed of the situation by the film’s females. On the male side, she also is hemmed in and it is in the context of these paired blockages that the twinned taboos of miscegenation and incest articulate the anxieties about sexuality and exclusion that the narrative tries and fails to resolve. Somewhat as he did in Judith of Bethulia (1914), Griffith expresses the narrative polarity in a graphic design: two beds loosely placed screen right and left frame the drama. At one polarity is dream figured as forbidden love that crosses the line of racial exclusion and difference to bring Lucy to a “beautiful” but impossible (because fantastic) sexuality. At the other pole is nightmare: the incestuous bed on which the line between father and daughter – so delicately trodden in so many Biograph films – is finally crossed in a carnal, ugly and all-too-possible but unthinkable sexuality. And at each end Lucy lies in a bed, neither still a child nor yet woman (though Gish was already in her twenties when she played the role). The doll in Lucy’s arms is as much a simulacrum of immature self as a symbol of motherhood, a future of sexual maturity that will not be fulfilled. As in Judith of Bethulia, the film forces the spectator to accept and endorse the breaking of one taboo to avoid a worse one: the spectator is asked to prefer the image of miscegenation (the catastrophe that we were assured would destroy Piedmont); to desire an erotic portrait of Cheng Huan and Lucy (especially conceived as it is with a breathless undertone of forbidden relations) rather than to view the nightmare portrait of family – husband/father and wife/child – that forms itself by implication on that bed in Lucy’s father’s home. From the viewpoint of domestic iconography and the situation of the female image within it, Broken Blossoms stages the ultimate, unspeakable variation on the family portrait. The narrative not only works to block the formation of that nightmarish picture; it deems it odious and obscene, asking us instead to remain with Lucy and Cheng Huan in a dreamworld that of necessity cannot be sustained exactly because its “beauty” as a sexual fantasy must be transitory and out of reach or it will lose its erotic charge. If the image of Cheng Huan’s desire thus must remain an emblem and cannot be fully realized as a possibility that bears narrative fruit, neither does a reassertion of paternal authority restore the status quo (the police raid on Cheng Huan’s upper room “fails” to exact the legal punishment for his acts). In Broken Blossoms, illicit images of desire have disturbed, and in many ways replaced, the desire for the restoration of “licit” familial relations recovered in a “family portrait”. It may seem no surprise, then, that Way Down East is cast as a warning to men. In the “instructions for viewing” that Griffith regularly began to include in the opening titles of his films, men are castigated for their wantonness and infidelity, even as woman still ostensibly are packaged in mythologies of “true love” (extravagantly illustrated later in the film by the glamorous fantasy image of Anna Moore/Lillian Gish as “The Lily Maid of Astolot”). The narrative intention of the film is thus split: between men and women; between public and private constructions of each, a separation that is consistently worked out in a dual camera strategy in which Anna is displayed as both a person of true worth and a “false” woman who deserves to be condemned. As he had in The Birth of a Nation, Griffith exploits Lillian Gish’s ability to “wear” the iconography of ideal and universal femininity at the same time she performs “Anna Moore”, a concrete character. And much in the same way that he utilizes Gish’s image in The Birth of a Nation to motivate the transformation of North and South into “Union”, he exploits the semiotic power of her presence to transform the community in Way Down East. The dilemma of Way Down East is a seeming impossibility: the restoration of Anna Moore’s 88

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“virginity” after she has engaged in sex outside the sanctions and regulations of marriage. It is a metaphoric status she must regain if she is to attain “legal” standing in the small country community in which Squire Bartlett represents the unbending paternalistic law. The fact that Anna was deceived into a false marriage does not change the fact that her “transgression” has changed her. “ONCE A THING’S BROKE, IT’S BROKE” is the way Squire Bartlett summarizes the irreversible loss of virgin status. And as a “loose” woman, Anna is a danger not only to other men, but also to the “law-abiding” women who police the status quo. Either Anna’s status must be repaired and the community must be transformed or Anna cannot come to the good end in which the spectator becomes so invested. Griffith’s version of Lotte Blair Parker’s play queries this dilemma from two visual addresses. The first is a visual strategy that places Gish/Anna Moore literally in the center of the frame as the focus of the camera’s view and proposes her as a person of worth, a prize worth having. The camera eye insistently makes the point that Anna is “worth” our look by the way Gish is beautified and idealized. The spectator is privileged to see her in a way that the community does not, as a natural beauty which emblematizes the hidden integrity that has been forced into an unjust silence. Anna’s vindication as a person of worth and integrity is a struggle that Griffith holds as worth the spectator’s trouble as well as the community’s. Only if Anna is recognized as “worthy”, i.e., if she can be seen for what she is rather than what she did, can communal relations be restored, and can the spectator’s view of her be brought into harmony with the diegetic view that judges her as false. From this privileged perspective, Anna is an innocent heroine. This is the Anna the spectator wishes to save, and to create this desire, Griffith traps the character in a succession of close and mid-shots rendering her powerless, passive, silent, flooded with light. As embodied by the beautified Gish, full of repressed feeling, Anna is innocence itself demanding the spectator’s admiration and appreciation. The second visual address is positioned within the diegesis and ultimately identifies false male behavior with the central narrative problem. At this address a false male look constitutes a “false” Anna for the spectator’s view. A naïve country girl is imaged as a woman of fashion, glamour, delusion and even self-delusion. Male authority creates this negative view. Sanderson’s economic privilege creates glamorous Anna; and from Squire Bartlett’s perspective (the Old Testament position) she is guilty Anna. These points of view are challenged by the visual authority that maintains Anna’s virtue before the spectator. The contrast between the two views creates a narrative of dual identities and a drama of conflicting self-images. If the narrative is to resolve, the “false glamorous Anna” must be abolished and the “authentic Anna” be restored. But to solve this identity problem, the community has to redefine masculinity – specifically, masculine authority that is represented by the constituting look of both Sanderson and Bartlett and is sustained by the female enforcers: the boarding-house keeper and the notorious gossip, Martha. Griffith sets up the disparity between the hidden and revealed Anna from the moment of introduction: Gish’s face half-exposed, half-hidden in her mother’s house. The innocent desire to be “fashionable” functions as the small vanity that is magnified into guilty complicity – illusion that accedes to delusion. What begins as a Cinderella scenario (disdainful city aunts and cousins concede to entertain a country cousin at their party) is disturbed by the mysteriously masculine “aunt” who creates the “fashionable” Anna simply to annoy those female relatives. But “fashionable” Anna is soon transformed into “glamorous” Anna through Sanderson’s intervention. It is through his gaze that Anna first becomes blinded to the truth (that he is a deceiver) and then becomes entangled in a secret life that includes her own sexual desire, passion and abandon, as well as Sanderson’s deception. Once her sexuality is activated, the creature created by Sanderson’s cowardly ruse becomes Anna’s mask, attached to her and identifying her an immoral and excluded other. Glamour no longer shines, but rather tarnishes her, and it is that 89

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tarnished image that she projects to the world, especially the world of other women. Anna flees from and shies away from this ruining gaze for most of the film at the same time that the camera eye slices mid-shots and close-ups out of the larger spaces of the film to maintain a privileged view of her innocence within the judgmental context. Anna must confront that false look directly within the diegesis. Furthermore, she must verbally repudiate it in order to bring the trauma of deceit to light and the narrative to resolution. This difficult and contended narrative moment is also the address at which Anna is the savior of this small community. That is, her dilemma sorts out the versions of masculinity represented in the plot and makes the community choose among them and finally repudiate Sanderson’s version. If the community is to continue, it must change itself to exclude men who use sex to lie and deceive, and it must include and integrate women who have had sex outside marriage (i.e., must judge Anna innocent of the crime of her unmarried sexual life that is signified by the birth of her baby). Thus, Anna, who seems blocked in silence, becomes the catalyst for change. Her angry outburst (again Gish flashing that unexpected temper) transforms the community. The fury of the storm indicates the extent of the social upheaval posed by Anna’s entry into the community. It also indicates the extent to which the community must go to show that she is worth recovering. In the process, passive, silent Anna is saved, but active, verbal Anna also makes the community realize that she is worth saving. And this recovery also demonstrates the limits of Griffith’s view of feminine possibility. For integrate Anna the narrative must do. She cannot confront the community’s false consciousness and then walk away, learn a profession and live somewhere else. Griffith’s narrative constraints make it clear that scrutiny of her “loose” status will be exercised everywhere and mercilessly. If Anna’s plight is not resolved here, she might as well perish on the ice. At the resolution of the film, glamorous Anna is abolished, and worthy Anna is re-established by harmonizing the camera’s look at Gish with David Bartlett’s diegetic recognition of the “true” Anna Moore. David is the head of the newly forming community, in the line of his father’s paternal authority. His has been the alternative view of Anna all along – established before he ever meets her when her false wedding to Sanderson mysteriously disturbs his sleep. In the narrative economy Anna is clearly David’s “dream girl”, eventually realized in the flesh. But Anna also instigates a transformation of David’s view of her when she turns the communal look that shames her toward Sanderson and emerges from her “false” position to assert her “true” self. Ultimately, David too must be “disillusioned” if Anna is to be “saved”. He must see through the false image of Anna created by Sanderson’s lust, but he also must shed his own fantasy image of her “innocence” and accept her authentic guiltlessness. Only then does his heroic search and rescue mean anything to the narrative. Anna’s final ability to speak her trauma, and demand justice, is the catalyst that enables the transformation of the new community, consolidated in the tri-part wedding ceremony. In the final scene, the gossip’s tongue, i.e., female enforcement of the old order of authority, is regulated. The community accepts a “feminine” man in the person of the professor, who has in every case demonstrated physical incompetence. And strangely, it is David’s own implied virginity, not Anna’s, that stands as the guarantee of trustworthiness – of the community’s repudiation of Sanderson’s lies, deceptions and ruses as a worthy construction of masculinity. The special constitution of the final family portrait (mother-in-law kisses daughter-in-law rather than groom kissing bride) indicates the distance Way Down East has traveled from satisfying “family honor” in The House with Closed Shutters. The restitution of mother-daughter relations signifies the transformation of naïve girl to woman who has acted in the world. Family stability is recovered and the community survives the change in its identity without catastrophic consequences. 90

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The final image of Way Down East prepares for the even more radical excision of the husband from the reconstituted society at the end of Orphans of the Storm (1922). In the introductory material for this film, Griffith also lays out two problems: two young women will be caught in a storm and will have to be saved; and a nation is caught in a storm and will have to be saved. But the eventual husband is sidelined by Danton, the hero on the large historical stage who reaches down into the personal level of the narrative to deliver the heroine, Henriette. And if the female must be rescued in that aspect of the narrative, her survival also signifies a critical agency by which post-revolutionary society must be transformed. In a film where the first images are of a ruptured family, the post-revolutionary community is reassembled in a garden, in those bowers that suggest that natural harmony once more governs social relations. The new comity is sealed in a series of handshakes and promises. But the resolving image is not the union of hero and heroine, the husband and wife to be. The narrative finally looks for the reunion of the heroine with her “sister” – a woman to whom she is bound not by ties of blood, but by Henriette’s word, the promise that she will never marry without Louise’s approval. In terms of the image that is actually staged, the new ideal of social integration can only be realized if Louise is included. Through her a place is made for the old nobility in the newly forming post-revolutionary society. But more importantly, the image of the bond between two women is of a higher value than the depiction of the marriage bond. De Vaudrey, the fiancé, is isolated in two odd close-ups: one depicting his fear of exclusion, and one, relief when Louise agrees to his marriage to Henriette. Clearly the relationship that will sustain the new community is the sisterly bond, based not on blood, or paternal regulation, but on the value of Henriette’s promise (her word) that Louise will always be a part of her life. The last image of Orphans of the Storm follows in a long line of final portraits that assert the importance of women, and the bonds that women alone can form, for the health of the community. Griffith uses the image of “woman” not only to solidify social units, but to explore the scandalous and even taboo boundaries of inclusion and exclusion. Later examples for consideration would be Inga the orphan in Isn’t Life Wonderful (1924), or Sally, in Sally of the Sawdust (1925), each of whom brings a new definition of family, social class and economy to the society in which she is finally integrated. In all of these ways, Griffith not only explores the possibilities of female action, but endorses the value of female solidarity in the constitution of social relations and obligations. It is true, in the end, that women also stand for “heart”, the radically individualized force for good that Griffith counterposes to political and social activism. Marriages that are charged with “heart” are the foundation of good society. The same Griffith who insists on libertarian individualism does not see independence as a viable option for women. But then he really does not see independence as a viable option for men either. Men who are left alone, even when they are powerful figures (Danton in Orphans of the Storm, for instance) are usually melancholy figures and generate a feeling of loss and rejection rather than an assertion of masculine freedom and agency. This essay has only been suggestive. But it will lead, I hope, to a more thoroughgoing and searching consideration of Griffith’s femininities. In the end, I believe, women’s roles in his films will still be seen as limited, but I hope not as unidimensional as the clichés have so far indicated. JOYCE JESIONOWSKI NOTES

1. Thanks to the students at Binghamton University who thought through these issues with me in the fall semester of 2006. 2. See Triangle Magazine, vol. III, no. 4, November 4, 1916, p. 4.

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8. ON THE ENDINGS OF THE BIRTH OF A NATION AND INTOLERANCE: SOME COMPLEMENTARY NOTES 1. The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance are the two most famous and notorious films in the entire Griffith canon. Although filmed in immediate succession, they differ in fundamental ways: first, in terms of their “intellectual emotional” content (to borrow Eisenstein’s term). Second, in terms of their financial return. And, third, in their impact on the development of the film industry and the art form. These differences have been frequently discussed, most notably in the final section of Babel and Babylon1, Miriam Hansen’s comprehensive study of Intolerance, rightly called by Scott Simmon “the most sophisticated and influential work about American silent cinema in the 1990s”2. What follows includes frequent references to Hansen’s study, but it also extends her arguments through close analysis of specific scenes. The scenes I want to consider come at the end of each film, scenes that bind two otherwise disparate films. For all their differences, the two epics end in similar, strange ways. The endings are in one sense expected and in another sense strained. They are at once silly and almost heroic. They are not truly convincing and yet are compelling. At any rate, both endings have a perplexing aspect – pose problems and riddles – that invites analysis. 2. But first, it is helpful to recall that both films are portrayals of historical events: national history in the case of The Birth of a Nation, and world history in the case of Intolerance. But they are designed to be understood not merely as historic portraits but as metahistorical texts – reflections upon and approaches to the teaching of history. Both films proclaim what Griffith considered the mission of the true motion picture: to serve as part of “the laboring man's university”3. In what manner, then, does Griffith portray history? Mainly by following an old tradition: to represent history through the fictitious lives of individuals. In The Birth of a Nation, a narrative about two families stands for the birth of the American nation4. In Intolerance, four separate stories are meant to represent world history. 3. The Birth of a Nation is structured around the friendships of its two families, their romantic relationships, the enmity created by the war, their reconciliation, and their final hopes for the future. Toward the end of the film, however, this narrative unity seems to unravel. The individual story reaches its end with the rescue of those trapped in the cabin by the Klan, the Klan rescue of Elsie Stoneman, and the reuniting of Elsie with Ben Cameron. After that, however, the narrative detaches itself from personal drama. With no further reference to the families, Klansmen who have presumably gained complete control over the political affairs in the South, proceed to manipulate elections by preventing blacks at gunpoint from voting, scaring them off, just as the victorious Northerners had earlier scared off Southern whites. With this state of affairs, The Birth of a Nation’s narration of history ends. Or rather, it does not end, it just breaks off. This is particularly unsettling, for this state of affairs – the disenfranchisement of blacks – is seen as a transitional one. The birth of the nation, according to Griffith, can come about only through a regaining of self-confidence and self-esteem by the defeated South. Black disenfranchisement can only be a beginning. As Griffith said in an interview conducted in February 1915: “The Civil War was 92

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fought fifty years ago. But the real nation has only existed the last fifteen or twenty years, for there can exist no union without sympathy and oneness of sentiment”5 (emphasis added). Reunification at the very least presupposes the beginning of some form of reconciliation or, at least, of a détente between the North and the South. But this avenue The Birth of a Nation fails to explore. (By contrast, this is precisely what John Ford addresses in his idyllic and bitter movie The Sun Shines Bright, where a friendly and generous community of Union and Confederate veterans bind the nation’s wounds.) Admittedly, a full depiction of the entire “Reconstruction” process would have stretched Griffith’s film far beyond the Dixon plot. Yet a suggestion of the birth of “sympathy and oneness of sentiment” was not only possible, it would have been absolutely essential for a truly convincing and valid portrayal of the birth of a/the nation. And couldn’t this reconciliation have easily been suggested in one or two additional brief scenes inserted, say, between “THE NEXT ELECTION” (shots 1594 to 1599) and the finale (shots 1600 to 1610)?6 Shots showing, for instance, Ben Cameron and Phil Stonemen taking political office, working on new legislation, and collaborating in Lynch’s former office. 4. However, it seems Griffith was to a certain extent aware, at least intuitively, of this omission. It also seems he tried to overcome this gap, while also trying to reintroduce his personal stories – recombining the individual and history – through the epilogue. He was fully aware that such a monumental epic called for a grand conclusion. He knew he needed it, if only on an emotional and rhythmic level, to soothe the enormous emotions aroused by the final rescue race. But beyond that, Griffith consciously or unconsciously attempted through this epilogue to introject images of reconciliation that were missing in his narrative portrayal of history. Whether or not he was successful is open to question. In the Birth of a Nation narrative, history – the history of a nation – has been narrated and reflected through individual biographies; but here, in this epilogue, history is replaced by it. The rejoining of the lovers, Elsie Stoneman and Ben Cameron, signifies the country’s reunion. Yet this reunification – and this is the crucial point – is not portrayed by The Birth of a Nation, but only suggested in this extremely oblique manner. By endowing Elsie Stoneman and Ben Cameron, and by extension the film itself, with a vision of the Prince of Peace banishing a bestial war god, Griffith tries to apotheosize these reunited lovers, tries to transform them into an allegory, a personification of a North and South on the lip of reunification.7 At the same time, though, this linkage remains irresolute and tentative. What we actually see is: Shot 1604: God of War / heap of dead bodies Shots 1605, 1607, 1608: Figure of Christ / heavenly throng / City of Peace And a title that precedes and explains this vision: Shot 1603: DARE WE DREAM OF A GOLDEN DAY WHEN THE BESTIAL WAR SHALL RULE NO MORE. Note that this sequence constitutes an abandoning of any sense of a specific historic time. As Russell Merritt states: “In this final allegorical effusion, Griffith has spiraled out from his portrayal of the South to a universal vision for mankind. In an incredible and unconvincing tour de force, Griffith has related the restoration of the old South to contemporary dreams of peace and isolation”.8 It is not until after the final image of the film (shot 1608: Ben–Elsie, City of Peace) that a final title (shot 1609: “LIBERTY AND UNION, ONE AND INSEPA93

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RABLE, NOW AND FOREVER!”) at last returns us to historical time, suggesting national

reconciliation and the birth of the American nation. There is a particular beauty, though, in this ending of The Birth of a Nation: Shot 1608: Split frame. On the right, Ben and Elsie hold hands and look at each other lovingly. They turn and look left, to the vision of the celestial city on the hill. The final image juxtaposes a narrative image with allegory. It is this very oscillation that actually does lend the allegorical content persuasive power. The ending provides, to use a musical term, a false cadence (Trugschluss). In its original form the epilogue took on a sinister aspect, though, with a sequence edited out as early as 1915. The original scene (for which there is only indirect evidence) apparently showed “the mass deportation of Negroes ‘back to Africa’”. According to Merritt: “One by one, the Negroes are loaded onto the ships, and as the sequence ends, the country’s ten million Negroes leave for the jungle, never to return”.9 5. The problematic nature of The Birth of a Nation’s ending, one that impresses and moves while still remaining inherently inadequate, resurfaces in Intolerance. Only here the ending is considerably more complex. The narrative culminates with several endings, juxtaposed and woven together: four endings of four stories, and then an epilogue. The end of the final, Modern story presents itself as a happy one, following three stories that end in catastrophe. Yet, in her study, Miriam Hansen has noticed that even the Modern story’s ending contains inherent contradictions. She demonstrates that it is the culmination of a “teleological movement”, running “counter to the pattern of eternal sameness”, since the “teleology of history manifests itself in the progress of technology as well as the moral perfectibility of the individual, exemplified by the final victory of conscience in the Friendless One.” This ending, Hansen argues, is “determined just as much by the experience of catastrophe as the other three [stories], rather than by victory of love, accomplished only as a miracle”, which “undermines the ideological assertion of linear progress”. Finally, “undermined not only by imbrication with parallel catastrophes, [this end] appears tacked on in view of the regressive sexual dynamics, in particular the incomplete Oedipal itinerary of the Bobby Harron character. The real antagonist, Jenkins, remains unaccountable, invulnerable”.10 These conclusions attest to a clear insight that the peculiarity and contradictions of this ending result from the peculiarity and contradictions of the entire Modern story, and that therefore this ending can only be properly evaluated within the context of that strange narrative. So we need to digress to examine the overall construction of the Modern story. 6. Proceeding from her analysis, Hansen focuses on what the Modern story portrays of the “psychosexual economy” that is at work therein. She sees in Cooper’s Friendless One “the focal point of a crisis of femininity, which at once fuels and destabilizes Intolerance”, indicating “significant – and, for men like Griffith, traumatic – changes in women’s social, sexual and economic roles”.11 This character of the Friendless One, beyond playing a central role within these contexts, is also of central importance in a broader sense. As a main character of the story, the Friendless One, unlike all the other main characters, remains strangely vague. She seems to meander through the narrative, appearing, disappearing, always left in shadow. In a way, she is left over and then forgotten at the very end: a character Griffith apparently is not quite sure how to understand and handle. And yet this strangely vague character is assigned an absolutely central dramatic function. 94

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She first operates as a kind of Goddess of Fate, inflicting mortal danger and almost causing the death of the Boy; and then becomes a kind of dea ex machina, enabling him to be saved, as if by a “miracle”.12 It is fair to say that the crucial events in the proceeding Modern story are presented as having being caused exclusively by this character. Her possible personal motivations – for shooting the Musketeer, for letting the Boy be arrested and then sentenced to death for her crime, for saving him through her confession in the nick of time – these motivations are practically unrelated to the political and social context. By making her the pivotal cause of these events, the film disconnects the political and social causal link that marked the earlier scenes. At the start of the Modern Story, where we saw unbroken causal connections, we saw: how the presumptuous, priggish Uplifter enterprise causes high costs; how, in order to cover these costs, Jenkins cuts his workers' wages; how, with reduced wages, the workers can no longer feed their families; and how, facing severe want, they strike. And Griffith maintained this rigorous cause-and-effect linkage by showing: how Jenkins orders his factory guards to fire on the strikers; and how the strike trauma causes the death of the Father of the Boy; how he, now orphaned, like many others must move to the city, and how, jobless, he too becomes a Barbarian of the Street. But the film does not pursue this line, with its reflection of capitalist society and its class conflicts. Instead, it represents the ensuing events as caused solely by the Friendless One. In other words, the character of the Friendless One functions as a means of repression – repression in the Freudian sense – of any further social and political analysis. 7. Based on what Griffith himself demanded of the motion picture – that it be “the laboring man's university” – this is a very disappointing and, for anyone who holds Griffith in esteem, a depressing assessment. And yet, even when sidelining his social analysis in favor of personal melodrama, Griffith never quite abandons his social critique. First, he depicts a modern society whose administration of justice makes an altogether unfavorable impression, notably in its job “to protect the weak” (cf. shot 183, title Huff)13. The system is incapable of finding out what really happened – though it pretends to do so, or at least believes it does (cf. the courtroom blackboard with layout plan of the scene of crime; shot 1238). Worse, the system also proves unwilling to accept criticism or tolerate doubt regarding its judgments. The governor refuses to listen to the policeman’s investigation and objections (shot 1284; cf. also shot 1267). The most telling result: an absolutely perfectionist, ritual-like attempt at executing an innocent man. Second, and far more important: “Jenkins, the industrial overlord remains distant, unaccountable and invulnerable”.14 So Intolerance presents, one must say, a quite consistent statement of affairs. The social order that Jenkins represents and the misery that the social order causes remain unchanged and unchallenged – the same at the end of the story as it was in the beginning. The misery has not gone away at the end of the Modern story; it has simply been ignored. To quote the famous billboard, revealed in the background as the camera pans across embattled strikers (shot 255): “The same today as yesterday.” It recalls the end of A Corner in Wheat where even the death of the Wheat King changes 95

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nothing. But the end of Intolerance is far less radical than that ending. The Modern story’s end is an attempted cover-up, a resolution meant to make us forget this state of affairs, distracting us with an image of a family reunion. Thus, seen in one way, this ending is a false one, an image of false reconciliation and relief, working by means of the ever-enticing, almost always successful and always deceitful trick of personalizing social injustices. By saving his couple, whom he has made our couple, Griffith seems to invite us to forget about the rest. This same trick, both deceitful and self-deceitful, keeps recurring throughout film history in films that presume, or consider themselves critiques of social history. By showing Schindler saving his Jews, which Spielberg has made our Jews, Spielberg seems to invite us to forget about the rest. 8. Returning to the ending itself: dissatisfied, perhaps unconsciously, with his overly facile happy ending, Griffith transforms it by once again opening it up onto an epilogue. As in The Birth of a Nation, the epilogue is needed for emotional, rhythmic, and musical economy because, like The Birth of a Nation, the Modern story’s rather hasty happy ending by itself would have failed to release the enormous emotional tensions evoked by Intolerance's quadruple and mainly catastrophic finale. One can admire much in the epilogue. It transforms the Modern story’s ending into a Utopian vision. The potential for an allegorical Utopia has in fact been inherent in Intolerance from the start: the very first image of the film portrays The Woman Who Rocks the Cradle. As this image recurs, the visionary dimension becomes more and more visible and tangible. And as the four stories become increasingly interwoven, approaching and intersecting each other with increasing force, they themselves turn symbolic through their interaction. Beyond these individual moments, Griffith also prepares for the epilogue with his overall construction – through the very nature of its montage. Miriam Hansen describes that structure with terms like “allegorical tendency”, “allegorical over-determination of narrative space”, and “an allegorical style that fragments narration”15 – using “allegorical” as practically synonymous with “conceptual”. It is a type of montage that opens the entire narrative to a “metafictional” meaning extending into the philosophy of history. This epilogue is an ideal; it is the vision of a brighter future, a vision full of hope. But it is not only this, for the epic as a whole has shown the destructive power of intolerance, and how it has raged through all ages of world history. Thus all hope is stifled. That is what defines the power of the epilogue: an urgent imploring, a beseeching, almost desperate appeal. The epilogue hovers between two modes: the playful ideal future vision and the wake-up alarm. Thus the epilogue modulates the happy ending by giving it “retroactively” a complex undertone that recalls the disastrous endings of other stories and weaves it into its own final desperate, near apocalyptic appeal. 9. When one considers The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance together, one discovers that Griffith has shrunk from something in both the endings. In the end of The Birth of a Nation, he has evaded dramatizing any true conciliation between the South and the North, a conciliation that was not glorious but in practical terms necessary. But Griffith could not – or would not – give up his Southerner’s worldview. Having Phil Stoneman, a son of the North, wind up on the side of the South and saved by Klansmen, certainly suited Griffith. The Birth of a Nation fantasizing that the South saves the North from itself by saving Elsie Stoneman from being raped by her father’s (!) evil mulatto protégé in a forced marriage, is another story. The end of Intolerance, due to its Modern story’s happy ending and the ensuing epilogue, shrinks in another way, evading any social criticism that involves distribution of property and 96

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power on which the film had so convincingly started earlier. Griffith evades any consideration of whether it might be desirable or even necessary to change the system of social power from the ground up. In fact, such a consideration is anathema to D.W. Griffith. With his ending, he falls short even of what he had achieved in the final moments of A Corner in Wheat and of The Usurer: his conclusion that social conditions, recognized as untenable, continue to exist. But a comparison between the epilogues reveals more than evasion. Stylistically what is distinctive about The Birth of a Nation’s epilogue is how it flows more smoothly from its personal narrative, linked with the preceding story through the lovers, Elsie Stoneman and Ben Cameron, who in their reverie see the apparition of the Celestial City of Peace that is only established in the epilogue. The epilogue of Intolerance, on the other hand, is untied to any character in the narrative, an objective vision, or, more precisely, a succession of visions. It develops its own logic, and becomes as internally consistent as it is bold. In closing an epic that throughout has narrated stories and at the same time, through the “allegorical” and conceptual nature of its montage, has visualized thoughts, Griffith uses his ending to intensify those principles, offering his vision as a pictorial representation of abstract thought. He presents a vision that transforms war into peace, and the dark, gloomy, sinister, and horrific into images of auspicious light. 10. The remaining problem is that, alas, the photographed angel-maidens are embarrassing. The problem is that Griffith, in his endeavor to visualize his thoughts and make literal supernatural elements, wants to draw on a fine arts tradition. “That’s what I want, Billy. Angels in the sky overhanging the cannons of the battlefield. Peace triumphant over war – it’s going to be our epilogue”.16 And he had hoped, indeed he was confident, that allusion to this tradition would be the very element that affirmed the motion picture as a real art, ennobling it by elevating to the rank of art. This tradition, though, was no longer intact; it no longer even existed. The fine arts had already lost the power of visual representation of the supernatural, of the super-real, in the late eighteenth century, about a hundred years before the birth of cinematography. The German art historian Theodor Hetzer impressively describes this loss: “During the second half of the Eighteenth Century an artistic world began to disintegrate, which had evolved and been consolidated over the course of centuries, one might even say of millennia, and which had brought the fine arts their greatest triumph…. All of this, all this wealth, this development, this inexhaustive desire to create, is now coming to a total standstill. Tiepolo was still crowding his glories with the holiest personae, with crowds of flying angels, with all the antique gods; the great Spanish Goya was no longer able to do this. His angels are no longer heavenly messengers, but very worldly maidens, actresses in white robes, with big wings”.17 The angel-maidens are all the more embarrassing because they are photographed. And they remain at the center of what gives the epilogue its archaic caste. Yet Griffith saves himself through certain optical effects – double exposure, beams of light, superimposition, vignettes with changing irises – techniques that emphasize the ephemeral nature of cinematographic imagery. Then, there is also that scene of a little girl and a little boy, which so moved Bitzer during its shooting (shot 1713). Karl Brown recalls: “I remember the shooting of that final scene very well. The setting was an open, unspoiled natural garden that stretched between the railroad tracks and the mountains of Griffith Park.... There was nothing there to break the pure beauty of the picture: no houses, utility poles, nothing. We assembled the children and let them play in this idyllic setting. What touched me most deeply was nothing that Griffith said. It came from Bitzer, of all people, when he looked longingly at a beautiful child and growled softly with an infinity of regret in his voice, ‘That’s the only thing worth living for. Yes, damnit! The only thing!’”18 97

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It is a fleeting moment, existing only in these fleeting forms, in the quicksilverish form of Lumièric cinematography. “The greatness of film, it is humility, it is being condemned to photography.” (Jean-Marie Straub in an interview, 1987) “The task I am trying to achieve is above all to make you see.” (Griffith, in a 1913 interview)19

11. Two postscripts. The first: a somewhat singular wish. In the Modern Story of Intolerance there is a shot of Jenkins ordering his factory guards to fire upon his striking workers. “LONG SHOT, Jenkins sits alone at his desk in the center of his large bare office” (shot 234/249). Griffith repeats the shot much later, after the Dear One’s father dies (shot 435). Here, however, the shot exists outside the narrative context. It has become, in Hansen’s words, “an element of conceptual montage”.20 It belongs because it represents the true cause of the father’s death. Similarly, when the Boy is sentenced to death, we cut to a shot of the Jenkins tea party (shot 1259); this again falls outside any narrative context. It is used not merely for contrast, but also as part of a conceptual montage – the ultimate cause of the Boy’s death sentence. My wish is that Griffith had added, through another of these conceptual montages, the missing element to the ending of the Modern Story: a shot of Jenkins, “the industrial overlord”, as the “distant, unaccountable, invulnerable” force that he is. In doing so, Griffith would have significantly heightened the political validity of the entire film. The second: an idle thought. To appreciate the uniqueness of Intolerance, even by way of realizing what it is not, one might recall another Southern author's unique epic: A Fable by William Faulkner. HELMUT FÄRBER Translated by Lonnie Legg (I am grateful to Lonnie Legg for his translation, and for valuable advice, and to Paolo Cherchi Usai for his encouraging patience, and to Cindi Rowell for her meticulous checking. I am forever indebted to Russell Merritt for his generosity.) NOTES 1. Miriam Hansen, Babel and Babylon: Spectatorship in American Silent Cinema (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), pp. 240–241. 2. Scott Simmon, DWG Project, #543, in Paolo Cherchi Usai (ed.), The Griffith Project: Volume 9, Film Produced in 1916–18 (London: BFI Publishing, 2005), p. 99. 3. D.W. Griffith, The Rise and Fall of Free Speech in America (1916); reprinted in Paolo Cherchi Usai (ed.), The Griffith Project: Volume 11, Selected Writings by D.W. Griffith (London: BFI Publishing, 2005), p. 142. 4. Cf. Linda Williams, DWG Project, #513, in Paolo Cherchi Usai (ed.), The Griffith Project: Volume 8, Films Produced in 1914–15 (London: BFI Publishing, 2004), p. 99; David Mayer, DWG Project, #358, in Paolo Cherchi Usai (ed.), The Griffith Project: Volume 5, Films Produced in 1911 (London: BFI Publishing, 2001), p. 113.

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5. Reprinted in Harry M. Geduld (ed.), Focus on D.W. Griffith (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1971), pp. 27–29. 6. Shot numbers taken from Robert Lang (ed.), The Birth of a Nation (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1994), p. 155. 7. Cf. R. Lang, quoted in The Griffith Project: Volume 8, p. 69. 8. Russell Merritt, “Dixon, Griffith, and the Southern Legend: A Cultural Analysis of The Birth of a Nation”, in Cinema Examined: Selection from Cinema Journal, Richard Dyer McCann and Jack Ellis (eds) (New York: E.P. Dutton, Inc., 1982), p. 182. 9. Russell Merritt, op. cit., p. 181, with cited evidence and commentary. 10. Hansen, op. cit., pp. 169–170, 171, 227, all quotes abridged. 11. Hansen, op. cit., pp. 159, 220; cf. pp. 218–227. 12. Hansen, op. cit., p. 171. 13. Shot numbers taken from Theodore Huff, Intolerance, the Film by David Wark Griffith: Shot-byShot Analysis (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1966). 14. Hansen, op. cit., p. 227. 15. Hansen, op. cit., pp. 143, 149, 168. 16. G.W. Bitzer, Billy Bitzer: His Story (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1973), p 136. 17. Theodor Hetzer, “Goethe und die bildende Kunst” [1942]; in Aufsätze und Vorträge, 2 vols. (Leipzig: VEB E.A. Seemann Verlag, 1957); vol. II, pp. 195–196. 18. Karl Brown, Adventures with D.W. Griffith (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1973), pp. 174–175. 19. Cited in Lewis Jacobs, The Rise of the American Film [1939] (reprint, New York: Teachers College Press, 1968), p. 119, and quoted in Siegfried Kracauer as a motto for Chapter 3 of his Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality (New York: Oxford University Press, 1960). 20. Hansen, op. cit., p. 143.

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9. THE JUDEAN AND FRENCH SECTIONS OF INTOLERANCE Griffith wanted to enlarge the scope of the motion picture and move beyond pleasant little stories and slapstick, but was well aware that any such serious attempts would be condemned as controversial and in some cases evoke the dangers of censorship: Let those who tell us to uplift our art [not forget the risk of investing money even in a presumably safe] production of a historic play of the life of Christ. They will find that this cannot be staged without incurring the wrath of a certain part of our people. “The Massacre of St. Bartholomew”, if reproduced, will cut off the toes of another part of our people…. If I approach success in what I am trying to do in my coming picture, … I expect a persecution even greater than that which met The Birth of a Nation.1

When Griffith decided to offer a treatise on intolerance through the ages, he chose for its thematic lynchpin various episodes in the life of Jesus. By this time in 1915, parts of the Bible had already been put on the screen. Entrepreneurs had realized that the public who had heard many a sermon and seen engravings, religious paintings, and stained-glass windows would be eager to watch Moses, Jesus, and other Bibical personages. Although, in many areas of America, movies were considered so sinful that Sunday showings were prohibited, these religious films became commercial successes, despite the disapproval of some pious church members who felt that such sacred matters should not be exhibited at all. Indeed, the featurelength From the Manger to the Cross (1912) had proved quite popular. This prestigious production was partially filmed on location in the Holy Land but, except for a few cinematic effects like double exposures, it was at best only photographed theater. Scenes were photographed from a distance and often lasted minutes. Griffith, always competitive, felt that such a dull work could easily be superseded and was eager to demonstrate his superior skills. However, he took a considerable risk in choosing to depict portions of the life of Jesus in what was an “entertainment” film. Griffith was by no means narrowly Christian – he did not attend church – and was always critical of organized religion for its hypocrisies and its intolerance. His Biograph Rose O’ Salem-Town (1910) had this opening title: RELIABLE AUTHORITY STATES THAT NINE MILLION HUMAN LIVES WERE SACRIFICED THROUGH THE ZEAL OF FANATICAL REFORMERS DURING THE CHRISTIAN EPOCH. RELIGIOUS FANATICISM WAS IN MOST CASES THE CAUSE…. Although Griffith had a strong, emotional respect for Jesus

as a great teacher and exemplar of goodness,2 he saw faith as something that should transcend dogma, something that should affect behavior. He felt that Jesus, Buddha, and other religious figures were one, their lessons noble and good, although their advice, alas, often went unheeded. He saw irony in the fact that a belief in Christianity could cause such miseries. He regarded Jesus not as the Son of God – an incarnated theological principle – but as the most perfect of men, an Innocent beset by bigots and crucified by intolerance. Griffith’s fascination with this topic would never wane, for even as late as 1930, he still hoped to “to do a picture on the personality of Jesus”.3 Although Jesus’ presence in Intolerance seems inevitable in retrospect, actually Griffith’s first thought was to show how brother slew brother by employing the “incident that happened between Cain and Abel because of jealousy and thereby hatred”.4 In fact, this tale would have 100

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borne more directly on Griffith’s belief in brotherhood – but he soon vetoed the idea because the relatively unfamiliar conflict between Cain and Abel would have taken too much time to establish. (He had already broached this subject, though not very satisfactorily, in the twobrothers episode of Home, Sweet Home.) Instead, he chose the life of Jesus as a better example of his overall theme, for He was not only the most famous advocate of tolerance but also intolerance’s most outstanding victim. Griffith would exercise some caution, however, by not using the name of Jesus, which might irritate some pious viewers, but instead referred to Him in public announcements more safely as the “Nazarene”. After having decided on Jesus, Griffith had no plan beyond the wish to intercut shots of Him during the other stories to make points about goodness, forbearance, justice, and forgiveness. With no clear-cut scenario to limit himself, Griffith became so fascinated in staging the Judean scenes that he moved beyond the few that he had planned and expanded the section so that it was rumored he shot about thirty different episodes. Although this number seems exaggerated, from the evidence of surviving stills and reminiscences of his principal players and staff, such a total appears credible.5 When the film was put together in a rough form and ran far too long – about three and one half to four hours – Griffith had to discard many of the Judean scenes. The major surviving moments are Jesus entering through the town gates (with the Pharisees near by), the marriage at Cana, the woman taken in adultery, scenes of children gathering around Him, the carrying of the cross, and, of course, the Crucifixion. Each of these sequences had strong symbolic overtones in terms of the total Intolerance story and, except for minor variations in length of shots, and the occasional inclusion or exclusion of a particular shot, the Jesus scenes in all versions of the release prints remain substantially the same. Griffith wanted close-ups of Jesus’ face that would make Him, in Griffith’s word, “mysterious”.6 He tried, according to Karl Brown, a soft-focus effect.7 At this time, such an approach was technologically impossible. (He did not learn about the soft-focus lens until about 1918.) Brown devised a halo-like glow by developing each frame of the positive. Although Griffith was enthusiastic, Brown’s system had to be abandoned because it did not work on the negative and was too labor-intensive to be added to all the release prints.8 As a result, in the final versions, Griffith chose to maintain Jesus’ ethereal presence by keeping him in long and medium shots and avoiding any close-ups at all. The one effect Griffith did use was to superimpose a darkened cross over Jesus in some of the shots at the marriage of Cana. Griffith knew little about what Jerusalem looked like in ancient times, although, since boyhood, he had been familiar with Biblical illustrations. In an attempt to be historically accurate, he drew on James Tissot’s heavily illustrated The Life of Christ, published in 1899. Tissot was a French artist who, in 1886 at the age of fifty, went to the Holy Land to see for himself the actual locales featured in the Bible. As Tissot later explained: “For a long time the imagination of the Christian world has been led astray by the fancies of artists; there is a whole army of delusions to be overturned, before any ideas can be entertained approaching the truth in the slightest degree.”9 Tissot’s aim was to “reproduce with fidelity the divine personality of Jesus, to make him live again before the eyes of the spectators, to call up the very spirit which shone through His every act, and through all His noble teaching”.10 After ten years of work and many moments of intuition, Tissot published his well-researched paintings of the life of Christ that attempted to capture his divinity and also to render faithfully the hillsides, valleys, architecture, and garments of the time. Tissot’s sincerity as well as his graphic, yet realistic, portrayal of events brought forth in Griffith a comparable wish to portray the salient scenes of Jesus’ life in a moving yet accurate manner. Just as Tissot used actuality, Griffith used Tissot, and (at least in spirit) the results on film were as authentic as possible. According to Tissot, who based his views on the Bible, many of the more devout Jews 101

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during this time had a strict aversion to pleasures and a singular devotion to the minutiae of worship and conduct. On their Sabbath there could be no effort except prayer. It was against their law to light a fire, move from place to place, to rescue a sheep fallen into a pit, to kill any creature larger than a fly, or to play any instrument loudly enough to wake a sleeping child. To Griffith, this rigidity could easily be compared to the nay-saying Puritans of early America as well as to the Bible-thumpers, prohibitionists, and advocates of strict blue laws of his own day. The Judean section’s first scenes show Pharisees (the dictionary defines them as people with pretensions to superior sanctity – self-righteous hypocrites) entering a street and praying; as a title says: “OH LORD, I THANK THEE THAT I AM BETTER THAN OTHER MEN.” Jesus criticized such zealots, calling them a “generation of vipers”,11 and in the Sermon on the Mount described them as people who “loved to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men”.12 As Jesus noted: “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.”13 Thus these Pharisees disapprove of Jesus who, as a title declares, is THE GREATEST ENEMY OF INTOLERANCE. Griffith remarked, after the film was released, that in contrast to Judaism, Christianity was “a happy faith until the puritans of the Reformation seized it and turned it sour…. Because the Romans had both laughed and bathed, they thought it was virtuous to be dirty.” Only with the bathtub did paganism finally come back and thus, he said, the spirit of Christ. “It isn’t the Christ of the churches, but it is the Christ that I have tried to show in many of the apotheoses of my films.”14 Much of the Judean sequence – except for the Via Dolorosa and the Crucifixion scenes – was shot early for the sets had to be removed to make way for the construction of the streets and buildings of the French story. The first scene of the Judean section to be filmed was the Marriage at Cana.15 According to the Bible,16 Jesus was at a wedding party that soon ran out of wine. He had the celebrants fill six pots with water, which he transformed into wine, a wine so good that the guests marveled at its quality. Of all the moments in Jesus’ life, why did Griffith pick this one? The answer is clear. Griffith adamantly opposed the strait-laced puritans and prohibitionists then so current, and here boldly stated that both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible sanctioned the use of alcohol. Jesus not only drank wine, he made it! Another major scene in the Judean story involves the woman taken in adultery. The populace is about to stone her to death when Jesus intercedes: “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” At this point, the crowd wavers and eventually slinks away. Here Griffith shows that Jesus, although He did not condone the woman’s deed, was far more forgiving than her self-righteous oppressors. Griffith filmed many other scenes as well, as can be seen in surviving stills and from the frames submitted for copyright, such as a lengthy episode with Mary Magdalene, played by Olga Grey. “America will rise and proclaim her Queen of Magdalenes of the camera when this is seen”, prophesied an article in Photo-Play Journal for June 1916.17 Except for a few seconds of screen time, however, her potential fame vanished because her scenes, like so many others – such as Jesus entering Jerusalem on Palm Sunday18 – fell on the cutting-room floor. Griffith depicted the Stations of the Cross, that is, the fourteen events from Jesus’ condemnation to His crucifixion. There is a shot of Pontius Pilate in a copyright frame suggesting that he has just said, “The truth. What is the truth?” Throughout his life, Griffith would often quote Pilate’s statement.19 As early as October 1916, he said, “All through the centuries you and I and the other fellow have been shouting, ‘Truth is what I believe.’”20 Another omitted shot was of Pilate washing his hands.21 One suspects that Griffith originally planned to intercut Pilate with the judge of the Modern story. In extant prints, all that remains of such a comparison is a crosscut between Jesus being condemned and the Boy being sentenced. The scenes just following Pilate’s judgment, however, do exist. Pilate caused a sign to be written that was borne by Jesus and later put on the cross saying mockingly that 102

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here was the King of the Jews.22 This sign – written in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin – is carried by Jesus in the film and is a perfect reproduction of Tissot’s illustration.23 Griffith got another idea when filming Jesus on His way to the Crucifixion. A young Jewish mother, garbed in black mourning clothes and carrying her dead baby approaches Him. He pauses a moment, touches the corpse, and brings it back to life,24 a telling contrast to the uplifters of the Modern story who take away the Dear One’s baby. (This scene is based mainly on old legends, but the Bible does include a somewhat similar episode of Christ bringing a twelve-year-old girl back to life.25) Griffith started rehearsing the scene with Margery Wilson playing the bereaved mother.26 Years later, the actress recalled that she was temporarily loaned to the Thomas H. Ince studio where she would appear as a leading lady in several William S. Hart productions.27 “D.W. sent me in his own limousine”, she remembered Griffith telling her. “It would never do for a Griffith leading lady to arrive at another studio on foot.”28 Meanwhile, another woman stood in for Miss Wilson in subsequent rehearsals. When the time came to shoot the scene with the dead baby, hundreds of extras filled the Jerusalem street to witness Christ’s journey to Calvary, and Griffith told Miss Wilson to get into her costume. At that point, the substitute actress who had taken over the role in rehearsals learned that she would not play the part and went into hysterics. Miss Wilson felt guilty and interceded on the girl’s behalf. Busy staging the scene, Griffith said, okay, “Let her have the part, I have something better for you anyhow.” Thus a bit player acted the role of the mother. Although Griffith filmed the scene of the baby being brought back to life, which he intended to contrast with the Jenkins Foundation taking away the girl’s baby, the incident was cut from the final prints. Miss Wilson believed it was “because the girl, despite all the rehearsals, didn’t or couldn’t act well”,29 but Griffith probably omitted the episode because Intolerance was running too long. A still does exist of the woman standing with her fellow mourners and, in surviving prints, a discerning viewer can see a dark-garbed woman, holding her dead baby, move toward Christ as he is carrying the cross. Then there is a splice and the scene shifts to other action. Griffith also filmed a sequence just following this of another legendary event depicted in Tissot. A woman, known later as Saint Veronica, comes out of the crowd intending to offer Jesus a restorative drink. She drops to her knees before him and with a cloth in her hands, says, “Permit me to wipe the face of my Savior.”30 Jesus wipes His face and the blood and sweat are transposed to the linen, creating a perfect likeness. This episode was also cut and only a still remains. After these two sequences, Griffith had a shot of the apostles in the crowd and originally included a title about how they were to carry His story to the world. Although this title exists in the copyright version, the reference to the apostles was dropped at the last moment. Jesus was then stripped of his garments, nailed to the cross, and crucified. The last two stations – Christ taken down from the cross and laid in the sepulcher – were probably not filmed. The most significant moment of the Judean story, of course, is the Crucifixion, the supreme moment of intolerance. Griffith depicted this in great detail, including the actual nailing, the sound of which Karl Brown clearly remembered: “Oh, yes, that’s unforgettable. Wood is the worst, like a xylophone, with a big ‘bong’.”31 Hedda Hopper witnessed the filming of the Crucifixion. “Griffith”, she wrote, “was meticulous about the effect he wanted for the Crucifixion of Christ and waited for foggy days. There were no fog-making machines then. I remember Griffith, overtired by long hours of trying for perfection, ordering a break and calling for hot tea. The actors who portrayed Christ and the two thieves had been on their crosses four hours without rest. ‘Lower Christ’, said Griffith.” The actor playing Jesus, “staying in character, asked, ‘What about my brothers who play the thieves?’ Griffith replied, ‘Lower the thieves too. Get tea for the whole company.’”32 Griffith stated in his The Rise and Fall of Free Speech in America (issued early in 1916) 103

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that no man could tell the truth in film without being censored. Privately, he suspected he would receive objections from Catholics for his dramatization of the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, so in the Modern story, he wisely made The Little Dear One a Catholic to counterbalance such opposition. Griffith also expected that his advocacy of the right to drink and his disapproval of self-righteous reformers might also cause trouble after the film opened (which, indeed, it did), but he was absolutely astounded when a furor developed over his depiction of the Crucifixion before the picture was even finished. For that scene, according to an article in Variety, datelined 2 April 1916, Griffith had sent someone to “the local Ghetto and hired all the orthodox Hebrews with long whiskers he could secure”.33 This someone was probably Erich von Stroheim, who clearly recalled going to the Jewish quarter and enlisting men with beards.34 Stroheim may have been able, by means of his German – or Yiddish – to talk to them. Years later, Stroheim, always anxious to seem unpleasant, gleefully recalled that he was one of the men doing the nailing.35 Henabery also remembered playing an extra in the Crucifixion scene and said that he had “made faces at Christ on the Cross.”36 After the episode was finished, the Jews were paid, but then complained to their brethren about Griffith showing the Jewish people as responsible for the Crucifixion. Soon, Griffith was embroiled in the controversial issue: Who killed Christ? Variety noted that “when the B’nai Brith (the most powerful Hebrew society in the United States) was apprised of his handling of the Crucifixion, they requested that Griffith omit that portion of the picture, but he refused. They then brought pressure to bear upon him through his associates, but could not move him.”37 Griffith re-examined the Bible and found that the New Testament leaves no doubt that the Jewish high priests were opposed to Jesus and that they wanted him executed. According to St. Matthew, “All the chief priests and elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death.”38 This is corroborated by St. Luke, who said that “the chief priests and scribes stood and vehemently accused him”.39 Pontius Pilate, who could find no grievous fault in Jesus, “knew that the chief priests had delivered him for envy”.40 When Pilate sought to release Christ, “the Jews cried out, saying, ‘Away with him, away with him, crucify him.’”41 This “moved the people” and so Barabbas, not Christ, was freed. Although Griffith was essentially correct in having the Jewish establishment responsible for Christ’s death, he had erred by having them, rather than the Romans, carry out the deed. What happened next was described by Variety: A committee of three members of the [B’nai Brith] society (one from San Francisco, one from New York and one from Chicago) brought the matter to the attention of Jacob H. Schiff, Joseph Brandeis, Louis Marshall and other prominent Hebrews. Armed with data gathered from colleges, professors and historians, the committee returned to Los Angeles and waited upon Griffith with so-called indisputable proofs that the Jews did not crucify the savior, showing that the orthodox method of killing in those days was strangulation and that the Romans believed in crucifixion. They supplemented their “proofs” with a 48-hour ultimatum to destroy that portion of the “master-piece” negative on penalty of a concerted national campaign of black-listing and other pressure which powerful financial and industrial interests might bring to bear, which included the assertion that censors, governors of states and even the President would do all in their power to prevent the showing of the picture with the objectionable scene.42

Pressure from the almost powerless NAACP to halt the showing of The Birth of a Nation was one thing, but the Jewish community would be more effective. Griffith, “confronted with such antagonism”, observed Variety, gave in and “burned the negative of the scene in the presence 104

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of the committee and has retaken it, showing Roman soldiers nailing Christ to the cross”.43 As a result of this fracas, all existing prints contain a non-committal title card: OUTSIDE THE ROMAN JUDGMENT HALL, AFTER THE VERDICT OF PONTIUS PILATE: “LET HIM BE CRUCIFIED.” Whoever says, “Let him be crucified”, discreetly remains unidentified!44

Although Griffith was compelled to reshoot the scene using Roman soldiers, he ultimately decided to omit any details of the Crucifixion, so that now all that remains is a distant view of the three crosses on the hill. This shot is cut into pieces, separated by various X’s scratched on the negative, and then spliced together causing various jumps in most prints. These X’s originally indicated what portions of the shot to use and perhaps where additional shots of bystanders, soldiers, and closer views of Christ and the two thieves were to be inserted. When those shots were removed, someone neglected to take out the X’s. (The Museum of Modern Art in its “restoration” used this version, with all the X’s, even though the individually marked frames could easily have been removed. There is another print extant without these blemishes.)

In terms of scripting, the Judean sequence was an easy one, for it featured already familiar events and did not need to create a plot. This would not be the case with Griffith’s other two historical sequences, the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre and the fall of Babylon. Both of these events, intended to illustrate intolerance, dealt with matters totally unknown to most people. Therefore, if these sequences were to be meaningful as well as engaging, Griffith had to create fictional characters involved in some kind of a story. What prompted Griffith to choose the bloody event of the St. Bartholomew Massacre probably stemmed from his having seen or at least read about Les Huguenots,45 an opera written in 1836 by Giacomo Meyerbeer, which had been revived in New York in 1908 and again in 1913. Its libretto deals with the mutual dislike of the Catholics and Protestants and then centers on a young Huguenot, Raoul, who falls in love with a beautiful woman and, after some plot complications, the couple are to be united but later killed during the massacre. Although the opera might have provided Griffith with the initial idea, its sprawling libretto46 was of little aid, so he had to concoct his own story. However, he did draw on a few moments from the opera. One of its most famous arias was called “Piff Paff”, in which Raoul’s servant sings of the wonderful sounds made by muskets as they fire on the Catholic enemy. This number had been recorded, and Griffith, who had studied voice and would often break out into operatic songs, must have known it, for the film contained a six-shot sequence – included in the copyright frames but eventually cut because they were irrelevant – demonstrating how these guns were loaded and then fired. However, another moment from the opera, the ringing of the bells of St. Germain that signals the beginning of the slaughter would remain. Griffith tried to equal this dramatic highlight of the opera by inserting close-ups of the bells and in his roadshow presentations the orchestra would stop and reverberating sounds of bells (which he supplied) would be synchronized. Once Griffith had chosen the massacre in France as a prime example of religious intolerance – it showed how bigotry prompted Catholic forces to kill Protestants then known as Huguenots – he was soon faced with the almost insuperable task of trying to deal with a vast number of historical facts, which would have to be established if his story were to have any meaning. When King Henry II was accidentally killed in a tournament in 1559, his wife, Catherine de Medici, took control of France. By the time her son became king, increasing numbers of the French nobility were becoming Huguenots. She feared their belief posed a threat to the established church and therefore the throne.47 To smooth over the enmity between these religious factions, an interfaith marriage was arranged on 18 August 1572 between Catherine’s 105

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daughter and the Huguenot Henry of Navarre. To celebrate the wedding, many Huguenots came to Paris, but four days later an attempt was made on the life of Admiral Coligny, the Protestant leader. Frustrated by the failed assassination and fearful of its consequences, Catherine now persuaded her son, the King, to order the wholesale massacre of the Huguenots on 24 August – St. Bartholomew’s Day – as an early “final solution” to the religious problems. Coligny was killed and the slaughter continued in Paris until 17 September, and subsequently spread throughout France until ultimately around 50,000 people perished. In Rome, the new pope, Gregory XIII, was so delighted at the massacre that he celebrated a Te Deum. Later, His Holiness had a special medal struck with his profile on one side and, on the reverse, an angel “carrying a cross and superintending the killing of Coligny and his henchmen.”48 The church soon commissioned the painter Vasari to celebrate Coligny’s assassination with a fresco.49 Once Griffith had chosen the massacre in France as a prime example of religious intolerance, he now had to explain what brought about this famous event. Like Thomas Dixon in The Clansman who personalized complex historic issues so that they would be meaningful and dramatic, Griffith sought to create a story that would adhere faithfully to the facts and yet be clear enough so that its salient points of intolerance could be intercut with the film’s three other sections to convey the film’s message. He had to establish the opulent French court, introduce the leaders of the opposing religious factions, and then show how intolerance brought about the killing of an innocent group of Huguenots with whom we would have to know and sympathize. To accomplish this in a brief amount of time, Griffith ignores the usual plotting of “boy meets girl” and shows a young Frenchman, Prosper Latour,50 already about to marry a Huguenot girl, Brown Eyes. Soon intolerance will bring about the slaughter of her family, her rape and murder, and the tragic death of her intended husband. The French episode of the film begins in 1572 with a big long shot of the royal court in all its splendor – the camera dollies forward as it does in Cabiria – and introduces the Catholic Queen Catherine and her son Charles IX. Here Griffith presents the two opposing factions, various Catholic counselors and then Coligny, the leader of the Huguenots. Both Protestants and Catholics cast suspicious looks at each other and aver that all would be well if only the others “thought as we do”. This is the main point of the opening sequence, but it is already muddied by the inclusion of too many characters, such as Charles receiving his brother Monsieur La France, an “effeminate” fellow (says a title), who minces around with puppies in his doublet. This brother was historically true, but has nothing to do with the story and is not only irrelevant but needlessly confusing. As a result, the introduction to the French Court, which should have clearly stated the conflicting religious issues, fails because the viewer has difficulty in knowing one person from another or what each stands for. All the audience can comprehend is that the royal court is lavish and there are lots of people. To add to this crowded political and religious canvas, Griffith cuts to a street where we see hundreds of townspeople celebrating the wedding of Catholic Marguerite of Valois to Protestant Henry of Navarre, whose marriage was, says a title, TO INSURE PEACE IN THE PLACE OF INTOLERANCE. Although Henry would later become one of France’s greatest kings, this wedding scene is minor and, although historically important because it brought many Protestants to Paris, it merely adds to the section’s incoherence. Griffith would have made a clearer exposition by presenting only Catherine and her son, the King, rather than including his effeminate brother and the wedding, and by concentrating instead on the essential religious conflict. After this confused and cluttered opening, the French story breaks down into two parts: the court intrigue and the fate of a group of Huguenots. Griffith avoided the opera’s plot of Raoul, the hero, who meets and falls in love with the heroine. Instead, he condenses matters by starting with the hero (Prosper) already in love with the heroine (Brown Eyes) and briefly 106

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fleshes out their story by introducing her family and a lurking mercenary who lusts for her. Griffith was trying to show how decisions made by authorities filter down to affect the lives of the common people (just as Jenkins’ actions ultimately affect the life of the Dear One). Dramatically, though, he could have strengthened the tale by having Prosper (as was Raoul in the opera) be an important person at court or at least an aide to someone there, but in the existing story Griffith fails to make a direct narrative link between these story threads, therefore making the overall plot disjointed. When Griffith began planning the French section, he had no actress in mind for his young heroine. Margery Wilson who eventually won the part recalled that when she was sixteen years old she had gone to the Griffith studios to extol the virtues of her sister as an actress.51 Frank Woods, Griffith’s story editor, was so entranced by her looks and enthusiasm that he hired her as a minor player. Not long after, while she was carrying a load of books with her hair tied up in a dust rag, she accidentally bumped into someone. The books fell to the ground and the man who helped pick them up happened to be Griffith, who saw before him a young, innocent, book-loving damsel with beautiful eyes in distress. What an introduction! As Frank Woods had anticipated, Griffith was indeed interested. The director particularly liked her eyes and at first planned to use her as the mother of the dead baby in the Judean scenes, but later cast her as the feminine lead in the French section and consequently named her Brown Eyes. Miss Wilson recalled that she overheard Griffith telling Bitzer to move the camera up close. “I want the eyes. I don’t want anything but the eyes.” Indeed, in the film he gives them giant close-ups. Miss Wilson remembered that Griffith called her into the office and spoke to her about sixteenth-century France’s clothing. “You go find the proper costumes”, he told her, knowing that the bookish girl would then go to the public library for her research. She came back with Prosper Mérimée’s novel with slips of paper marking various illustrations. “That’s fine”, he said. “That’s wonderful.” After putting his OK on them, he ordered a copy of the book for himself and sent it on to the costume department.52 This is but one instance of Griffith’s sometimes-casual approach to important matters. One engraving in the book that showed the troops marking crosses on the walls and doors of the Huguenot houses would be reproduced on the screen. Working without a detailed script, Griffith soon became fascinated with the details of French life in this era and went on, as he had in the Judean section, to depict many other aspects of the period. He filmed numerous episodes, such as the assassination of Coligny who “was stabbed in the front of the throat with a sword”,53 his death bed,54 additional shots of Henry of Navarre and the parade in the streets, a more extensive scene of Catherine enjoying the slaughter, and a sequence of twelve shots describing “a common garbage system of the period” (people throwing debris out of windows onto passersby). Some of these shots can be seen in the copyright frames and others were included in the first showings of the film, though later omitted. (For example, there was music for the French garbage episode, the cue being the title, LOOK OUT BELOW.) As with the other stories of Intolerance, the French section concludes with Griffith’s usual ploy of a ride to the rescue. While Prosper hurries through the streets, the villainous mercenaries break down one door, forcing the beleaguered occupants to retreat to a second room. At this point, Griffith always has the forces of good arrive to save the victims, but in this instance there is no happy ending, for Prosper arrives too late to save Brown Eyes from being raped and then killed along with her family. The heartbroken Prosper picks up her dead body, goes to the door, and is shot, virtually committing suicide.55 As Griffith wrote in the program for the picture, these “pure lovers … die in each other’s arms” as do “Romeo and Juliet”. Although their death may be sad, it is by no means tragic because we do not know 107

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Brown Eyes or her family in any personal fashion,56 and therefore we do not care whether they live or die. Prosper, the hero, is remote, at best, and the heroine, Brown Eyes, despite some extraordinary close-ups, is given little opportunity to develop her character. She’s merely young and pretty. Although Griffith creates suspense and succeeds in demonstrating the evils of intolerance, unlike Shakespeare, he fails to engage us on an emotional level. When Griffith, in the spring of 1916, finally assembled a rough cut of Intolerance, he found it ran far too long. After trimming every shot to a bare minimum, he realized he would have to do major surgery on each of the stories. As a result, the French section, sketchy at best, was further shortened so that whatever cohesiveness it may once have had was lost. If the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre had not been central to his theme, his only other recourse would have been to omit it entirely, but that would have spoiled Intolerance’s four-part structure. In its truncated form, it remains the least satisfying portion of the film. Even so, it did make his point. ARTHUR LENNIG NOTES

1. Interview with Griffith made in April 1916 , Henry Stephen Gordon, “The Story of David Wark Griffith,” Photoplay, October 1916, pp. 93–94. 2. Gerrit Lloyd spoke of this in a letter to Barnet Bravermann in the 1940s. 3. D.W. Griffith, in “How Can a Christian Hate a Jew”, Brooklyn Examiner, September 19, 1930, p. 30. 4. Photoplay, November 1916. 5. Karl Brown remembered a scene with Pontius Pilate high on a platform looking down at the crowd and washing his hands in a basin of water. He also recalled the Palm Sunday sequence, Tom Wilson carrying the cross for Christ, a dead baby brought back to life, and the hammering of the nails into the cross. Karl Brown, interview with the author, March 25, 1975. 6. Brown, p. 137. 7. Brown, p. 137. 8. Brown, p. 140. 9. James Tissot, “Introduction”, Life of Christ (New York: McClure-Tissot Company, 1899), Vol. 1, p. ix. 10. Ibid., p. x. 11. Matthew 23:33. 12. Matthew 6:5. 13. Mark 2:27. 14. Kenneth Macgowan, “From the Master-Mind of the Movies”, Boston Evening Transcript, November 18, 1916. 15. Brown, p. 137. 16. John: 2:1–10. 17. Steve Talbot, “Olga, Daughter of Unrest”, Photo-Play Journal, June 1916, p. 26. 18. A photograph of people with palms still exists. When I asked Brown about this, he confirmed that this event had been filmed. 19. Griffith quoted Pilate in the interview filmed for The Birth of a Nation in 1930 and would repeat Pilate’s comment to those who questioned his interpretation of the Reconstruction period. 20. Photoplay, p. 28. 21. Brown, interview with author, March 25, 1975. 22. John 19:19. Pilate is not mentioned as its author in the other three gospels. 23. Tissot, op. cit., p. 151. 24. A similar scene was included in the silent Ben Hur. 25. Mark 5:39–43 and Luke 8:9–56. 26. Margery Wilson, interview with the author, November 12, 1973.

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27. The first film with her was The Primal Lure, in production from 6 December 1915 through 2 February 1916. The five-reel film cost $18,968.55. (Diane Kaiser Koszarski, The Complete Films of William S. Hart, [New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1980], p. 44.) 28. Margery Wilson, quoted in Homer Croy, Starmaker (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1959), p. 120. 29. Ibid. 30. Tissot, pp. 117–118. 31. Karl Brown, interview with author, March 26, 1975. 32. Hedda Hopper, From Under My Hat (Garden City, NY, Doubleday & Company, 1952), p. 64. 33. Variety, April 7, 1916. 34. Thomas Quinn Curtiss, Von Stroheim (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux), p. 68. 35. This is perhaps the only time that Stroheim could have appeared in the Judean section, for most of it had been shot the previous fall, while he was on the East Coast. Stroheim has sometimes been identified in an often-reproduced still of Christ and the Pharisees, but when I examined this photo with Joseph Henabery, he pointed out William Courtright as one of Jesus’ followers, Baron Erik von Ritzau as the shorter Pharisee, and himself (“You can see my long horse face”) as the taller Pharisee. (There was an employee of the Fine Arts Company who was known as Baron Erik von Ritzau and was important enough that when his wife, the Baroness, had a baby, the birth was noted in The Moving Picture World, February 26, 1916.) I had brought a vast number of frame blow-ups in the hopes Henabery could identify Stroheim in them, but he fairly shouted at me, after my persistent questioning, that Stroheim was not in the film. “Point him out”, he said. I couldn’t and neither has anyone else, either. Stroheim cannot be seen in any surviving prints or even in a copyright frame. If this be the case, how did Stroheim get included in the credits? A photo of the Pharisees, as early as the November 1916 issue of Motion Picture Classic, is captioned “Baron von Ritzau and Count von Stroheim”, and the cast list accompanying Variety’s review also mentions him. Why include Stroheim’s name if he didn’t play a role? Griffith had first filmed Henabery as one of the Pharisees and later decided to use him as Admiral Coligny in the French sequence. Such a dual appearance would seem cheap for a lavish film and had the potential of being embarrassing, so Griffith chose another name for the Pharisee. He saw a certain consistency in having both of these hated hypocrites played by men with aristocratic and Teutonic names. Whether Griffith chose Stroheim’s name – he was fascinated by it and later wanted to use it for the villain in Hearts of the World – or whether Stroheim, eager for any kind of notoriety, offered it, cannot be ascertained. Although Stroheim never disagreed with the “fact” that he was in Intolerance, on the other hand, neither did he ever claim he was in it. 36. Henabery, interview with author, March 27, 1975. 37. Variety, April 7, 1916. 38. Matthew 27:1. 39. Luke 23:10. 40. Mark 15:10–11. 41. John 19:15. 42. Variety, datelined April 5 and printed on April 7, 1916. 43. Variety, April 7, 1916. 44. Griffith was not the only filmmaker to have trouble with the issue of who was responsible for Christ’s death. In 1927, C.B. De Mille encountered the same problem when he made The King of Kings. The Anti-Defamation League ordered him to “exculpate the Jews of guilt for the death of Jesus” and to put “the responsibility on Caiaphas, the high priest” (New York Times), who is cleansed by becoming, as a title card blithely informs us, a “Roman appointee”. In later films, Hollywood chose to sidestep this ticklish issue. Dwight MacDonald, brave enough to be politically incorrect, pointed out in his 1960 review of the remake of Ben Hur that the

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Jews were mysteriously absent: “Ain’t nobody here but just us Romans”, he remarked. MacDonald considered this distortion of historical fact to be the result of there being “no ancient Romans around and there are many Jews”. For this observation, MacDonald received letters of protest that accused him of “ugly bigotry” and of favoring “Christ-killer” scenes. In 1961, the crucifixion appeared in a remake of The King of Kings and this time MacDonald wittily noted that “the responsibility for the crucifixion is again displaced from the Jews to the Romans, who are again made the fall goys” (Dwight Macdonald, On Movies [New York and Berkeley: Medallion Books, 1969]). In 1965, the Vatican Council, perhaps guilty about its relative silence during the Holocaust, declared that the Jews – despite what the New Testament said – were not to be blamed for the crucifixion. Irving Howe in World of Our Fathers (1976, in the Bantam edition, p. 631) quoted one “caustic” observer’s Yiddish comment, “A sheynem dank aykh”, which Howe translated as “Thanks a lot.” 45. At one point, Griffith referred to the opera in an interview, but, alas, I have lost the clipping. 46. Because the whole opera ran about five hours, its last act was usually omitted in American performances. 47. Griffith quotes François Guizot’s Reformation and Massacre in a note in the original film program: The conflict between the Catholics and the Huguenots resulted in “insult, attack, defense and vengeance…. From 1561 to 1572 there were twenty-odd massacres on both sides and thirty or forty single murders sufficiently important to have been kept in remembrance by history.” 48. Robert M. Kingdon, Myths about the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacres (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), p. 46. 49. The slaughter provided no real solution and soon civil war broke out, as the two factions continued to battle on and off in the next decades. Eventually, when another king (Henry III) assumed the throne, a fanatic, feeling that Henry was not Catholic enough, assassinated him, and Henry of Navarre, the Huguenot, succeeded to the throne in 1589. When the civil strife continued, the new king in 1593 decided to give up his Protestantism to become a Catholic, saying, “Paris is well worth a mass.” Later, in 1598, the Edict of Nantes guaranteed rights to the Huguenots, but this law was not entirely popular. In fact, Henry, in 1610, was killed by another Catholic zealot who believed the king a menace to the church. 50. In the original version submitted for copyright in June 1916, his name was Jean Etienne. Perhaps Griffith thought “Jean” would have been confusing because it could be a woman or a man. In any case, after having used Prosper Mérimée’s 1829 novel, A Chronicle of the Reign of Charles IX, as a source for costumes and certain historical details, he decided on the author’s first name instead. 51. Margery Wilson, interview with author, November 12, 1973. 52. Griffith later gave his copy to Seymour Stern. I am grateful to Ira Gallen, who now owns it, for showing this to me. 53. Brown, p. 130. 54. A photo of the dead Coligny (which appeared in the New York Sun, August 27, 1916) was used in the Intolerance Press Book as a part of the basic publicity, even though it had already been cut. One other photo frequently published in 1916 shows the Duc de Guise riding up to Coligny’s house and standing up in his stirrups, yelling, “Fling down the carrion. I would see whether he be truly dead!” This too would soon be cut. Griffith, understandably, omitted the gruesome historical facts of Coligny’s severed head and genitals. 55. In the often-omitted final act of the opera, Raoul and his beloved are stopped in the streets by Catholic soldiers who question him. When he defiantly answers that they are Huguenots, the soldiers murder them both. 56. Some criticism of this same kind might be leveled against the Judean section, but such strictures are not really well taken. Everyone in the audience knows who Christ is and his fate and Griffith therefore could not create suspense, but rather employed Him as the world’s outstanding victim of intolerance. Christ does not function as a character, but almost solely as a symbol.

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10. ROBESPIERRE HAS BEEN LOST: GRIFFITH’S MOVIES AND THE SOVIET 1920S

The monument to Robespierre erected a few days ago in the Aleksandrovsky Park has been destroyed by “unidentified criminals.” (Cynics, the novel [1928] by Anatolii Mariengof) Street vendor: Fur-trimmed brassieres, fur-trimmed brassieres! (Enter Prisypkin, Rozalia Pavlovna and Bayan.) Vendor: Fur-trimmed… Prisypkin (in exaltation): What an aristocratic pair of bonnets! Rozalia Pavlovna: What do you mean bonnets, these are… Prisypkin: Do you think I have no eyes? What if we have twins? This one will be for Dorothy, and this one for Lillian… Decided: I’ll give my twins these aristocratic-cinematic names… they’ll walk side by side. See? My home must be a cup of plenty. Buy them, Rozalia Pavlovna! (The Bedbug, the play [1929] by Vladimir Mayakovsky)

What Griffith’s films did for Soviet editing is widely known. We learn this from Eisenstein, Leonid Trauberg, and Vertov each of whom used kind words to repay their debt to Intolerance – Vertov in two sentences,1 Trauberg in a paragraph,2 Eisenstein in the space of a sizable treatise.3 It is less widely known, however, what Soviet editing did to Griffith’s films – and it is this other side of the coin that this essay is going to address. I am talking about re-editing of course – the practice of cutting import films to fit the Soviet screen. They did re-edit them heavily in the 1920s. This was done, it was said, to preclude foreign films from spreading what was seen as capitalist ills and bourgeois virtues – the ills and virtues the Party claimed was its goal to weed out. Apparently, Soviet leaders believed that as long as evil is kept off movie screens it would be easy to hold it at bay in real life. While most modern observers will categorize it as magical rather than logical, one has to admit that this line of reasoning still serves to buttress many an uplift campaign – including some science-based ones, like the Harvard School of Public Health study on the perils of onscreen smoking in Hollywood films.4 I have written about re-editing at length.5 The present essay is a case study of a print. The print I intend to examine is a Soviet re-edit of Griffith’s Orphans of the Storm – the film David Mayer and I have had a chance to address in The Griffith Project, Volume 10 (pp. 116–137). The film is about two orphaned stepsisters caught in the middle of the French Revolution. That revolution, Griffith tells us, was yet another history lesson on intolerance. Its noble cause, as its leaders, fell victim to their own invention, the guillotine. Like any melodrama, ones about revolutions need to have heroes and villains. In Griffith’s Orphans of the Storm, Danton is the hero and Robespierre, the villain. Danton fights for freedom; Robespierre, for power. Danton’s gift is for speech; Robespierre’s, for intrigue. When Lillian Gish as Henriette befriends Danton, the “pussy-footed” Robespierre becomes envious. When, eager to spite his more popular rival, evil Robespierre sends Henriette to the guillotine it is the good Danton who rushes to her rescue.

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Through titles more than through action, Griffith ties Robespierre’s villainy to his uncompromising political stance. The conflict between him and Danton, Griffith explains, is not only about the girl but about the fate of the revolution they had won together. Robespierre calls for blood; Danton stands for mercy. The film ends happily for the orphans, yet as far as history is concerned, Griffith warns us, intolerance will prevail. As the reign of terror spirals out of control, Danton’s head will fall, soon followed by Robespierre’s own. Revolution is only good as long as it does not entrust its power to the guillotine. When it does, the guillotine is the only winner. Such, more or less, was the train of thought Griffith wanted his film to prompt his fellowAmericans, or those of them who, like him, took pride in the fact that their own revolution was made – and succeeded – by the likes of Danton. He could hardly expect this view to resonate with the Soviets, however. Nor did he count on this. On the contrary, the introductory title that Orphans of the Storm opens with wakes us up to the fact that this film, after all, was made in the wake of the period in the history of the United States to be later labeled the Red Scare: THE LESSON – THE FRENCH REVOLUTION RIGHTLY OVERTHREW A BAD GOVERNMENT. BUT WE IN AMERICA SHOULD BE CAREFUL LEST WE WITH A GOOD GOVERNMENT MISTAKE FANATICS FOR LEADERS AND EXCHANGE OUR DECENT LAW AND ORDER FOR ANARCHY AND BOLSHEVISM.

We will return to Griffith’s movie later on. Meanwhile, let us take a look at Russia.

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(opposite, above and below) Illustrations 1–4

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To see how these matters looked from the Bolshevist side of the fence allow me to put films aside for a moment and look at some monuments instead. We know how much Lenin valued cinema for its propaganda potential. What was, for him, the second important art after film? Were Lenin asked this question he might have pointed to sculpture. As early as 12 April 1918 (only six months after the October Revolution), Soviet government issued a decree on Monumental Propaganda whose aim was to rewrite past history from the present viewpoint. History, as Marx saw it, was made by rebels, not Caesars, and it was their names that deserved to be written in stone. Accordingly, Lenin’s decree laid down the removal of monuments to Tsars and their servants and the erection of new ones, from Spartacus and Brutus to the more recent Bakunin and Tolstoy. All in all, the number of names to be commemorated by monuments was sixty-nine. None of these statues stayed to see our day, nor were they meant to. Patience not being Lenin’s greatest virtue he wanted the monuments to be revealed within six months, by the First anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution. The deadline (and meager funds) reduced sculptors to cheap and easy materials – for the most part plaster and concrete. For how long these monuments stood depended on the weather. All they needed them for was an occasion for inaugural speeches, some delivered by Lenin, some by lesser figures. It is hardly surprising that name number one on Lenin’s monument list was that of Karl Marx, who happened to be turning 100 in 1918. Marx was awarded three monuments that year: one in Penza, one in Petrograd, and another one (in tandem with Engels) in Moscow. The one revealed in Petrograd had been commissioned from Aleksandr Matveev, a sculptor known for his Symbolist and Neo-Classicist sympathies. His standing Marx (Illustration 1), made of plaster and wearing a double-breasted frock coat, is shown resting on his right leg while the other is slightly advanced; his right hand is buried under the coat’s lapel, the left one hidden behind his back. One does not need to be an expert in contrapposto to recognize that the pose Matveev had chosen for his quickie was borrowed from the textbook-famous sculpture of Sophocles (Roman copy of a Greek sculpture circa 400 B.C.) from the Lateran Museum in Rome (Illustration 2). Marx had a point when he said: what begins as a tragedy repeats itself as a farce. The Latvian sculptor Karlis Zale sculpted in plaster the Italian rebel Garibaldi; of the French rebels, Marat, Robespierre, and Danton received a monument each. Footage showing one Comrade Mostavenko as he reveals the Moscow monument to Danton survives in one of the 1918 issues of Vertov’s weekly Kinonedelia (Illustration 3) – films do outlive monuments at times. Unlike the Petrograd Marx, the Moscow Danton (plaster, again) is not a standing figure, not even a bust, but a giant head mounted on a tall bar-like pedestal (Illustration 4). It looks almost as if its maker, sculptor Nikolai Andreev, did so in response to the famous last wish Danton is said to have addressed to his executioner: “N’oublie pas surtout, n’oublie pas de montrer ma tête au peuple: elle en vaut la peine.”6 The same month elsewhere in Moscow a Robespierre statue was solemnly opened. The 1928 novel I quote in my epigraph to this essay says that the monument was soon after destroyed. This is a fact, not fiction. A 1918 source, the Moscow daily Znamia trudovoi kommuny [The Banner of the Labor Commune] tells about the destruction in more detail: The monument to Robespierre revealed a week ago in the Aleksandrovsky Park took its end from a criminal hand at night between November 6 and 7. Our correspondent who visited the crime scene came back fully convinced that the monument had been blown up. The figure of Robespierre was made of concrete, with many a hollow pipe inside. Now all that remains is a heap of small fragments scattered all around. The pedestal remained intact.7 114

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Anyone who has dabbled in history knows the familiar itch to try and puzzle out a ninetyyear-old crime. The choice of target, weapon, and date gives one enough clues to lead to the perpetrators. November 7, of course, is the Western-style calendar date for the October Revolution. The Bomb and the Browning were two time-honored weapons used by the rightwing SR (Socialist-Revolutionary) party terrorists against Tsars and his ministers before October 1917 or against Lenin and high-ranking Bolshevists after the date. As to the target, its message is as clear as that of the horse head from The Godfather. Early on the Bolshevist party proudly called themselves Russian Jacobins. While denouncing individual terrorism as ineffective, Lenin, like Robespierre, strongly believed in the state one. The Red Terror announced in Russia in 1918 was seen by many as a modern edition of Robespierre’s terreur. Seasoned political idealists, the SR party saw Lenin and his political precursor as two legitimate reasons for their Brownings to fire and their bombs to fly.

We return from statues to films and from 1918 to the early 1920s. With the civil war now largely over, the New Economic Policy (or NEP) was now announced, which many expected to become Lenin’s Thermidor – some with hope, others with a sense of frustration. That other quotation I use as an epigraph for this essay – a few lines from Mayakovsky’s wonderful anti-NEP satire – summarizes two of a handful of new freedoms the country now enjoyed: by NEP, it was all right to trade in small goods and to watch foreign movies. The fine print attached to both freedoms implied, however, that there was a price to each: those who choose to trade should be ready to lose certain civil rights, and those who distribute foreign films must be careful not to distribute bourgeois ideology which foreign films were believed to be steeped in. This brings us back to where we began. In 1924 a biuro montazha (re-editing bureau) was founded in Moscow, soon followed by its opposite number in Leningrad. Contrary to what one might expect, re-editing was not done furtively. Critics discussed its multiple failures in the press: there were newspaper campaigns condemning the practice as bringing more harm than good. However, there were enough people who found re-editing useful not only politically, but for artistic reasons as well. The re-editing bureau was where much of what would later be known as Soviet montage theory and practice came from. As future directors were quick to discover, cutting movies made by others was a way of learning how to make their own. Officially, the bureau was a place where films were censored; unofficially, it functioned as a workshop. Here Eisenstein and Esfir Shub took apart Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler and put it together again as a different film; and, as we learn from one of the interviews by the Vasiliev “brothers”, there would be no Chapaev had they not worked as re-editors for years.8 For others, re-editing was more of a theoretical experience. In 1927 Formalist scholar Viktor Shklovsky summarized in his book The Editing Table what he learned as he worked in the bureau: Now I know how loosely the precise meaning of an action in cinema is anchored in this action … The variety of human movements is not that large. The variety of facial expressions is even smaller. Changes brought into intertitles and plot construction can completely re-cue our perception of the film hero ... The thing is, for the professional re-editor the man in the shot does not laugh or cry or mourn, he only opens and shuts his eyes and his mouth in a specific way. He is raw material. The meaning of a word depends on the phrase I place it in. If I place the word properly in another phrase it will acquire a different meaning, while the viewer believes that he is searching for some kind of true, original meaning of the word, for a lexical meaning of actors’ emotions.9 115

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To illustrate his point Shklovsky draws an example from the work of a fellow-editor. The first thing a re-editor was expected to do with a foreign film was to remove its happy ending. Fat and virtuous people, as the world and the values they stood for, deserved to be dead, not happy. I think one of Vasiliev’s inventions is a masterpiece of cinematic thinking. He needed a man to die but the man would not die. He chose a moment when the proposed victim was yawning, printed the same frame over and over again, and the movement stopped. The man froze with his mouth open; it remained to add the title: “death of heart attack”. This device was so unexpected that no one protested.10

There was one voice that protested, however. Soon after Shklovsky’s book came out a refutation signed by the very man whom Shklovsky credits appeared in the Moscow newspaper Kino. Here it is, quoted in full: Dear Comrades, V. Shklovsky’s book The Editing Table released by “Kinopechat” mentions a freeze-frame experiment allegedly staged by re-editor Vasiliev. In the interests of truth I hereby inform that I never performed a trick like this, and that the authorship for this trick belongs to Comrade Boitler. S. Vasiliev.11

This shows well the air that reigned in the re-editing bureau. With minds as sharp as Shklovsky’s and Eisenstein’s around, saying nothing of the legendary Boitler, the place designed to censor films quickly turned into a club of wits.

I now cut back to Danton and Robespierre – this time, as film characters rather than as statues. Both figures were well regarded in Russia, but as Marxists liked to see revolutions – past or present – through the gray lens of class interests and motive forces, they resented the cinematic representations of the two Frenchmen: one as a humorless villain; the other, his colorful victim. And this was exactly how movies painted Robespierre and Danton. One such movie was Dimitri Buchowetzki’s mediocre Danton (1921), which featured Werner Krauss as Robespierre and Emil Jannings as Danton. This casting alone tells us who is a good guy and who is not. And Buchowetzki’s Robespierre was not just bad, he was vicious – a problem re-editors needed to deal with if against all odds this film was allowed to be shown in Soviet Russia. It was – in 1924, Buchowetzki’s movie was released in Soviet Russia under the title Guillotine. We glimpse into what its re-editing was from a passage in one of Eisenstein’s essays about montage. Montage is truly at work only, Eisenstein says, when, spliced together, two shots change their initial meanings – sometimes to the opposite: This is what the wise and wicked art of reediting was based on. At those moments, of course, when reediting was really an “art” – and not a patchy potboiler. What gallons of wit used to go into this game! In those glorious days at the dawn of our cinema when, learning to cut, E. Shub, the Vasiliev “brothers,” Birrois and Veniamin Boitler worked in this field.12

As we read on, we learn what one of this glorious team did to correct a climax scene of Buchowetzki’s movie. 116

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I cannot resist the pleasure of citing here one montage tour de force executed by Boitler, the last name I mentioned on this list. One film bought from Germany was Danton, with Emil Jannings. As released on our screens, this scene was shown: Camille Desmoulins is condemned to the guillotine. Greatly agitated, Danton rushes to Robespierre, who turns aside and slowly wipes away a tear. The intertitle said, approximately, “In the name of freedom I had to sacrifice a friend....” Fine. But who could have guessed that in the German original, Danton, represented as an idler, a petticoat-chaser, a splendid chap and the only positive figure in the midst of evil characters, that this Danton ran to the evil Robespierre and... spat in his face? And that it was this spit that Robespierre wiped from his face with a handkerchief? And that the title indicated Robespierre’s hatred of Danton, a hate that in the end of the film motivates the condemnation of Jannings-Danton to the guillotine?! Two tiny cuts eliminated a short piece of film from the moment when Danton spits to the moment when the spit reaches its aim. And the insult is turned into a tear of remorse...13

Unfortunately, Boitler’s re-edited version of Danton does not survive. But the original does, and, indeed, contains the spitting and the wiping. In case someone is interested in repeating Boitler’s experiment, this can be done.

Time to return to Griffith’s Orphans of the Storm, whose treatment of Robespierre (Sydney Herbert) and Danton (Monte Blue) was, in the eyes of the Soviets, as inadmissible as it was in Buchowetzki’s film. The surviving (not in a good shape) Russian re-edit of Griffith’s movie does not give the name of the re-editor (as was normally the rule), but as far as we can judge from press discussions we can assume this was Sergei Vasiliev, most likely in collaboration with his partner and namesake Georgii. Let me go through some changes they made in order to clean up Griffith’s pictures and improve on what did. That Soviet filmmakers, re-editors included, regarded Griffith as the ultimate authority in the field does not mean they never looked at him critically. Ideology was the most obvious drawback, but they also regretted that the young ladies Griffith’s actresses played so well were such slaves to petit-bourgeois virtues – and were also surprised how such a great master of editing could be such a bad writer of intertitles.14 Here is an example from which the reader will easily see what the Vasilievs thought was wrong about Griffith’s titling style in Orphans of the Storm. The tipping point of the French Revolution (as of the Russian one) is said to be the moment when, convinced by Danton, the military took the side of the people. Griffith lets action speak for itself, helped only by his habitually curt intertitles, in this case: DANTON WINS THE GUARDS THAT BAR HIS WAY. The Soviet re-editors who preferred exclamation marks to full stops and spoken words to descriptive phrases sliced the scene to splice in three titles instead of one: – FORWARD, MARCH! TIME TO THROW DOWN THE HATEFUL TYRANNY! – SOLDIERS! ARE YOU GOING TO ATTACK UNARMED PEOPLE? – NO! WE WILL NOT SHOOT AT THE LIKES OF US!

Clearly, Griffith was not paying enough attention to the historical part of his story, which the Vasilievs decided to spell out – much like Russians did in Russian films. The way in which the young Soviet re-editors dealt with Griffith’s old-fashioned petitbourgeois virtues deserves to be mentioned as well. Remember, in Orphans of the Storm Griffith brings history – the Storm – and private destinies together. At one point one of the orphans, 117

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played by Lillian Gish, gives shelter to Danton who, his arm slightly wounded, is pursued by a Royalist squad. This happens quite early in the film, well before the victory of the revolution brings Danton and Robespierre to power, but we already see in the latter the signs of rivalry and envy that would undermine their power in the end. All this happens on a rainy night. Danton has barely escaped and, having pushed open the first door he passes, finds himself in the house one of whose tenants happens to be Lillian Gish’s Henriette. The Royalist guards being after him, the young lady hides Danton in her room. Having searched the house in vain the guards leave. In the morning Robespierre (THE ORIGINAL PUSSY-FOOTER, A SPLENDID REGULATOR OF OTHER PEOPLE’S MORALS AND AFFAIRS, says the title) knocks at Henriette’s door suspecting this may be

the place his friend is hiding. But having looked at Robespierre’s untrustworthy face Henriette slams the door in his face. A LITTLE DOOR SLAM – YET LATER IT SHALL SHADOW HENRIETTE AT THE DOOR OF DEATH, says the title. Before we look at the way this sequence was re-edited in Russia let me explain how the Vasilievs dealt with the Robespierre problem in general. Distinct from Buchowetzki’s Robespierre, whom Boitler kept in the film by making him a stern yet compassionate leader, Griffith’s Robespierre was simply cut out of the picture. There is Danton, there is Henriette, there is her kidnapped blind stepsister played by Dorothy Gish, but Robespierre is never mentioned. The revolution is made by Danton alone. True, two or three times Sydney Herbert’s tip-toeing figure does appear briefly on the screen, but, again, the Russian print never tells us who he is: at one point he is an anonymous orator; at another, we take him for a Royalist spy. This is exactly what we take him for when in the morning former Robespierre shows up at the place where Henriette lives – to check if Danton has spent a night at her place or not. Now, we know he did, but Griffith leaves us in no doubt about the chastity of this night. We see brave self-sacrificial Henriette lock her room from inside so that Danton cannot leave, for he is wounded and may be caught. “YOU CAN’T GO – BETTER A LITTLE GOSSIP ABOUT ME THAN FOR YOU TO LOSE YOUR LIFE.” Of course, whatever the gossip, it will be totally groundless. Tired, Griffith’s Danton sinks in a chair, and after the title THE MORNING we see him asleep in an improvised bed, all alone. The door to the next room opens ajar and we see Lillian Gish’s lovely innocent face peek in. There is a slight lyrical pause before Danton’s departure: her hand in his, both looking at each other. Clearly, there is more than courtesy to this, but neither laws of propriety nor genre are broken. He has his French people to take care of; she, her kidnapped sister to find and a young handsome aristocrat to marry in the end. History and melodrama may occasionally meet, but they are highly unlikely to get married. To young Soviet re-editors all these maneuvers must have looked silly and uncool. And they had a point. Drafted by that remarkable apostle of free love, Aleksandra Kollontai, Soviet marital laws of the 1920s were liberal as never before or after that in Russia as were codes of pre- and extramarital behavior that Kollontai hoped to rebuild on the basis of “natural spontaneity” instead of cultural prejudice.15 If you like him so much as to risk your life for his why not share your bed with this hardened rebel almost twice your size and only twice your age? Not many filmgoers in the Soviet Union would really mind. On the contrary, in their eyes this would give Griffith’s pretty orphan a nice romantic secret. So, they cut from the shot that shows Danton staying at Henriette’s straight to that parting scene by the open bed. It is up to the viewer to decide what happened in between. All these are minor surgeries, however. A major one was what Vasilievs did to Chevalier de Vaudrey, Henriette’s aristocratic fiancée played by young and handsome Joseph Schildkraut, and to his unfortunate aunt. 118

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Let me remind the reader about two main lines of Griffith’s complex plot. The film begins with a murder. We see a man being pierced by two rapiers at the door to a richly decorated bedroom. In the bedroom, there is a woman with a newborn baby. Her husband’s aristocratic murderers rush in, determined to take the baby away. The only thing the young mother is able to do is to hide on the baby a note with its name and some money for those who’d adopt it. This scene is a prologue from which we learn the birth story of poor blind Louise, Henriette’s stepsister played by Dorothy Gish. She was born of an upper-class lady who had had the misfortune of falling in love with and secretly marrying a man well below her rank. We just saw what happened to the husband: he was killed by her relatives who had learned about the disgrace and decided to take care of it before the secret is out. We also learn that little Louise (who is not blind but becomes so years later when her foster parents die) was found and adopted by a couple who happened to have their own daughter of the same age – Henriette, of course. A little later we learn that Louise’s mother had been given a second chance. The man she marries this time is Count de Linières, a powerful figure at the King’s court. They have no children of their own, but they have a young relative whom they love like a son. Early on in the film, this relative is introduced: THE YOUNG CHEVALIER DE VAUDREY, NEPHEW OF THE COUNTESS, OF A NOBILITY WORLD’S PROUDEST AND OLDEST. This carefree good chap, as it soon turns out, also has a noble heart. He helps the

poor, he saves Henriette from a near rape, risks his head as he comes to revolutionary Paris to look for her, is indeed caught and condemned to the guillotine, and, when the time comes for the happy end, marries Henriette who loves him, too. All ends well for Louise as well. A good doctor restores her sight, her unfortunate mother whose secret thoughts all these years were about the fate and whereabouts of the daughter she had been forced to abandon regains her child, and we are positive that now when Louise is able to see she’ll fall in love with a man worthy of her and marry him before long. No one will be surprised to learn I am sure that the Soviet re-editors did not like this outcome at all. Even the stoutest Dantonist among us will agree: Griffith’s ending is too good to be true. Not that Sergei or Georgii Vasiliev wished Henriette to be killed – if they did they could easily do so, for at one point in the film her delicate neck is already in the grip of the guillotine, and one brief intertitle would be enough for Lillian Gish’s bonneted head to be in the basket. The problem they had was not with Henriette, but with her beau. It was not clear to them why Griffith needed a nobleman, and from the world’s proudest and oldest nobility at that, to love and marry Henriette, who comes, one should add, from a really humble family. The thing is, in the Soviet Union of the 1920s the notions of noble and humble underwent a curious reversal. In your passport, you were to state what your social origin was, and if it said “worker” or “peasant” you enjoyed palpable rights and privileges in terms of housing, education, taxes, and even voting rights. Mayakovsky’s satirical play The Bedbug, a dialogue from which I quote in my epigraph to this essay, is exactly about this. It is about a Soviet version of the bourgeois gentilhomme situation. In it, a NEP-woman whose small business is a beauty salon in Moscow marries up her daughter to a proletarian. For the daughter and the worker, this is a marriage of convenience: the mother and the daughter now will be able to use all the perks reserved for workers, and he, to swim in their money. To return to our Orphans of the Storm, it was not a good thing for a good movie in the Soviet Union of the 1920s to have an aristocrat for a positive hero, particularly if he is to marry a girl of good proletarian origins. Now, it would be easy to get rid of him in the end using the same guillotine, for instance, particularly since he is already convicted to death by 119

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the Revolutionary Tribunal anyway, but this would hardly solve the problem. Somehow Griffith makes Chevalier de Vaudrey so lovable from the outset that, call him a chevalier as many times as you wish, the viewer would nevertheless be upset by his death. And there is no way you can lie about his origins either, for his wig, his clothes, and the way he fences and moves (this is eighteenth century, remember) will betray him right away. The solution the Vasilievs found was truly brilliant. The line of defense the Chevalier from the Russian print takes when face to face with the Tribunal judges is to say he is not an enemy of the people because he is not an aristocrat by birth: “I AM THE SON OF A PERSON WHO WAS AS POOR AS YOU ARE. MY MOTHER FELL IN LOVE WITH A PEASANT AND PLANNED TO ELOPE, BUT HER HUSBAND COUNT DE LINIERES FOUND OUT AND KILLED MY FATHER.”

These words are followed by a flashback. We see a man being pierced by two rapiers at the door to a richly decorated bedroom. In the bedroom, there is a woman with a newborn baby. This baby is me, Chevalier de Vaudrey explains to the judges. My mother pleaded to her husband to spare me. He forgave her. They raised me as their own child. I did not know, but now I know, and so on. For a second, the judges look impressed, but only for a second. They must have heard enough melodramatic stories like this, as their Russian successors must have during the Red Terror years. They do not believe de Vaudrey, but the viewers do – we all tend to believe what flashbacks show us. De Vaudrey is sent to the guillotine as is Henriette for trying to hide him in her room from Revolutionary Guards. It will be Danton who has recognized in Henriette the girl who some time ago had saved him exactly the same way that will rescue both at the last moment. His Russian plea to the judges sounds like a quotation from Lenin: “LISTEN TO ME! THE TRIBUNAL MUST NOT BE SOFT BUT IT MUST BE JUST! I KNOW: MAGNANIMITY SHOWN TO THE ENEMIES OF REVOLUTION MAY OFTEN COST US HUNDREDS OF ITS FRIENDS’ HEADS, BUT I ALSO KNOW: THESE TWO ARE NOT ENEMIES AT ALL.” Unlike Griffith’s Danton, his

Soviet double is not against Terror, he only wants one exemption from it. He is Danton and Robespierre in one. Many said re-editors crippled movies. One of the scenes in Orphans of the Storm shows Henriette unwittingly caught in the maelstrom of drunken revolutionary canailles dancing “La Carmagnole”. Of all Griffith’s orgies this one is by far the best. It is so good that Vsevolod Pudovkin, one of Griffith’s greatest admirers, admitted in a 1926 interview that even though he understood the ideological reason why the scene was cut out from the Soviet version of the film he though it should have been left in: “Wouldn’t it be a more honest thing to do if they left the scene as it was created by the great master adding a title that warns that it is ideologically harmful – instead of showing us the re-editors’ clumsy exercises?”16 On the other hand, knowing the system of Soviet film censorships one could argue the opposite way and say that by crippling movies the re-editors actually were saving them. It was not up to re-editors to decide whether this or that film may or may not be admitted to the screen. Only professional ideologists from a Party-staffed institution called Glavrepertkom (Main Repertory Committee) could veto or un-veto a film. Before films were sent to the real censors they went through re-editors’ hands. Sometimes pictures were sent back for additional re-editing. By doing some cutting on Griffith’s movie, clumsy or clever, re-editors saved its life on the Soviet screen. It is for this reason that the word “surgery” was sometimes used in re-editing related discussions. If we take up this metaphor and apply it to the Vasilievs’ work on Griffith’s Orphans of the Storm we can compare their work to an organ transplant operation. They removed Griffith’s footage from the beginning of the film and spliced it inside the courtroom 120

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scene; from being a prologue it was turned into a first-person flashback spoken by an accused man who renounces his title. By doing so our transplant surgeons turned the baby-girl of the prologue into the baby-boy of the flashback – and poor Louise lost her mother again. The good news was, Griffith’s movie was saved and could be seen again and again by so many people that Mayakovsky’s mock reference to “aristocratic-cinematic” names Lillian and Dorothy and their proverbial twin-bonnets could bring down, as it used to in 1928, the walls of Meyerhold’s theater with laughter. YURI TSIVIAN NOTES

1. “After a while Griffith’s Intolerance arrived. It then became easier to talk.” (Annette Michelson, ed., Kino-Eye: The Writings of Dziga Vertov [Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1984], p. 94) 2. In his book about Leonid Trauberg, Van Houten writes: “On July 12, Trauberg sent everybody away near him, and asked for me. He had started to make his will on a piece of paper. He said: ‘I know I can have another heart attack. But I am not afraid of death. I will be there (he raised his arms to the ceiling), not with God, but... some power. I will be there... with Eisenstein and Griffith.’” (Theodore van Houten, “Eisenstein Was Great Eater”: In Memory of Leonid Trauberg [Buren: A&R/GP, 1991], p. 72) 3. Sergei Eisenstein, “Dickens, Griffith and Ourselves”, in Richard Taylor (ed.), S.M. Eisenstein: Selected Works Volume 3, Writings 1934–47, (London: BFI Publishing, 1996), pp. 193–239. 4. See . 5. Yuri Tsivian, “The Wise and Wicked Game: Re-editing and Soviet Film Culture of the 1920s”, Film History, vol. 8, no. 3 (1996), pp. 327–343. 6. Edtiors’ translation: “Above all, do not forget, do not forget to show my head to the people: it is worth it.” 7. “The Destruction of the Robespierre Monument”, Znamia trudovoi kommuny [The Banner of the Labor Commune], November 9, 1918. 8. “How I Became a Director”, in Bratia Vasilievy. Sobranie sochinenii v trekh tomakh [The Vasiliev Brothers. Collected Works in 3 volumes] (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1981), pp. 103–112. 9. Viktor Shklovsky, “The Work of the Re-editor”, in Richard Taylor and Ian Christie, The Film Factory: Russian and Soviet Cinema in Documents 1896–1939 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1988), pp. 168–169. I made changes in the translation of this excerpt to bring it closer to the original. 10. Ibid. 11. Sergei Vasiliev, [Refutation], Kino, April 19, 1927. 12. Sergei Eisenstein, Film Form, (ed. by Jay Leyda), (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1949), pp. 10–11. I made changes in the translation of this excerpt to bring it closer to the original. 13. Ibid. 14. Sergei Vasiliev, “V chem sut spora? [What is the essence of the discussion?], in Bratia Vasilievy. Sobranie sochinenii v trekh tomakh [The Vasiliv Brothers. Collected Works in 3 volumes] (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1981), p. 143. 15. An English-speaking reader can learn more about this in: Richard Stites, Revolutionary Dreams: Utopian Vision in the Russian Revolution (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 115–119. 16. “Vsevolod Pudovkin on Re-editing”, interview with Pudovkin in Krasnaya gazeta (vechernii vypusk) [Red Newspaper, evening edition], October 22, 1926, no. 249 (1253).

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11. SURPRISED BY BLACKFACE: D.W. GRIFFITH, BLACKFACE, AND ONE EXCITING NIGHT

In this essay I’d like to consider what many critics believe to be D.W. Griffith’s worst film: One Exciting Night (1922).1 In a recent note on the film Steven Higgins concluded that in it Griffith fell back upon the broadest and most offensive kind of racial stereotyping, portraying the character of Romeo Washington as a lazy good-for-nothing whose quaking in terror at the slightest provocation was clearly meant to incite riotous laughter in the audience. The fact that the part of Romeo was acted by Porter Strong, a white man in blackface, makes the effect all the more painful for the modern audience.2

These audiences, naturally enough, want to distance themselves from the obvious racism of burnt-cork performance. Higgins’ reaction is much like that of the entire field of film studies when confronted by blackface: surprise, as if blackface performance traditions had not survived into this predominantly twentieth-century medium. In Griffith criticism this surprise often takes the form of identifying and condemning moments in his later films when the director seems to “fall back”, as Higgins puts it, on less-than-modern traditions – whether blackface humor or black-andwhite racial melodrama.3 I want to argue that these are very different traditions and that Griffith’s use of blackface in his films of the early 1920s was not a simple repetition or “falling back” on his racist past, but a modernization of his own previous uses of blackface in his construction of racial victims and villains. It was also a new use of minstrelsy for him, though one that was certainly racially hegemonic. To understand what is new here we must first understand something about Griffith’s comic and melodramatic conventions of burnt cork in his landmark earlier film, The Birth of a Nation (1915). GRIFFITH’S COMIC AND MELODRAMATIC CONVENTIONS OF BURNT CORK

In The Birth of a Nation Griffith mostly eschewed the minstrel tradition in order to concentrate on the melodramatic threat of miscegenation.4 Of course the sexual threat he wanted to portray could only be represented by white actors in blackface, otherwise audiences would not be reassured that segregation was in effect in the making of the film. Blackface thus undercut the “realism” of the sexual-racial threat of miscegenation.5 Though it could never be represented as actual sexual relations between “the white and black races” – as it would later be defined, and prohibited (in 1927), by the first version of the Hollywood Production Code6 – Griffith here multiplied its representation using blackface in three different ways: first, in the presumed actual relations between the white Reconstructionist senator Austin Stoneman and his mulatta housekeeper, Lydia Brown; second, in threatened relations between Stoneman’s daughter, Elsie, and the mulatto politician Silas Lynch; third, in the threatened relations between the Cameron family’s “Little Sister” and the renegade soldier Gus who pursues her until her death by suicide. The blackface villains of Griffith’s particular brand of racial melodrama did not enact the graceful, faux awkwardness, pathos, or tongue-in-cheek irony so prevalent in minstrelsy. This is an important point to keep in mind when we consider blackface performative traditions in 122

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film. They do not all descend from minstrelsy but often from a desire to counteract the apparent indulgent “tolerance” of minstrelsy that could not exist without both the love and theft described by Eric Lott.7 Griffith’s blackface melodramatic racial villains are thus something of a breed apart. They are depicted as originally servile creatures who “naturally” bow and scrape to their white “betters” and who begin in, and sometimes revert to, crouched, animalistic postures. As developed by Griffith out of Dixon’s novels and plays, these sexualized, racialized villains are portrayed as having disastrously been encouraged to aspire to higher things, especially the love of whites. Lydia Brown, for example, whips herself into a frenzy of hysteria over the slight of a white man. In a rage she falls to the floor and tears her clothes (Figure 1). Gus, the renegade union soldier, is played with a slack jaw and animalistic crouch (Figure 2). But when he is promoted to Captain, he walks proudly down the street and seeks to “marry” the Cameron family’s “Little Sister”. Silas Lynch, who is also originally crouched and servile, is encouraged by his mentor, Austin Stoneman, to stand tall and take no orders from whites (Figure 3).8 In contrast to these originally crouching, sexually threatening blackface villains, the actors playing former houseslaves, while literally servile to their masters, do not similarly cringe and crouch. Rather, they take pride in the status of their owners. Loyalty marks them as deserving of certain prerogatives. However, minstrel lore does not entirely describe the performance tradition either. Here, for example, we encounter the figures of Mammy and Jake in the midst of protecting the former slaveholding Cameron family (Figure 4). Mammy especially is a kind of in-between figure. She verges on the comic in her obesity, but she is not caricatured by the exaggerated mouth of minstrel makeup or by the flashing eyes. Such grotesqueries are reserved instead for an uppity FREE-NIGGER F’UM DE N’OF who scandalizes Mammy by wiggling his eyebrows and ears (Figure 5). While Mammy criticizes the “free-nigger” who does not know his proper place (Figure 6), she herself forgets her place when she later throws herself

1: Lydia Brown tears her clothes

2: Gus

3: Silas Lynch is urged to stand tall

4: Mammy and Jake protect their former masters

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5: Mammy and the FREE-NIGGER F’UM DE N’OF

6: Mammy’s words

7: Mammy hugs her white rescuer

8: Mammy throws her weight upon two blackface soldiers

9: Silas Lynch aspires to Elsie

10: Gus aspires to Little Sister

into the arms of a muscular white rescuer (and this is where blackface traditions get interesting, even surreal, for the same muscular white actor who played the FREE-NIGGER F’UM DE N’OF in blackface, here plays the white rescuer). Mammy’s spontaneous action clearly shocks the older of the Cameron sisters (Figure 7). At a later moment Mammy resourcefully throws her ample body down upon two renegade black soldiers who can only helplessly squirm on the ground beneath her weight as she aids her former master to make his escape from black “renegades” (Figure 8). Thus Griffith will indulge the comic physicality of Mammy as long as we know the embrace is really, underneath the burnt cork, white on white as long as she retains a modicum of dignity in her service to her former masters. In The Birth of a Nation, then, we can observe at least three basic types of blackface in Griffith’s racial melodrama. First, there is the lustful blackface villain, male or female, lighter skinned or darker, whose serious threat to the violation of the color line is sometimes, as in 124

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Lydia Brown and Silas Lynch, already visible in their own mixed-race skin. The mulatto/mulatta, who is him- or herself already the product of miscegenation, is the one who dares aspire the most to sexual relations with whites (Figure 9). In these cases, the mask of blackface darkens and seemingly coarsens, but does not otherwise caricature, the features as would be the case in minstrelsy (Figure 10). Second, there is the desexualized (usually marked by overweight) black servant portrayed as proud to serve their high-status masters (as do Mammy and Jake in Figure 4). Here too the blackface mask does not exaggerate the size and thickness of the mouth as does the mask of minstrelsy. However, if this servant character does not know his or her place then a third type of mask emerges, exemplified by the NIGGER F’UM DE N’OF based on the Zip Coon dandy of minstrelsy. Here, there is obvious blackface, minstrel style of caricature in contrast to Mammy’s less caricatured features (see Figure 5 above). There is also a fourth general type of mask that does not involve literal blackface. These are the faces and bodies of the “supernumeraries” or “extras” who are never named as characters but make brief and sometimes memorable appearances. In The Birth of a Nation they include: the many soldiers who carry out the orders of Silas Lynch but this one in particular who is quite cute (Figure 11); it also includes the potential citizens of Reconstruction whose votes are shown to be easily manipulated (Figure 12); unruly legislators in the State House who eye the white women in the balcony and pass a new bill PROVIDING FOR THE INTERMARRIAGE OF BLACKS AND WHITES; dancers who perform, always in a crouch (Figure 13); and at the end, the would-be-black citizens who think better about voting and creep away (Figure 14). Whether dancing or still, these blacks, offered up as grotesque “attractions”, are most often posed in what we are beginning to recognize as the obligatory original crouch. The most striking example of these “real” black bodies are those that the director seems to hold responsible for causing black-and-white racial melodrama itself. In an opening

11: Supernumerary sans blackface

12: Future citizens also not in blackface

13: Dancer and other non-blackface supernumeraries

14: Would-be voter supernumeraries

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tableau that is the first shot of the film, we see two shirtless Africans crouched and cowered before a white man who raises his hand over them as if in benediction. An intertitle provides a caption to the image: THE BRINGING OF THE AFRICAN PLANTED THE FIRST SEEDS OF DISRUPTION (Figure 15). All America’s problems stem, Griffith seems to argue, from the naturally servile African brought to America and then disastrously set free. It is this freedom that then marks them as “uppity”, in an upright posture viewed as unnatural. Such are the basic conventions of black (and blackface) masks as enshrined by The Birth of a Nation by the mid-1910s – all aimed at exposing the horror of miscegenation and thus at avoiding any real contact between actual black and white flesh. Only Oscar Micheaux, working independently by the end of the 1910s, would challenge these conventions by showing miscegenation to be what it historically was: a primarily white male violation of black or mixedrace women. The institution of the Hays Code, first promulgated in 1927, would alleviate some of these most egregious stereotypes with its ban on depictions of miscegenation. But if it eliminated the kind of vilification of black lust at which Griffith excelled, it also made it less possible to depict any black relations with whites beyond those of good servants. All “serious relations with Caucasions [sic]”, as Thomas Cripps put it, were subsequently even less possible and all serious depiction of black characters were henceforth relegated to minstrellike stereotypes. Thus, Cripps goes on to say, “no studio depicted black despair, poverty, neglect, outrage, caste, or discrimination”.9 Even the eventual Code’s ban on any “[w]illful offense to any nation, race or creed” only had the effect of eliminating the depiction of nonwhite races.10 This is not to say that without the Code African-American experience would have been more positively depicted within the parameters of white supremacy, just that it might have been depicted more in relation to whites. In 1922, One Exciting Night thus catches Griffith and American film history in a kind of interregnum, neither entirely proffering the incendiary, soon-to-be-outlawed depiction of “miscegenation” and racial offenses of the previous decade nor yet proffering the neutral safety of omitting black representations and “serious” relations with whites altogether. While it is most often to Intolerance – Griffith’s 1916 film often viewed as his more tolerant apologia for The Birth of a Nation – that critics turn to view the correction of the “willful offense” to race of The Birth of a Nation, it is actually this later much overlooked film that can show us just what racial apologia might look like in this director.11 It is not a pretty sight but it is a fascinating one. ONE EXCITING NIGHT: A MODERN MOVIE

The Bat: A Mystery Drama in Three Acts, by Mary Roberts Rinehart and Avery Hopwood, had opened on Broadway in 1920 and played a phenomenal 828 performances. Alexander Woollcott, writing about the play in The New York Times, derided the convoluted and nonsensical plot that invited the abandonment of rationality and the embrace of chaos. Yet he went on to admit that the play could be “no end of fun if you let yourself go”.12 Sudden blackouts and dramatic spotlights were part of the thrill of the original play, which Griffith hoped to outdo with cinematic thrills.13 In a second discussion of the play, Woollcott diagnosed the work’s popularity in a way that Walter Benjamin might have later appreciated: “the sharpened appetite for mystery plays [are] less a superficial matter of vogue than an actual relation to the frayed nerves of the post-war world.”14 Unable to purchase the play, Griffith blithely wrote his own knockoff under the pseudonym of the Kentucky “authoress” Irene Sinclair. He thus seemed to give himself permission to imagine the original drama, which takes place in a non-specific rural place, in his own home state of Kentucky, and thus to introduce many putative “Southern” conventions of black(face) melodrama and minstrelsy not in the original.15 Racial “tolerance” for Griffith in 1922 would seem to consist of the creation of large segments of black(face) comedy, quite unlike that 126

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15: THE BRINGING OF THE AFRICAN

16: Samuel Jones with shifty eyes

seen in any of his previous films, a belated embrace of minstrel traditions. This comedy, mixed with a convoluted backstory of racial melodrama that begins in Africa, seems to imitate some of the worst excesses of The Birth of a Nation, only to “surprise” us in the end with an apparently new racial attitude of “tolerant” indulgence toward the right kind of blackface. The basic plot of the film is structurally quite similar to the play: an isolated country house is the hiding place for a large amount of money – absconded funds from a bank in the original play; ill-gotten bootlegger booty in Griffith’s film. Romance between white ingénues blooms as corpses accumulate and various inhabitants of a country estate are terrified. Meanwhile a detective attempts to solve the crime and find the missing money. The Bat had not been without its own racial component. A Japanese “houseboy” named Billy, most likely played in yellowface,16 is one of the play’s first suspects. Griffith too cast initial suspicion upon a black man named Sam.17 But where The Bat quickly dispenses with suspicion of the “inscrutable” Billy, Griffith multiplies suspicion of Sam. He even generates a second black character named Sam who may be impersonating the first. The first Sam belongs to a white gang of bootleggers. An intertitle explains: IT IS WELL-KNOWN THAT BLACK SAM IS THE DARK TERROR OF THE BOOTLEGGER ORGANIZATION. Though he slinks about the bootlegger’s abandoned country estate just before the murder, we never see him clearly enough to know if he is played in blackface. All the more reason for our suspicion to fall upon the ominous Sam, who is referred in an intertitle to by a partner-in-crime as a “nigger”.18 But this Sam soon disappears. When another black character named Samuel Jones (Frank Wunderlee) turns up seeking work in the same house, we suspect that he is the same Sam now disguised as a servant to gain access to the house where the money is hidden. This Sam, whom we finally see clearly, has straight upright hair that contrasts sharply with his blackface skin and shifty eyes. (Figure 16). We can only assume initially that he is the kind of black villain of racial melodrama with which The Birth of a Nation has made us familiar. In the mystery around the identity of Sam, Griffith plays with audience expectations, recasting the “chaos” mentioned in Alexander Woollcott’s review of the original play into racial terms. We do not know, from one moment to the next, who is the racial villain, who is the racial victim of this work. This fluctuating indecision would seem to be part of this film’s very modernity – a modernity with roots, as in much modern art, in ideas about a generative, primitive Africa. And indeed, in a convoluted backstory we will eventually learn that the mystery of Sam’s identity lies in deepest Africa. So, like the Bert Williams and George Walker musical play, In Dahomey (1902), but without any of the satirical fun, Griffith takes his black characters back to Africa. To set up this backstory Griffith offers a seemingly endless set of introductory intertitles: he first instructs his audience to WATCH CLOSELY THE EARLY SCENES AS THEY BECOME IMPORTANT LATER ON. Then he implores them, in anticipation of Hitchcock, not to DIVULGE THE SOLUTION OF THE PLOT. Finally, the last 127

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intertitle reads: IN SOMBRE [sic] AFRICA, STERN SOURCES OF THE WORLD’S GREATEST FORTUNES, OUR STORY OPENS. As in The Birth of a Nation, the first shot reveals a crouched African (Figure 17), this one in long shot. Recall that all that subsequently transpires in The Birth of a Nation – Civil War, the violence of Reconstruction – is supposedly “explained” by the figure of these supernumerary Africans whose BRINGING, an intertitle tells us, PLANTED THE FIRST SEEDS OF DISRUPTION. The question now is: what does this African represent? The very convolution of the film’s plot will suggest that the answer, for Griffith, is not easy. The African spied in the first shot of One Exciting Night is dressed in a turban and rags and, as closer views later suggest, he is, unlike the Africans at the beginning of The Birth of a Nation, in blackface, opening the way to his interaction with white characters. The intertitles introduce this man as “The Kaffir” – the South African equivalent of “nigger”, a catch-all term for blacks who might otherwise be delineated by specific tribes19 – who is DEEPLY DEVOTED TO THE HUSBAND OF THE YOUNG MOTHER. We first see this young mother lying on a makeshift bed with her newborn child. A man and his female companion in safari costumes also attend the young mother. They are impatient to continue their quest for gold, which has been discovered by the young mother’s husband. We soon learn that the young mother’s husband, brother of the man who attends her, has died. Upon hearing this news the mother dies too, leaving only the baby to inherit the unseen husband’s gold. But the villain disposes of the baby by giving it to his female companion. Sixteen years later, in the film’s main story, this baby will become Agnes (Carol Dempster), the film’s heroine. In this convoluted backstory Griffith performs a variation on his earlier propensity to blame black Africans for the SEEDS OF DISUNION. In a revisionist mode of “tolerance”, he now blames greedy white goldseekers and in a real switch

17: Opening shot of One Exciting Night – the African

18: The African retrieves the locket

19: The white woman is repulsed by the black African

20: The African overhears the plot

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for the director of The Birth of a Nation, he links the evil of their greed with white racism. We view the female companion to the goldseeker twirl a chain to which is affixed a locket. She does not notice when the locket, containing paired photos of herself, falls to the floor. The servile African retrieves it, but does not notice that half of it remains on the straw floor (Figure 18). He approaches the woman in the characteristic crouch of the Griffith African to return the locket to her. We move in close, the better to notice the white woman’s revulsion to this dark-skinned, striped-turbaned being. She puts her hand before her nose as if to brush away his smell and turns away from him (Figure 19). But he persists until she finally notices and takes the locket. However, in pointing to where he found the locket, the African inadvertently touches the back of his bare arm to her white sleeve and hand. Repulsed at his touch, she slaps him across the face. He slinks back, crouched. His knees tremble in tension between fear and rage. In separate shots we see the woman wipe her sleeve and the African clench his fist but then, thinking better, shrink back in fear. Head down, he discovers the other half of the locket with its photo of this white woman in her safari hat. This time he does not try to return it. Griffith seems to impute his reason not to calculation but to be a native belief in magic. An intertitle explains: PICTURES – WHITE MAN’S MAGIC TO BE TREASURED. Later, the black(face) African listens in as the brother and his companion plot to have her raise the child herself so it will be ignorant of this inheritance. As he listens, we see several partially obscured views of his face (Figure 20). The question the film seems to ask is what we should make of these blackface features now that they have been deemed so revolting by a woman capable of robbing a child and beating a kind blackfaced man? Is this African a Tom-like victim whom we should pity and love, or is he a primitive whose rage must be feared? The question hangs suspended over the entire film and will only be answered in the denouement. What is new and modern in the film is partly this suspense of our own racial feeling toward the black(faced) man, which becomes part of the larger mystery. While this African sequence has been criticized as unnecessary padding, it is also what this confused and convoluted film is most deeply about. Almost as elaborate, and as seemingly unnecessary to the main plot of the mystery of the money hidden in a country estate, is a very large amount of blackface minstrel comedy that takes place in the present story sixteen years later. Augmenting the conventional romance between the now grown Agnes and the dashing young millionaire who loves her despite her betrothal to an older villain, is the comic romance between one Romeo Washington (Porter Strong) and an unnamed “colored maid” (Irma Harrison). This racialized doubling of the white couple has, as with the African backstory, no parallel in the play Griffith was imitating and no parallel in Griffith’s own work. Indeed, it has no parallel in mainstream American cinema of the era, which, although no code would specify it, had a tacit ban on the portrayal of black-on-black romance in both theater and film.20 In the film’s “main” plot the young hero, Fairfax (Henry Hull), and the young heroine, Agnes (Carol Dempster), find themselves comically mirrored by the black(face) servants. The “blackface” characters’ vigorous wooing contrasts with the languorous sighs of the white couple.21 The film’s introduction to Romeo Washington is as elaborate and leisurely as its introduction to the African backstory. An intertitle sets up his entrance: FIRED WITH AMBITION, YOUNG ROMEO WASHINGTON HUSTLES OUT TO GET A JOB. Cut to a scene devoid of all ambition and hustle at what seems an unnamed rural whistle stop. Romeo, suitcase in hand, arrives while all the local “darkies” doze.22 If Romeo steps into this scene with initial hustle, he almost immediately loses it through the infectious somnolence. He blinks and yawns at this scene (Figure 21) where everyone but him is played by black “supernumeraries”. He is the modern incarnation of the northern Zip Coon, in obvious minstrel blackface. 129

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Griffith clearly intends the very idea of Negro ambition to be comical in contrast to the general, and supposedly more natural, somnolence of his community of black extras. It will be the work of the film to put the initially hustling, amorous Romeo right back where he started into a more “proper” – i.e., less ambitious – place. Before that time, however, it will be his business – unlike these rooted supernumeraries – to move. Looking for work, Romeo finds his way to the hero’s mansion. When a disapproving white major domo asks him, with a sigh, if these are all the references he has, he replies in an intertitle: “YEAH SAH. HE SAID MY FACE WOULD DO THE REST.” In a close-up that gives more opportunity to glimpse white features under the black mask, Romeo clamps his painted lips together and widens his eyes in classic minstrel form: two quick blinks followed by a long stare (Figure 22). Hired to clean out the room in which the bootlegger had earlier been murdered, Romeo repeats the minstrel shtick of blinks and stare but this time the big smile disappears. He puts

21: Romeo encounters the sleepy black community

22: Romeo’s black mask

23: Romeo scoots toward the maid

24: Romeo rolls his eyes in figure eights

25: Blacks disappear

26: Sam reaches out to the white woman’s breast

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back on his checkered cap, beats a hasty retreat back to the kitchen door, and picks up his suitcase to leave. Only then does he notice the comely maid swaying to a dance as she prepares food. A comic push/pull follows, acted out in Romeo’s body between his desire to join the maid in her infectious dance and the fear that pushes him to leave. Poised at the door, suitcase in hand, Romeo stares at the maid, blinks, looks back toward the scary room, then back again at the maid’s lascivious moves. Dropping the suitcase, still watching the dance (she has now noticed him noticing), he involuntarily taps his foot to her rhythm. In a long shot we see his body bend at the knees. With his head and upper body held stiff (representing the part of him that is still afraid) his lower body (representing the part that is seduced) scoots sideways, with legs splayed, toward her (Figure 23). Soon they are moving together in a dance. The maid rolls her eyes flirtatiously. Romeo outdoes her, rolling his own eyes in figure eights, first one direction then another (Figure 24). Part of his courtship includes showing off his war medal for “CATCHING MYSELF 15 GERMANS IN ONE DAY”. An intertitle undercuts the boast: HE FORGETS TO MENTION HE FOUND IT. Though Griffith does what he can to undermine any possible real bravery on Romeo’s part, its very possibility, in the period following the Great War, changes the film’s attitude toward him. Romeo’s attraction to the maid overcomes his fear. He informs the butler: “MISTER MY MIND WIGGLES. I TAKES DE JOB.” The place of the black man in American white supremacist society is very much an animating question of Griffith film. The same could be said of The Birth of a Nation, which ended with scenes showing mounted and robed Ku Klux Klan members preventing the vote of black “extras”, thus showing that the only proper place for blacks was to move to the edges of the frame – to disappear (Figure 25). In One Exciting Night, however, the mobile Romeo suggests a character who, like the “New Negro” soon to be described in 1925 in a collection of essays by Alain Locke, has been abroad, perhaps fought for his country, and who clearly does not fit into the somnolent community that fails to welcome him. Most of all, as we shall see, he does not slink off to invisibility, even at the end. FIRED WITH AMBITION like the uppity FREE-NIGGER F’UM DE N’OF in The Birth of a Nation, and like the voluble Zip Coon of minstrelsy, Romeo is seduced by the charms of the blackfaced colored maid. Though his romance with her is obviously minstrelized, here too Griffith may have thought he was being extremely modern. For black-on-black romance was a major taboo not only in the films of this era but also on the stage and even in those all-black and black-produced works that had forged the path of black representations in the Harlem Renaissance.23 Romance between blacks, whether played by actors of color or white actors in blackface, was new both on stage and in film. Although Romeo will be amply punished for wiggling more than his mind at the maid, the striking fact is that his desire for the maid and her desire for him gets so much initial, almost joyous play in a Griffith film. The maid later contrives to have the brave Romeo sneak into the house later that night to “protect” her. Romeo primps for his date and walks to the “big house”. Along the way, he is haunted by one of the scary creatures that lurk about the mansion. For no apparent reason – beyond Griffith’s desire to get the puffed-up black man back into the crouch of the African – he ends up arriving at the house crawling on all fours. During the course of the long night of haunting, both he and the maid will have no time for the romance that is their purpose. Their wooing will be interrupted by the terrors of a haunted house that will repeatedly transform Romeo’s proud, medal-revealing erect posture into an almost permanent crouch and quake and that will eventually reduce them to praying in the kitchen on their hands and knees. They climb up stairs only to fall back down them again and again. Such, it would seem, is the price they must pay for their romance. Yet when all the suspects are eventually rounded up into one room, the detective in charge will ask why Romeo, who had earlier been sent away, 131

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came back. “I LOVES HER!” is his proud answer, in what may be one of the first heartfelt black(face)-on-black(face) declarations of love in American film. Reviews were divided between those who found Porter Strong’s depiction of a “scared darky” merely conventional, such as the one who notes that he “does his stint in the usual burnt[-]cork fashion”,24 and those who offered higher praise. An anonymous reviewer writing for The New York Times singles out Strong’s comedy as “of the broad and busy kind, but he’s funny, so he qualifies”.25 Another review describes the subplot as that of “a negro and his mulata [sic] love, scared out of their instincts, and thereby creating oceans of laughter”.26 It would have been helpful if these reviewers had bothered to specify what produced such “oceans”. Clearly, burnt-cork comedy, which so surprises today, was taken for granted in 1922. We thus witness the stubborn endurance of what W.T. Lhamon has called the “lore” of blackface. But it is important that we understand just how new this lore actually was to Griffith and to mainstream American film. Lhamon describes an evolving lore of gestures – originating in a kind of overtly performed insouciance, athletic jumping, wheeling and turning – that began with indigent blacks dancing for eels at Catherine Market, and continued in the appropriations of white performers in blackface as early as 1815 and further solidified into a whole evening’s entertainment with the performances of the Virginia Minstrels in New York City, 1843. Lhamon writes, “Lore does in culture what stereotypes do in discourse ... hold current beliefs together in highly charged shorthand.” But because “its axis wobbles when it turns, lore never returns to the same place. Every group’s members must adjust their lore cycle.” 27 The question is: how was D.W. Griffith adjusting his? What wobble keeps him from simply repeating blackface minstrelsy and his own tradition of blackface miscegenous villainy? THE STORM

One indirect answer might be viewed in the Griffith trademark last-minute rescue that was apparently added as an afterthought to this film. Griffith’s original denouement revealed that the murders in the supposedly haunted house had been committed by the white villain, Rockmaine, who had obtained his betrothal to Agnes by blackmailing her mother. Eager to earn the love of her cold mother, Agnes had agreed to the engagement. When Rockmaine is (literally) unmasked as the true cause of the many murders in the mansion, the way is clear for Agnes and Fairfax to wed, but not before Griffith has given us every opportunity to suspect the more likely racial villain Sam. Late in the proceedings, before Rockmaine is exposed, Sam is seen sneaking into the bedroom of the Fairfax mansion where Agnes and her mother sleep. He first approaches the bed of the daughter in a crouch, hovers over her, hands extended, then mysteriously moves to the bed of the mother where he reaches out to the breast of the sleeping white woman (Figure 26). Just as he seems about to grasp her breast, the film fades to black, holds it a moment, and then fades back in. Sam is still poised in the same position but now instead of moving toward the white woman, he withdraws.28 What has he done in this ellipsis? Sam is thus pictured as the likely suspect of miscegenous desire toward both white mother and daughter as well as the most likely suspect of the murders in the mansion. Yet at the same time, we are aware that Griffith is playing with (his and our) racist expectations and sometimes even comically defusing them. For example, soon after Sam withdraws from hovering over the sleeping older woman, he bumps into a chair and precipitates a series of terrified reactions that end in Agnes hiding herself comically under the covers of her bed. A tone that mixes sinister sexual threat with physical comedy is a major adjustment in Griffith’s lore cycle and a fair approximation of the abandonment of rationality and the embrace of chaos that Alexander Woollcott had diagnosed as apt to the “frayed nerves of the post-war world” in the original Broadway play. 132

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Griffith’s self-congratulatory modernity thus transforms the chaotic comedy-thrills of the original play into racialized terms, first by causing us to suspect the worst of the black(faced) villain and then pulling that rug out from under us by revealing that Sam is actually the film’s hero. For in the end he is revealed as none other than the loyal “Kaffir” of the film’s African beginning. We are asked to believe that out of loyalty to Agnes’ father this African has devoted his life to tracking down her identity as the rightful inheritor of the African gold. We are furthermore asked to believe that the “primitive” and crouching African who once believed that the photo in the locket was WHITE MAN’S MAGIC TO BE TREASURED has been transformed into the erect, dignified, ratiocinating, and sly Samuel Jones. Finally, we are asked to believe that this African has joined forces with a Scotland Yard investigator to identify Agnes as the rightful heir. Thus the real hero of One Exciting Night proves to be not the rather useless Fairfax, but the extremely useful, brave, and persistent “Kaffir/Sam” who has spent a lifetime and traveled over continents to save her. If anyone deserves to get the girl it is Sam. Since he cannot, and since the white hero desperately needs something to do to prove his worthiness, Griffith has recourse to the oldest gimmick in his bag of tricks: the last-minute rescue. Griffith argued that his audiences had come to expect these big epic flourishes from his films. But Carol Dempster gets the real blame for putting the idea of a last-minute rescue from a storm in his head and turning a modest picture that might have earned his studio some money into a money drain. Dempster complained to Griffith that the film had no compelling climax comparable to those lavished on her rival Lillian Gish.29 Griffith immediately devised a hurricane that would appear just as a masked and still unrecognized Rockmaine was fleeing the house with the money. Agnes throws herself into the storm in hot pursuit. Thus, unlike Gish, who passively awaited rescue in Griffith’s previous epics and even suicidally threw herself into the storm toward the end of Way Down East, Dempster’s Agnes exhibits a “New Woman” “conquer-or-die” gumption to pursue the villain herself under perilous circumstances. Fairfax, hampered by handcuffs placed on him by the detective, follows. When a tree falls and traps her, with yet another tree about to fall on it and kill her, a much-delayed Fairfax finally extracts her in the nick of time, thus earning a belated right to “get the girl”. However, it is readily apparent that this storm is unnecessary window dressing. When it is over, the Scotland Yard detective explains what he would have explained anyway: that ever since Sam had found the other half of the locket back in Africa, IN HIS PRIMITIVE WAY HE [HAD] SEARCHED FOR THIS CONCLUSIVE PROOF of Agnes’ identity. A flashback allows us to review his supposedly nefarious acts in the bedroom of mother and daughter, this time revealing the ellipsis that concealed his full activity. What we mistook for black lust

27: What was missing in the ellipsis

28: Sam stoically looks away from Agnes

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was simply a ratiocinative search for the clue of the locket. Here we see the burnt-cork hands finding and removing the photo from the locket around the false mother’s neck, fitting it into the other half and then taking it all away. (Figure 27). Of course, we might wonder, if Sam has managed to play the observant detective, how he could also be “primitive”? This is the question Griffith cannot answer. His reworking of blackface convention can only vacillate between melodramatic victim and villain. After the detective explains Sam’s pure motives Sam and Agnes are coupled for a brief moment in the same shot. An intertitle interrupts this framing to offer Sam’s one and only verbal explanation for his kindness: “IN AFRICA, MISS, YOUR FATHER WAS ABOUT THE ONLY PERSON WHO EVER WAS KIND TO ME.” In a close-up he completes these lines of affectionate reminiscence with a kind look, then his features grow sad and he stoically looks away from her (Figure 28). Their moment of interracial intimacy is over and all subsequent shots contrive to distance them as when the Scotland Yard detective is located at the apex of a triangle formed by Agnes and Samuel, as if he were policing any further closeness between them (Figure 29). The following shot is taken from a greater distance and now includes the false mother whom the detective signals to leave (Figure 30). When Agnes makes a move to prevent the mother from leaving, a cut-in isolates just the detective and Agnes. This new frame has the effect of excluding both the “mother” and Samuel from the former family unit as if they were now both false kin (Figure 31). It is thus the detective, not Sam, who bids Agnes a kindly farewell and leaves. A yet more distanced shot shows that the “mother” follows him and, after a pause, so does Sam, as if he too was being marched off to prison. Agnes bids no farewell to Sam. Left with young Fairfax and his aunt, she momentarily feels alone until Fairfax exuberantly offers to furnish her with MOTHER, FATHER, HUSBAND, SWEETHEART – EVERYTHING!

29: Sam and Agnes “policed” by the detective

30: The detective signals to the mother to leave

31: Agnes and detective: Sam and the “mother” excluded

32: Romeo’s disintegrating house

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This, Griffith seems to think, is all we need to know about the fate of Samuel Jones. And this dignified exit might be viewed as an improvement over the tiptoeing away we see at the end of The Birth of a Nation. In both cases, however, we might wonder where the black characters go. Where, indeed, does Sam go? Back to Africa where as a British colonial subject he will find other white masters to whom he can devote his life? To England with the Scotland Yard detective? Griffith has imagined no place for this black(face) African in his happy-ending union of the white couple with the result that Sam’s fate is ingloriously linked to that of the guilty false kin. I have written elsewhere about the difficulty black-and-white racial melodrama has forging an American home for its African (American) protagonists. This difficulty was no more true for Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose African characters dream at the end of Uncle Tom’s Cabin of a return to Africa, than it was for Thomas Dixon, Jr., and Griffith whose “solutions” tend toward the outright disappearance of black bodies, certainly in any potential roles as citizens.30 The storm of One Exciting Night, however unwise an addition for an already bloated film, thus works to erase our sense that Agnes should be indebted to Sam, not Fairfax. Having spent so much money on this storm to give much-needed virtue to his white hero, it would seem that Griffith could not resist also using it for more “comic” business with his other black(face) hero: Romeo Washington. Unlike the African who quietly exits the scene, Romeo, as the quintessentially stereotyped and blacked-up American Zip Coon, will be welcomed at film’s end with a place in the sleepy Kentucky community he had initially been too FIRED WITH AMBITION to join. He will even, like Fairfax, get the girl he loves, but not before he once more moves. And, as with the movement generated by his terror in the “haunted” house, this movement too seems to punish him. After Agnes has been rescued and Rockmaine captured, Griffith indulges another five minutes out of an already overlong film to sketch the comedy of ROMEO HOME AT LAST. This intertitle is puzzling since in the course of his day it has been pretty clear that Romeo is a transient, as signaled by his prominent suitcase. Just what “home” he might have acquired is a thus a mystery. Nevertheless, the film seems to relish the physical dismantling of such a hypothetical home.31 Wandering into the frame Romeo sees windows and doors fly off his flimsy shack (Figure 32). Taking shelter in the doorway Romeo is terrified to find he has been lifted into the air (Figure 33). Both he and his “home” are thrown about, buffeted, and turned rootless by the storm. If Sam, the African and racial villain revised into hero, quietly exits the frame, finding no home in America, least of all in the household of the woman he has saved, then Romeo, the minstrelized African (American), will finally be rewarded with his “proper place” in a modern America of athletic “New Women”, nefarious black and white bootleggers, evil cads, and

33: Romeo and house fly

34: Romeo settles back into the black community of supernumeraries

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charming young millionaires. However, Romeo’s place will not be among these modern gogetters but rather, right back where he started with the black supernumeraries in a kind of unspecified, liminal “old Kentucky home”. In a circular trajectory that corrects the linear, upwardly mobile ambition that originally “fired” him, we find Romeo back in the very location from which he first set out: the sleepy whistle-stop where a mammy still peels potatoes, where other black folk laze about, play banjo, and eat watermelon, and where somnolence still rules. The only difference, and it is a considerable one, is that the “colored maid” is seated beside him and his arm is proprietarily placed around her. As in the beginning the black community that occupies this liminal space is played by black supernumeraries (Figure 34). We find Romeo telling a tall tale about his exploits in the haunted house. Just as in his tale of capturing Germans during the war, he casts himself as the hero: “TWO MURDERERS RUNNING LOOSE AND I REACHES OUT AND CAPTURES BOTH OF THEM” (Figure 35). While the seemingly credulous maid approvingly plants a sleepy kiss on him during his story, a black youth is the first to break the straight-faced reaction with a smile (Figure 36). Romeo feigns outrage but when the maid also cracks a smile and the rest of the community does too, he soon relents and qualifies: “WELL, I SEEN HIM ANYWAY.” Amid the general hilarity (Figure 37), with Romeo now laughing at himself, he contentedly kisses the maid (Figure 38). Fade out on Romeo in “his place”. Fade in on Agnes and Fairfax in theirs: a big church wedding. This is what it takes for the black(face) man to “get the girl”, in separate and unequal parallel to the putative white hero. Such, it would seem, is the twofold nature of Griffith’s modern racial “tolerance” as played in blackface. In one move, the film indulges in, and then corrects, suspicions of black male miscegenous desire. We are chastened in any racist assumptions the film first urges us

35: Romeo tells his tall tale

36: A black youth smiles at Romeo’s tale

37: All laugh with/at Romeo

38: Romeo kisses the maid

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to make about the black(face) man’s desires. But the narrative pauses only one small beat for Tom-like pity and then gets rid of Sam, lest we see him as having any entitlement toward the girl he saves. In a second move, the caricatured minstrel tradition of Kentucky homes and kind masters seems to invite Griffith to “generously” include Romeo Washington and his “colored maid” in a larger, homey community of the ambitionless, though only after he has been haunted by ghosts and buffeted by a storm. Thus, where Samuel Jones renounces desire and hope, Romeo, as his name suggests, is the ambitionless community’s comic blackface embodiment. His story ends on a kiss and a marginal, tolerated place in the Southern community of rooted, real blacks. CONCLUSION

I have not tried to argue that One Exciting Night deserves a place among D.W. Griffith’s great films. It was hastily knocked off between the much more carefully crafted previous big film, Orphans of the Storm (1922), and the subsequent The White Rose (1923). Among the film’s many flaws we can count: the allegory-mongering intertitles that are among the worst the director ever wrote or illustrated (THE SACRIFICE OF YOUTH ON THE ALTAR OF GREED AND PASSION) and which do not sit well with the modern manipulation of thrills and laughter; ponderous plotting; and a narratively unmotivated and decidedly fake storm.32 This is no overlooked gem. However, its elaborate blackface subplots pose with a new acuteness the persistent question of the proper home for African (Americans) in the post-Great War era. Offering both the Uncle Tom style and the anti-Tom (Griffith-Dixon) solutions to this question – exiling one blackface man and incorporating the other into a quasi-antebellum somnolence, Griffith’s answer is as conflicted as the white America of this period. His early 1920s use of blackface lore should thus not surprise even if it does offend. Blackface as deployed by Griffith before the institution of codes prohibiting any hint of miscegenous desire or the use of racist language does not mark a return to outmoded nineteenth-century stereotypes. It forges new stereotypes within the mask of burnt cork. D.W. Griffith probably believed he was being modern and newly tolerant when he accepted Romeo’s chastened Zip Coon into the community of the “Kentucky Home”, even as he delighted in destroying Romeo’s literal home. He also probably believed he was being modern and tolerant by inventing the thriller for the screen, faking us out about victims and villains in a newly racialized way. Burnt-cork performance has always told much more about the white fascination with or dread of blackness than it does about black people. It is as Eric Lott writes, a counterfeit “necessary to construct and preserve a fundamentally ‘hegemonic’ ‘misrecognition’ of black people”.33 But it will not do to classify what Griffith does here as a simple return to minstrel stereotypes. If some minstrel lore was put to use by D.W. Griffith this late in his career, at a moment in which he was quite strenuously attempting to show his credentials as a modern filmmaker, then we can recognize what is modern and “tolerant”, while still white supremacist and ugly in this work. LINDA WILLIAMS NOTES

1. Richard Schickel, D.W. Griffith: An American Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984), p. 474. 2. Steven Higgins, “One Exciting Night”, in the catalogue for Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, 2006, p.99. 3. I argue in Playing the Race Card: Melodramas of Black and White from Uncle Tom to O.J. Simpson (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001) that the poet Vachel Lindsay’s The Art of the Moving Picture, published in 1915, set the trend. Lindsay claims that whenever Griffith follows

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The Clansman his film is bad, but whenever “it is unadulterated Griffith, which is half the time, it is good” (Lindsay 1915, pp. 75–76). Lewis Jacobs, James Agee, and contemporary Griffith biographer Richard Schickel have followed suit, calling him the inventor of movies. I have argued that this persistent tendency to attribute what is great and wonderful in Griffith to his position as god-like, autonomous originator positioned outside of time and history and to attribute what is embarrassing and racist in him to his local, time-bound influences as a Southerner. So while Griffith is always called a genius and a visionary artist there is always a caveat that blames his penchant for sentimentality, melodrama, and blackface on his atavistic tendencies harking back to the nineteenth century. 4. See Jacqueline Stewart, Migrating to the Movies: Cinema and Black Urban Modernity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), p. 57, which notes that burnt cork had not always been the norm in the earlier pre-Hollywood cinema. Stewart writes, for example, that during this earlier period, which she calls “preclassical”, blackface “did not entirely supplant Black actors, who continued to appear in nonfiction films and occasionally in minor background roles in fiction films during the transition period. Thus blackfaced mammies might appear with ‘real Black babies and children’” in the 1908 Mixed Babies. 5. See Ann Douglas, The Feminization of American Culture (New York: Avon, 1977) and Terrible Honesty: Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s (New York: Noonday Press, 1995). 6. Jon Lewis, Hollywood v. Hard Core: How the Struggle over Censorship Saved the Modern Film Industry (New York: New York University Press, 2000), p. 301. 7. Eric Lott, Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class (New York: New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993). 8. Except for Stoneman, that is. When he asks for the hand of Stoneman’s daughter in marriage, he is rudely rebuffed, pointing to Stoneman’s “true” and virtuous rejection of miscegenation. 9. Thomas Cripps, Slow Fade to Black: The Negro in American Film, 1900–1942 (New York: Oxford University Press), p. 119. 10. This language is from the 1927 “Don’ts and Be Carefuls”; the 1930 Code would more specifically eliminate the use of the word “nigger”. See Jon Lewis’ appendix containing both Codes, pp. 301, 306 in Hollywood v. Hard Core (op. cit.). 11. Intolerance combined a modern story of reformist meddling with the ancient story of Babylon, the France of the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, with the story of Christ to deliver a message on the problem of intolerance over the ages. Yet the film did not actually treat any relevant American racial themes and did not (re)address racial tolerance at all. Richard Schickel (op. cit.) writes that “the film was in no way an apologia for the ideas expressed in Birth” but rather an assault on the film’s critics and their intolerance “of his right to say what he wanted to say”, p. 303. Nevertheless the film has often been presented as the more politically correct counterbalance to the overt racial prejudices of The Birth of a Nation. 12. The New York Times, “The Play: A Reinhart Mystery Staged”, August 24, 1920, p. 15. 13. Griffith seems to have maintained the spotlight-manipulating manner of the original in several scenes that have an unmotivated spotlight. 14. The New York Times, “Second Thoughts on First Nights”, April 30, 1922, p. 90. 15. Griffith also used this pseudonym for the screenplays of Dream Street (1921) and The White Rose (1923). 16. The actor’s name is Harry Morvil; one of several photos from the original production shows Billy’s darkened face and slicked-down hair. 17. Griffith uses this name or variations of it frequently for black men. Samuel Jones, for instance, is a name he had already used for a black character, played by Porter Strong, in Dream Street. Besides being a common name, it is obviously a name that connoted blackness to Griffith.

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18. This is before the “Don’ts and Be Carefuls” of the early Hays Code began prohibiting ethnic name-calling with the clause that stipulated: “Willful offense to any nation, race or creed” would not be tolerated. See Jon Lewis, op. cit., p. 301. 19. The American Heritage Dictionary notes that it is originally an Islamic term usually translated as infidel that is “used especially in southern Africa as a disparaging term for a Black person”. 20. This ban operated in all-black productions as well as blackface ones. Camille Forbes notes that the 1914 all-black production of Darktown Follies had been the first production to portray blackon-black romance off Broadway. When Ziegfeld borrowed the first-act finale from that show he included a romantic duet called “Rock Me in the Cradle of Love”, which depicted a romance between a black(face) woman and man. (Forbes, Introducing Bert Williams: Burnt Cork, Broadway, and the Story of America’s First Black Star [New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2008], pp. 257–258). (See also James Weldon Johnson, Black Manhattan (1930), [New York: Arno Press, 1991], p. 174.) 21. Often about masters and cunning slaves. 22. This mix of main character in blackface supporting characters played by blacks is both typical of Griffith as noted above and typical of the one Bert Williams film I have seen, A Born Gambler (1916). 23. For example, the groundbreaking Williams and Walker musicals, In Dahomey (1903) and Abyssinia (1906), had avoided any hint of intraracial romance. See Forbes,op. cit., pp. 138, 258. In earlier blackface minstrel tradition, romance had always been portrayed between white men in blackface and white men dressed as women in blackface. It would seem that the tradition of the “tragic mulata” derives its tragedy from the fact that there was no one, black or white, with whom she could have a “legitimate” romance. 24. Frederick James Smith in Los Angeles Times, October 28, 1922, section III, p. 25. 25. The New York Times, October 24, 1922, p. 15. 26. Ralph T. Jones in Atlanta Constitution, April 17, 1923, p. 20. 27. W.T. Lhamon, Jr. Raising Cain: Blackface Performance from Jim Crow to Hip Hop. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), p. 70. 28. Readers of Thomas Dixon, Jr.’s The Clansman, as Griffith certainly had been, might remember that in Dixon’s novel Gus the renegade did not only seek to rape the young virgin who would throw herself off the cliff rather than endure “the fate worse than death” of miscegenous rape. Rather, Dixon marked with an ellipsis at the end of one chapter and the beginning of another the unwritten rape of both mother and daughter who then both throw themselves off a cliff. Thomas Dixon, Jr., The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan [1905] (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1970). 29. Schickel, op. cit., p 472. 30. As I have argued with respect to the stage tradition of UTC, home, even for blacks in the antebellum era, would sometimes still be pictured as the Kentucky of kindly masters. See Williams, Playing the Race Card, pp. 56–62, 115–135. 31. See my discussion of the significance of the humble cabin home throughout the long tradition of American racial melodrama, from Uncle Tom’s cabin, to the cabin that is the locus of the reunion of “former enemies of North and South” who fight in defense of their “Aryan birthright” in The Birth of a Nation and on to America’s fascination with Tara in Gone with the Wind. Williams, Playing the Race Card: Melodramas of Black and White from Uncle Tom to O.J. Simpson. 32. Despite claims that Griffith’s crew simply took advantage of a storm that passed their way while filming. 33. Lott is citing Phillip Cohen 123; also Michael Rogin, Jacqueline Stewart, Clyde Taylor.

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12. ROUGH TRADE ON IVAR BOULEVARD: GRIFFITH MEETS SAM FULLER For Peter, who made it all possible. This is best told, I suppose, as a long-ago bedtime story about Griffith. It could also be called, “How I Bonded with Sam Fuller (Sort of).” But that would miss the point. This is really an account of how Griffith appeared to one of America’s great maverick directors, and how Fuller gave the father of film a new kind of patrimony. My conversation with Fuller took place, appropriately enough for him, in a noisy downtown bar. Fuller, the guest of honor at the 1980 Athens [Ohio] International Film Festival, was holding court off-hours at a large table amidst smoke and low-slung lights. I joined the party, and learned he already knew I was working on Griffith. He asked me a few questions (“What’s your angle? What’s your hook?”) and then turned away. A little later, as the conversation with the others grew stale, he turned back to me. “You know what’s wrong with you?” he said. “You’re too old and you lack imagination.” Too old? I was a little more than half Fuller’s age at the time, but otherwise the oldest one at a table of college kids and hangers-on. Fuller had been pushing the crowd to make movies. Mainly he was listening to story ideas, and making connections to his own work. I was the sorrowful example of what happens when you choose, instead, an academic career. He continued. “If I could do it, I’d put a sharpshooter on the roof across the street, and when you came out, I’d have him shoot you between the eyes! You’re sitting on a great idea and you’re too dumb to know it.” How long was I supposed to be polite? But maybe this requires a bit more context which, the reader needs to be warned, will only grow relevant as the story unfolds. In describing my Griffith angle, my hook, I had mentioned an enormous photo collage from Griffith movies that Griffith’s adoring grandniece Geraldine had constructed on the occasion of his 65th birthday. Fuller had seen Griffith posing with the collage in a book and wanted to know what happened to it. I told him. For this I was going to be killed? Not exactly. But, then, he was just warming up. “Listen to me!” He held up his hands, as if he were framing a shot, holding his cigar erect. “You start on the ass of a whore.” He had my undivided attention. “Keep the camera tight on her ass. I want it in black and white. Grainy. It’s night. Make the music greasy. Then, get that ass moving. Make her GRIND those cheeks! And – KEEP UP WITH HER!!” Keep up on the ass of a whore…. It was all to be in one shot. The camera was to follow her to the street corner, stop when she left the sidewalk, tilt up slightly to see the street sign – Ivar & Hollywood – and then come back down to find her across the street, talking to two johns. Gradually a cloud started to lift. I thought I knew where Fuller was going, but it didn’t make this any less weird. He continued.

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We get close enough to hear them talking. They go back and forth. She wants $20; they’ll give her $10, maybe more if she shows them some nice tricks. They walk to the cheap hotel behind them. The camera – “DON’T CUT!! Just stay with them!!” – follows them up through the small lobby, up an elevator – “Make one of the guys short and bald, and have him knee her when they’re close in the elevator, just to keep it interesting” – and they get out. The two men have the girl knock on a room door. The door opens. A bewildered old man looks out. The johns shove the girl aside, rush inside the room, and throw the old man back onto a chair. “The camera cuts to a tight close-up on the old guy. Voice-over: ‘WHEN I FIRST MET D.W. GRIFFITH, HE WAS DRUNK!’ “CUT!!! CREDITS!!!!” In short, Sam Fuller was remembering Ezra Goodman’s notorious interview1 with Griffith published in P.M. Magazine in 1948, in which Goodman and Seymour Stern used a secretary to gain access to Griffith’s hotel room. In the Fuller version, the interview was to provide the frame story for a low-budget action picture which, if he were to let me live, I was to write. The secretary was turned into a hooker. Fuller knew nothing about Goodman or Stern, and had no interest in them. “Your hook”, he told me, “is the whore. Make sure she’s got blood on her mouth from when the guys shove her out of the way. Have her knock her mouth on something when she falls down.” The point was to give her something to do while a befuddled Griffith gradually agrees to answer Goodman’s questions about his movies. She’s bored and quiet, but she wants her $20. She’s pressing a cold towel to her mouth; she’s wandering around the room, half-interested in an enormous collage of photos from Griffith’s films – Geraldine’s collage – now mounted on the hotel wall. The whore would stare at the stills. She would also find Griffith’s straw hat on a coat rack – similar to the one Griffith wore while directing The Birth of a Nation. Fuller needed this to connect to Griffith at work in 1914 – Griffith sitting inside a tent having his head shaved bald amidst the chaos of preparing for The Birth of a Nation’s battle scene. Bitzer, assistant directors, secretaries, money guys are all coming in and out, giving Griffith things to sign, calling for him, looking for direction. At the end of the scene, the barber would hold up a mirror, a bald-headed Griffith would stand, put on his straw hat (the one Lillian Gish describes with the large hole in it to let the sun rays through) and then walk out to direct his scene. Fuller said we could come back later to the battle scene itself. If there was no money to pay for it, we could cheat and not have to film it. Fuller wouldn’t leave it alone. I had been invited to Ohio by Peter Lehman, the brilliant founding director of the Ohio University Film Conference, specifically to help interview Fuller about his work2. But when we were alone, Fuller kept the conversation on Griffith and “our” movie. Fuller’s idea was to have the prostitute steal the hat and at the end of the film walk off with it – and her $20. Then, sudden inspiration – “THIS IS A PISS CUTTER!!” – she is to wander down into the lobby, and find the bar. At the far end, a black man – “an AfricanAmerican, a colored guy” – is playing piano. Crosscut to Griffith and his interviewers back at the room while the whore flirts downstairs with the piano man. Back and forth until we’re finally at the bar where she’s dancing and playing with the hat and the African-American. Then, just before she leaves, she tosses Griffith’s hat on the piano man’s head. And sashays out. “USE IT!!! IT’S A GOD-DAMN, MOTHER-FUCKING PISS CUTTER!!” Griffith meant a lot to Fuller. Although he called John Ford his “original inspiration” and The Informer his favorite film of all time, Griffith movies, he said, gave him energy. He

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recalled how he took the bait when Darryl Zanuck jokingly challenged him to write an unfilmable script about the movies. Fuller’s idea: start with a scene of the Ku Klux Klan riding to the rescue in The Birth of a Nation. The camera pulls back to reveal that the movie is being projected on the side of a barn. We see the 16mm projector on a table; the projectionist; and men in overalls watching it. One guy passes a pouch of chewing tobacco. We’re at a Klan recruiting rally, and the gist of the dialogue is that this is the best god-damn movie ever made.

Griffith’s competing reputations are by now well known. But to hear Griffith compared to a Tough Bleeding Whore is new. What resonates is that the metaphor refreshes the sense of scandal that has always been at the center of Griffith’s art. Fuller’s great originality, as David Thomson first noticed3, has always been in seeing the constant criminal element in life. Dog owners, newspaper editors, police, priests, mental patients, GIs, and filmmakers are all interchangeable with the criminal underworld. A film teacher (me) gets a bullet between the eyes for being clueless about financial opportunity; Griffith is like a whore because he’s the creator and victim of a compromised profession. Behind it is Fuller’s idea that Griffith is a model for the rough-and-tumble B-picture director, the homegrown non-conformist who is also fully capable of pandering to the mainstream. Above all, for Fuller, Griffith is the pioneer who first understands emotion. In fact, Fuller didn’t like calling Griffith a pioneer. His preferred term: The Great Primitive (“it gives me a picture of a hairy ape and a grabber of women’s hair”), a director who could give you “every emotion you want”. He later made a near-identical claim for The Informer, saying that of all Griffith films, Broken Blossoms came closest to Ford’s (“Griffith shot it like an unconstrained poem”). Its two great flaws: casting a white man as the Chinese lead, and not letting “that sweet young guy” have sex with Lillian Gish. How seriously to take all this? Although he enjoyed their company, Griffith was neither a whore nor a plausible model for the American B-director. At Mamaroneck, he proved a disaster trying to make quickies – incapable of working fast and cheap, incapable of bringing potboilers in on time or within budget, precisely because he couldn’t stop tinkering with them. Nor do his pictures provide a plausible point of reference for the likes of Fuller, Nicholas Ray, Don Siegel, or Anthony Mann. Looking at The Killers and trying to remember The Musketeers of Pig Alley, wanting to compare House of Bamboo with Broken Blossoms, or thinking of The Battle of Elderbush Gulch when watching The Naked Spur doesn’t get very far. What similarities there are only highlight the stark differences: Griffith’s moral world works from assumptions about patriarchy, family, respectability, and narrative order that were at the heart of what the tabloid directors ground up with unremitting relish. The one Griffith feature structured around a citywide search, Orphans of the Storm, brings us back to where we started – sisters reunited, a world order restored with a chastened aristocracy back in their gorgeous estates. The citywide search in Mann’s The Black Book ends in a continuing vortex: Robespierre shot in the mouth, an orgiastic celebration, and – the twist in the tail – an obscure, ambitious corporal waiting in the wings. But what Fuller is responding to is Griffith the maverick who realizes only late in the day how far he has compromised himself in order to keep making movies. It’s a surprising but interesting link. What Gilberto Perez wrote about Griffith in The Nation could as well apply to the great noir directors of the 1940s. Perez argued that Griffith’s work could not be called subversive. “[His] contradictions were not counter to the culture but a forceful expression of its contradictions. Yet in so expressing them he exposed them. And his expressive technique opened the way for many other possibilities both of a more conformist and of a more adversary import.”4 142

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Fuller’s lurid image catches a similar contradiction: the director who at Biograph and with his first features helped win cultural acceptance for movies among a broad middle-class audience while also providing a disruptive influence. Conventionally we have linked that disruption to the art-house cinema of the French, German, and, in particular, the Russian avant-garde. These are the non-American silent cinemas in which Griffith’s influence has been felt most strongly. For Fuller, though, the disruption links Griffith to the dissonance of noir and the action film. Griffith may come closest to the B-film, however, in the life he led after he stopped directing pictures in 1931.5 I don’t just mean the appalling picture of a drunken man alone in a hotel room at the end of his life. As horrific and dramatically irresistible as this image is, it is almost certainly overdrawn and, at most, it covered only the last nine months of Griffith’s life. For the previous sixteen years he lived in comfortable hotels and homes, married to an adoring wife since 1936, ending up in a Beverly Hills bungalow. But the picture of an artist adrift, looking for things to do, getting into trouble at bars, and seldom able to finish any project he started, is true enough. There is also, in these years, the whiff of the smalltime sleazy operator. At one end of the ’30s he gets involved with his cousin Woodson Oglesby, a wealthy New York lawyer who shows him how to shake down United Artists, con stockholders into investing in a failing Berkshires country club (Griffith promised to use it as a movie studio and took a commission from Oglesby before slipping out of town), and then play the race card to pressure neighbors to meet his price on re-acquired Mamaroneck property (Griffith and Oglesby threatened to sell lots to Father Divine and his holy-roller black commune if they could not find white buyers). He ends his marriage to Linda Arvidson by filing divorce papers behind her back, and then, after she successfully sues him for back alimony, dodges the process servers by staying out of New York practically for the rest of his life. At the other end of the decade is the picture of an artist no longer confident of his creative powers, seriously doubting that he has anything more to offer. Aside from his work on Hal Roach’s low-budget One Million B.C., he gravitates to projects that blow up in his face as the British remake of Broken Blossoms had in 1935 and a film adaptation of Nine Pine Street would in 1945. Or he starts scripts, film proposals, and an autobiography that come to nothing when he abandons them. Even his happiest days could without effort be folded into the bleak overview of a hard-boiled Hollywood quickie. By all accounts, the happy days would be the ones he spent with his relatives in Kentucky, showing off his new bride, spreading his money around, and basking in his celebrity among an admiring family. But whether as an idyllic interlude à la the homecoming in Bonnie and Clyde, or as a counterpoint to Griffith hanging out in Los Angeles nightclubs and drifting around the Southwest, it all points to the shrunken world of a man passed by. All that is missing for a first-class Jim Thompson or Al Bezzerides plot is a dangerous woman and the hatching of an awesome, squalid crime. But Fuller had another way of connecting Griffith’s life to his art. We said goodbye at the local airport while he waited for his plane and I waited for mine. We ended where we started: Fuller coming out of nowhere with a surprise punch. Up to this point, our airport conversation had been desultory, but Griffith, as ever, had become our lingua franca. Without warning, Fuller rapped me on the arm. He had one final bit of advice. I was to be “god-damn sure” that I got into the script what made Griffith a brilliant filmmaker. The secret wasn’t the technical innovation. It was that Griffith lived all his life in a dream world – of feeling, sensation, and emotion – and found the power to transform it into a tangible universe. But it’s the kind of gift, Fuller said, that leaves you defenseless in the real world. “When you write about Griffith, you gotta remember that.” RUSSELL MERRITT 143

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NOTES

1. Ezra Goodman, “Flashback”, in The Fifty Year Decline and Fall of Hollywood (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1961), pp. 9–23. 2. Russell Merritt and Peter Lehman, “‘Being Wrong is the Right Way of Living’: An Interview with Sam Fuller”, Wide Angle, vol. 4 (Spring 1980), pp. 66–75. 3. David Thomson, “Samuel Fuller”, in The New Biographical Dictionary of Film (New York: Alfred Knopf, 2003), p. 318. 4. Gilbert Perez, “In the Beginning”, The Nation (November 4, 1991), p. 492. 5. Richard Schickel, “No Casting Today”, in D.W. Griffith: An American Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984), pp. 560–605.

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13. SUPERVISED BY D.W. GRIFFITH?: A CHECKLIST OF RELIANCE, MAJESTIC AND KOMIC FILMS RELEASED BY MUTUAL FROM 30 NOVEMBER 1913 TO 7 NOVEMBER 1915 This list was first prepared from information found mainly in Reel Life, The Moving Picture World and Motion Picture News. It was supplemented with credits from other sources, particularly Einar Lauritzen and Gunnar Lundquist’s American Film-Index, 1908–1915 and 1916–1920. It was further enriched with additional information from the production records of the Mutual Studios in Los Angeles (now at the Wisconsin Historical Society) which was supplied to me by Ben Brewster. The titles are listed in order of their release (as nearly as that can be determined). If no release date could be confirmed, the publication date of the trade publication used as source is reproduced in square brackets. For the initial listing the information in Mutual’s house organ, Reel Life, has been considered the most reliable, but it has been enriched by the information supplied by Ben Brewster. When Griffith is listed in the credits as “supervisor” it is based on references in the company’s ads, mentions in articles in trade journals or (occasionally) outside references. Significant stories about company activities are referred to when appropriate (in smaller case for easy reference) in order to provide perspective. An example is immediately below. PAUL SPEHR [Editors’ note: Titles already listed in vol. 8 of The Griffith Project are only mentioned with a reference to the corresponding entry in the series. It should also be noted that some of the entries reproduced here integrates and at times corrects or is in conflict with the information contained in vol. 11 of The Griffith Project, section “Films Formerly Attributed to D.W. Griffith”, pp. 209–213, as well with films already listed in previous volumes. Discrepancies are possible, due to the different sources used in some cases.] ABBREVIATIONS: AFI = The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures Produced in the United States. Volume F1: Feature Films, 1911–1920 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988) L&L = Einar Lauritzen and Gunnar Lundquist, American Film-Index, 1908–1915 (Stockholm: Film Index, 1976) MPW = The Moving Picture World PL = Reliance-Majestic Production Log RL = Reel Life

1913 Reel Life, vol. III, no. 8, November 8, 1913, p. 16: photo of D.W. Griffith. The new Director of the Reliance and Majestic studios. Mr. Griffith joins these Mutual companies at one of the largest salaries ever paid to a Motion Picture Director.”

THE HENDRICKS’ DIVORCE (Majestic) – 30 November 1913 (1 r.); cast: Lamar Johnstone, Francelia Billington, Josie Ashdown, Billie West, Howard Davies, Mrs. W. McConnell, Victory Bateman, Frederick Vroom; source: RL 145

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TONY’S SACRIFICE (Reliance) – 1 December 1913 (1 r.); cast: George De Carlton, Mrs. De Carlton, Runa Hodges, Thomas Mills; source: RL THE PADRE’S SACRIFICE (Majestic) – 2 December 1913 (1 r.); cast: W.H. Brown, Lamar Johnstone, Belle Bennett, Theodore Bennett, Carrie Clark Ward, Howard Davies, Tom Haverly; source: RL A WOMAN OF SIN (Reliance) – 3 December 1913 (1 r.); story: George Hennessy; cast: Irene Hunt; source: L&L FOR ANOTHER’S CRIME (Reliance) – 6 December 1913 (2 r.); cast: Paul Scardon (two roles), Irene Hunt, Anna Laughlin; source: RL THE HELPING HAND (Majestic) – 6 December 1913 (1 r.); author: Lois Bain; cast: Ernest Joy, Billie West (two roles), Mildred Gordon, Vera Sisson, Josie Ashdown, Eugene Pallette, Metta White, Mrs. Wm. McConnell, Frederick Vroom; source: RL RICK’S REDEMPTION (Majestic) – 7 December 1913 (1 r.); cast: William Garwood, Muriel Ostriche; source: L&L TWO GIRLS OF THE HILLS (Reliance) – 8 December 1913 (1 r.); cast: George De Carlton, Anna Laughlin, Vola Smith, Thomas Mills; source: RL ROMANCE AND DUTY (Majestic) – 9 December 1913 (2 r.); cast: Frederick Vroom, Belle Bennett, D. Mitsoras, Ernest Joy, William Brown; source: RL FOUR $100 BILLS (Reliance) – 10 December 1913 (1 r.); cast: Paul Scardon, Estelle Kibby, Edward Cecil; source: RL HOW IT WORKED (Komic) – 11 December 1913 (split reel); source: L&L THE WILD INDIAN (Komic) – 11 December 1913 (split reel); source: L&L A MAN’S A MAN (Reliance) – 13 December 1913 (1 r.); source: RL THE RIVAL PITCHERS (Majestic) – 14 December 1913 (1 r.); cast: William Nigh, Sid De Grey, Carrie Clark Ward, Chester Conklin, J. Rand; source: RL THE MIGHTY ATOM (Reliance) – 15 December 1913 (1 r.); cast: Paul Sardon, Miss Wright, Baby Engle; source: RL THE GOD OF TO-MORROW (Majestic) – 16 December 1913 (1 r.); story: Bettie Fitzgerald; cast: Richard Cummings, Metta White, Francelia Billington, Lamar Johnstone, K. Yamamoto, Howard Davies, Billie West; source: RL THE PSEUDO PRODIGAL (Reliance) – 17 December 1913 (1 r.); cast: Miriam Cooper, Ralph Lewis, Sue Balfour; source: RL

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THE FIRST PRIZE (Komic) – 18 December 1913 (split reel); source: RL AT THE CABARET (Komic) – 18 December 1913 (split reel); source: RL A MAN’S AWAKENING (Majestic) – 20 December 1913 (1 r.); cast: Frederick Vroom, Belle Bennett, Eugene Pallette, Ernest Joy, Howard Davis, Matty Roubert, Sid De Grey, William Nigh, Demetrio Mitsoras, Chester Conklin, John Rand; source: RL THE PRISONER OF THE MOUNTAINS (Majestic) – 21 December 1913 (1 r.); cast: Ernest Joy, Lamar Johnstone, Howard Davies, Joseph Swickard; source: RL THE FLYLEAF OF FATE (Reliance) – 22 December 1913 (1 r.); story: Russell E. Smith; cast: Consuelo Bailey, Henry B. Walthall, Anna Luther; source: RL MRS. BROWN’S BURGLAR (Majestic) – 23 December 1913 (1 r.); cast: R. Cummings, Carrie Clark Ward, Matty Roubert, Sidney De Gray, D. Mitsoras, William Nigh, Chester Conklin, John Rand; source: RL THE ALTERNATIVE (Reliance) – 24 December 1913 (1 r.); cast: Paul Scardon, Ruth Fielding, George De Carlton, Mabel Wright; source: RL WIFEY’S CHRISTMAS PRESENT (Komic) – 25 December 1913 (split reel); source: RL A LIVE WIRE (Komic) – 25 December 1913 (split reel); source: RL THE PRIDE OF THE FORCE (Majestic) – 26 December 1913 (1 r.); cast: William Nigh, Carrie Clark Ward; source: RL GIOVANNI’S GRATITUDE (Reliance) – 27 December 1913 (2 r.); cast: George Siegmann, Irene Hunt, Jack Pickford, Ralph Fitzsimmons, Thomas Mills; source: RL HELEN’S STRATAGEM (Majestic) – 28 December 1913 (1 r.); cast: Lamar Johnstone, Ernest Joy, Vera Sisson, Demetrio Mitzoras, Howard Davies, Mrs. McCormick, Miss Day, Edna Smith; source: RL DAYBREAK (Reliance) – 29 December 1913 (1 r.); story: M.B. Havey; cast: Louise Vale; source: RL THE BABY (Majestic) – 30 December 1913 (1 r.); story: Philp Lonergan; cast: Francelia Billington, Belle Bennett, Florence Vincent, Josie Ashdown, Carrie Clark Ward; source: RL HIS AWFUL VENGEANCE (Reliance) – 31 December 1913 (split reel); dir.: Edward Dillon; story: Anita Loos; source: RL SEEING STARS AND STRIPES (Reliance) – 31 December 1913 (split reel); dir.: Edward Dillon; story: Charles L. Douglas; source: RL

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1914 Motion Picture News, vol. VIII, no. 26, January 3, 1914, p. 46: “Reliance Incorporated at $1,000,000”. Harry E. Aitken, president of Mutual, is the organizer, the associates are New York and Chicago bankers. Aitken will take over the new studios of the Carlton Motion Picture Lab, on the estate of late Clara Morris in Yonkers. Recently purchased Kinemacolor studio in Los Angeles and a four story loft at 29 Union Square, 16th and Broadway. “All of these will be under the immediate direction of D.W. Griffith. Among the big things to be done at once are a production of The Clansman by Thomas Dixon; The Escape, an eugenic drama by Paul Armstrong, and other features by Thomas Nelson Page, Ambassador to Italy; John Kendrick Bangs, George Pattullo, E. Phillips Oppenheim, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Robert H. Davis, Homer Croy and Paul West. To get the atmosphere of the stories the pictures will be taken in the original locale, new studios being opened next month in London and the South of France, and, so as to have them historically, and scientifically correct, the leading experts, including the foremost professors of the prominent colleges of the world, will be engaged as critics.”

EDUCATING HIS DAUGHTERS (Majestic) – 1 January 1914 (1 r.); story: William Nigh; cast: Howard Davies, Billie West, Rena Kuhn, Cita Cameron, Eugene Pallette, Ernest Joy, William Nigh; source: RL THE BAD MAN FROM THE EAST (Komic) – 1 January 1914 (split reel); source: RL LEVI’S LUCK (Komic) – 1 January 1914 (split reel); source: RL SOME ROGUES AND THE GIRL (Reliance) – 3 January 1914 (1 r.); story: George Hennessy; source: RL MOLLIE AND THE OIL KING (Majestic) – 4 January 1914 (1 r.); cast: Francelia Billington, Lamar Johnstone, Mollie McConnell, Richard Cummings; sources: RL, MPW THE LOAFER (Reliance) – 5 January 1914 (1 r.); story: Mark S. Reardon; cast: George Siegmann, Irene Hunt, Jessie Villares, Sue Balfour, Garfield Thompson, Emily Fulton; source: RL THE TEN OF SPADES (Majestic) – 6 January 1914 (1 r.); cast: William Garwood, Vera Sisson, Victory Bateman, J.H. Horsey, William Lowery, Metta White, Joseph Swickard, Charles Rogers; source: RL THE SACRIFICE (Reliance) – 7 January 1914 (1 r.); source: RL CHASING GLOOM (Komic) – 8 January 1914 (split reel); source: RL THE SERVANT QUESTION (Komic) – 8 January 1914 (split reel); source: RL THE SORORITY INITIATION (Majestic) – 10 January 1914 (1 r.); alternate title: College Initiation; cast: Billie West, Rena Kuhn, Joseph Swickard, G. Henkle, Ernest Joy, Florence Crawford, Howard Davis, Metta White; source: RL THE PSYCHOLOGICAL MOMENT (Reliance) – 10 January 1914 (1 r.); dir.: John O’Brien; cast: Billie West; source: RL 148

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A TICKET TO RED HORSE GULCH (Majestic) – 11 January 1914 (1 r.); story: Philip Lonergan; cast: William Garwood, Belle Bennett, Mollie McConnell, Frederick Vroom, William Lowery, Charles Rogers, Billy Stafford, W.A. Pyke; sources: RL, MPW SLIM HOGAN’S GETAWAY (Reliance) – 12 January 1914 (1 r.); story: George Hennessy; cast: Thomas R. Mills, Harry Spingler, Anna Loughlin, Paul Scardon, George De Carlton, Jane Grey; source: RL JAKE’S HOODOO (Majestic) – 13 January 1914 (1 r.); cast: Lucille Younge, Lee Hill, Howard Davies, Joseph Swickard, Demetrio Mitzoras, Richard Cummings, Carrie Clark Ward; source: RL THE TWO SLAVES (Reliance) – 14 January 1914 (1 r.); story: George Hennessy; cast: Runa Hodges, Spottiswoode Aitken; source: RL WALT’S PHOTO (Komic) – 15 January 1914 (split reel); source: RL THE VAPOR BATH (Komic) – 15 January 1914 (split reel); source: RL THE FAITH OF HER FATHERS (Reliance) – 17 January 1914 (length unknown); alternate title: The Faith of Her Father; dir.: Edgar Lewis; cast: George Siegmann, Irene Hunt, Harry Spingler; sources: RL, MPW THE LACKEY (Majestic) – 17 January 1914 (1 r.); story: Philip Lonergan; cast: Lamar Johnstone, Francelia Billington, Andrew Robson, William Nigh; source: RL WHAT THE CRYSTAL TOLD (Majestic) – 18 January 1914 (1 r.); story: F.W. Randolph; cast: Belle Bennett, Howard Davies, Frederick Vroom, Victory Bateman; sources: RL, MPW OUR MUTUAL GIRL (Reliance) – Issue no. 1 released 19 January 1914 (1 r.); dir.: John W. Noble; cast: Norma Phillips, Antonio Moreno. Note: a weekly series, issued through January 1915 for a total of 52 issues. Produced in, and about, New York. Only the first of the fifteen episodes is listed here; source: RL THE RING (Majestic) – 20 January 1914 (1 r.); story: Philip Lonergan; cast: Jessalyn Van Trump, George Larkin, Frederick Vroom, Victory Bateman, Rena Kuhn, Metta White; source: RL THE MAN (Reliance) – 21 January 1914 (1 r.); source: RL WHAT THE BURGLAR GOT (Komic) – 22 January 1914 (split reel); source: RL THE WILD MAN FROM BORNEO (Komic) – 22 January 1914 (split reel); source: RL THE POWER OF THE MIND (Majestic) – 24 January 1914 (1 r.); cast: Jessalyn Van Trump, Ernest Joy, William Nigh, The Thanhouser Kidlet, Howard Davies; sources: RL, MPW THE HIDDEN CLUE (Reliance) – 24 January 1914 (1 r.); story: George Hennessy; cast: Thomas R. Mills, Paul Scardon, Harry Spingler, Anna Laughlin; source: RL 149

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THE THIEF AND THE BOOK (Majestic) – 25 January 1914 (2 r.); cast: Billie West, Eugene Pallette, Ernest Joy, Victory Bateman, Florence Crawford, Joseph Swickard, Demetrio Mitzoras, Carrie Clark Ward; sources: RL, MPW TRICKED BY A PHOTO (Reliance) – 28 January 1914 (1 r.); alternate title: Tricked by a Photograph; dir.: Edgar Lewis; story: Russell E. Smith; cast: George Siegmann, Irene Hunt, George De Carlton; source: RL THE PHYSICAL CULTURE BUG (Komic) – 29 January 1914 (split reel); source: RL THE SCHEME THAT FAILED (Komic) – 29 January 1914 (split reel); source: RL Reel Life, January 31, 1914, p. 2: “Reliance Moves West”. “Two more companies of Reliance players are now on the way to Hollywood, Los Angeles, where they will be joined at an early date by Chief Director D.W. Griffith and a third company. Director James Kirkwood and Edward Morrisey are in charge of the two groups of artists, among whom are: Mae Marsh, Lillian Gish, Dorothy Gish, Robert Harron, Donald Crisp, Henry Walthall, Ralph Lewis, Spottiswoode Aitken, George Siegmann, Earl Foxe, F.A. Turner, Irene Hunt, W.H. Long, James Smith, Mary Alden, Courtenay Foote, Owen Moor[e], Fay T[incher]. Also westbound with the players are: G.W. Bitzer, Walter Stanhope, Sam Du Vall, L. Picard, Emmit Williams, and the noted scribes Frank E. Woods, Russell E. Smith and George Hennesey.”

A RIOT IN RUBEVILLE (Majestic) – 31 January 1914 (1 r.); cast: Sidney De Grey, Billie West, Harry Carter, Edward Moncrief, Carrie Clark Ward, Howard Davies, Florence Vincent; sources: RL, MPW TOO PROUD TO BEG (Reliance) – 31 January 1914 (1 r.); source: RL THE VENGEANCE OF NAJERRA (Majestic) – 1 February 1914 (1 r.); cast: Lamar Johnstone, Francelia Billington, William Nigh; sources: RL, MPW THE PORTRAIT OF ANITA (Majestic) – 3 February 1914 (2 r.); cast: Lucille Younge, Eugene Pallette, Lamar Johnstone, Francelia Billington, Andrew Robson, Elizabeth Stone, Al Von Harder, Sid Diamond; sources: RL, MPW THE JANITOR (Reliance) – 4 February 1914 (1 r.); alternate title: The Janitor’s Family; cast: Anna Laughlin; source: RL MY WIFE’S AWAY (Komic) – 5 February 1914 (split reel); source: RL THE SLEEPY HEAD (Komic) – 5 February 1914 (split reel); source: RL FOR HIS MASTER (Reliance) – 7 February 1914 (2 r.); dir.: W. Christy Cabanne; cast: Fred Burns, Miriam Cooper, Raoul Walsh, Frank Bennett, Robert Burns; source: RL A TURN OF THE CARDS (Majestic) – 8 February 1914 (1 r.); sc.: Phillip Lonergan; cast: William Garwood, Jessalyn Van Trump, Edna Mae Wilson, William Nigh, Howard Davies, Lee Hill, Dave Gilfeather, Florence Vincent, Fred Hamer, William Lowery, J.W. Cornwall; sources: RL, MPW 150

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JUST A SONG AT TWILIGHT (Majestic) – 10 February 1914 (1 r.); story: based on the song “Just a Song at Twilight”; cast: Richard Cummings, Ernest Joy, Elsie Greeson, Parker Oliver, Edna Mae Wilson, Clara Beyers, Metta White; sources: RL, MPW PAT FLANNAGAN’S FAMILY (Reliance) – 11 February 1914 (1 r.); alternate title: Pat Fannagan’s Family; dir.: Edward Dillon; source: RL THAT SPRING LOCK (Komic) – 12 February 1914 (split reel); source: RL THE PLUMBER AND PERCY (Komic) – 12 February 1914 (split reel); source: RL THE GANGSTERS (Reliance; distributed by Continental Feature Film Corp.) – 14 February 1914 (4 r.). See DWG Project, #504; sources: RL, MPW THE IDLER (Reliance) – 14 February 1914 (1 r.); sc.: Russell E. Smith; story: C. Haddon Chambers; cast: Thomas R. Mills, Irene Hunt; source: RL FATE’S DECREE (Majestic) – 14 February 1914 (1 r.); sc.: Phillip Lonergan; cast: Billie West, William Garwood, Richard Cummings, Justine McDonald, Fred Hamer; sources: RL, MPW THE ORANGE BANDIT (Majestic) – 15 February 1914 (1 r.); sc.: Phillip Lonergan; cast: Richard Cummings, Billie West, Harry Fisher, Jack McDonald, Eddie Stafford, Charley Grey, Edward Moncrief, Harry Elmstead, Della Martell; sources: RL, MPW A WORKING GIRL’S ROMANCE (Reliance) – 18 February 1914 (1 r.); dir.: Edward Morrisey; cast: Consuelo Bailey, Hattie Forsythe, Charles Lambert, Robert Payton Gibbs, Mrs. Balfour, Jack Hickock; source: RL THE CLERK (Majestic) – 18 February 1914 (1 r.); sc.: Phillip Lonergan; cast: William Nigh, Jessalyn Van Trump, Ernest Joy, Della Martell, Carrie Clark Ward; sources: RL, MPW A BIRTHDAY PRESENT (Komic) – 19 February 1914 (split reel); source: RL GETTING A SUIT PRESSED (Komic) – 19 February 1914 (split reel); source: RL THE HIGHER LAW (Majestic) – 21 February 1914 (1 r.); story: John Burky, Russell E. Smith; cast: Jessalyn Van Trump, William Nigh, Dave Gilfeather, Joseph Swickard; sources: RL, MPW AN INTERRUPTED SEANCE (Reliance) – 21 February 1914 (1 r.); dir.: Edward Dillon; cast: Tod Browning, Jimmy Young, Max Davidson; source: RL THE REFORM CANDIDATE (Majestic) – 22 February 1914 (3 r.); cast: Lamar Johnstone, Francelia Billington, Clara Byers, Eugene Pallette, Ernest Joy, Lee Hill; sources: RL, MPW THE MUSICIAN’S WIFE (Reliance) – 25 February 1914 (1 r.); cast: Irene Hunt, Thomas Mills, Carey Lee; source: RL

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THE RIVAL BARBERS (Majestic) – 28 February 1914 (1 r.); sc.: Phillip Lonergan; cast: Wm. Nigh, Sidney De Grey, Carrie Clark Ward; sources: RL, MPW THE GREEN-EYED DEVIL (Reliance) – 28 February 1914 (2 r.); dir.: James Kirkwood; sc.: George Patullo; story: Daniel Carson Goodman; alternate title: The Green-Eyed Monster; cast: Lillian Gish, George Siegmann, Spottiswoode Aitken, William Garwood, Henry B. Walthall, Earle Foxe, Ralph Lewis; source: RL THE GREAT LEAP (Majestic; distributed by Continental Feature Corp.) – early March 1914. See DWG Project, #502. Additional information: sc.: Anthony P. Kelly; cast: Irene Hunt; sources: RL, MPW THE GLORY OF WHITNEY DURKEL (Majestic) – 3 March 1914 (1 r.); source: RL A LESSON IN BRIDGE (Reliance) – 4 March 1914 (1 r.); cast: Jeanne Eagles, George Siegmann, Paul Scardon, Harry Spingler; source: RL THE IMPOSTOR (Komic) – 5 March 1914 (1 r.); cast: Paul Scardon, Runa Hodges, Mabel Wright, George De Carlton, Edward Cecil; source: RL THE RECTOR’S STORY (Majestic) – 7 March 1914 (1 r.); sc.: Bettie T. Fitzgerald; cast: Lee Hill, Joseph Swickard, Lamar Johnstone, Clara Byers, Francelia Billington; sources: RL, MPW WHEN FATE FROWNED (Reliance) – 7 March 1914 (1 r.); cast: Miriam Cooper, Raoul Walsh, Joseph Karl; source: RL IMAR THE SERVITOR (Majestic) – by 7 March 1914 (4 r.; reissued in a two-reel version, 7 February 1915); prod. no. 291; started: 1 January 1915; completed: 3 January 1915; cost: $59.63 [?]; dir.: John B. O’Brien; story: Daniel Carson Goodman; cast: William Garwood. Note: The production cost of the film, taken from the production records at the Wisconsin Historical Society, is probably inaccurate; sources: RL, MPW THE STRONGER HAND (Majestic) – 8 March 1914 (2 r.); cast: Ernest Joy, Eugene Pallette, Billie West, Howard Davies, Victory Bateman, Fred Hamer, Clifford Gray, Demetrio Mitzoras; sources: RL, MPW HIS FIRST LOVE (Majestic) – 10 March 1914 (1 r.); sc.: Olga Printzlau; cast: E.G. Roach, Lamar Johnstone, Francelia Billington, Virginia Clark, Daniel Gilfeather; source: RL CAUGHT IN THE WEB (Reliance) – 11 March 1914 (1 r.); cast: Paul Scardon, Harry Spingler, Sue Balfour, George De Carlton, Edward Cecil; source: RL THE YEGG AND THE EGGS (Komic) – 12 March 1914 (1 r.); sc.: Homer Croy; source: RL Ad for Reliance Motion Picture Co. in Reel Life, March 14, 1914, p. 30: “D.W. Griffith. Rated as the world’s greatest producer of motion pictures is responsible for the two-part Reliance dramas by noted authors every Saturday.” 152

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THE MOONSHINER’S DAUGHTER (Komic, Majestic) – 14 March 1914 (1 r.); cast: Richard Cummings, Billie West, Walter Belasco, H. McCabe, Fred Hamer, Elsie Greeson; source: RL RED, THE MEDIATOR (Reliance) – 14 March 1914 (1 r.); cast: Irene Hunt, David McCauley, Thomas R. Mills; source: RL HIS LITTLE PAL (Majestic) – 15 March 1914 (1 r.); cast: Elsie Greeson, Fred Hamer, Richard Cummings, Elsie Kerns, M.M. McGuire; source: RL THE WOMAN WITHOUT A SOUL (Majestic) – 17 March 1914 (1 r.); cast: Betty Berthalon, Mary Boser, D. Gilfeather, William Garwood, Clara Byers; source: RL HE WHO LAUGHS LAST (Komic) – 18 March 1914 (split reel); cast: Walter H. Stull, Joe Schroeder, Jack Burns, Miss Brown, Elsie Balfour, Mr. Peters, Mr. Harris, George Roehm, Miss Ducey; source: RL SNOWBALL PETE (Komic) – 18 March 1914 (split reel); story: Robert Burns, Walter H. Stull, George Roehm; cast: Robert Burns, Walter H. Stull, Joe Schroeder, Mr. Peters, Miss Ducey; source: RL MESSENGER NO. 845 (Reliance) – 20 March 1914 (1 r.); cast: Elsie Balfour, Eddie Genung, Mr. Bailey; source: RL THE COMING OF THE REAL PRINCE (Reliance) – 21 March 1914 (2 r.); supv.: D.W. Griffith?; dir.: Edgar Lewis; story: Henry Albert Phillips; cast: Olga Treskoff, Thomas R. Mills, Sue Balfour, Harry Spingler; source: RL THEY WHO DIG PITS (Majestic) – 21 March 1914 (1 r.); alternate title: Whoseever Diggeth a Pit; dir.: Walter Stanhope; cast: Francelia Billington, Courtenay Foote, Frederick Vroom, Howard Davies, Lamar Johnstone, Joe Swickard, W.A. Lowery; source: RL ATONEMENT (Majestic) – 22 March 1914 (2 r.); cast: William Nigh, Jack Leonard, Lucille Younge, Ernest Joy, Metta White, Clifford Gray, Eugene Pallette; source: RL AFTER HER DOUGH (Komic) – 25 March 1914 (1 r.); cast: Fay Tincher, Tod Browning, Baldy Belmont, Max Davidson; source: RL Reel Life, March 28, 1914: “Since the coming of the Reliance Company to Los Angeles, the studios of the Majestic have been reorganized, with a view to closer organization between the two companies. It is expected that Fred Mace will direct the comedies for the Majestic and Ed Dillon for the Reliance. W. Christy Cabanne is rehearsing pictures under the Majestic brand, and will be transferred to the Majestic studios. With him, O’Brien, [John] Adolphi [Adolfi] and Mace will direct pictures, and Kirkwood, Morriss[e]y, Dillon and Foote will produce for the Reliance under the generalship of D.W. Griffith.” Supplement, p. vii: photo page of “D.W. Griffith’s Mounted Squad of Reliance Players” has pictures of western performers: Courtenay Foote, Irene Hunt, Dorothy Gish, Bobby Burns, Arthur Mackley, Dark Cloud.

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THE SMUGGLERS OF SLIGO (Reliance) – 28 March 1914 (2 r.); dir.: W. Christy Cabanne; cast: Miriam Cooper, Owen Moore, Ralph Lewis, Robert Harron; source: RL THE SURGEON’S EXPERIMENT (Majestic) – 29 March 1914 (1 r.); sc.: George Hennessy; cast: Paul Scardon, Mr. Thompson; source: RL IN THE SPIDER’S WEB (Majestic) – 31 March 1914 (1 r.); sc.: Philip Lonergan; cast: Ernest Joy, Lucille Young, William Nigh, Jack Leonard, Lee Hill; source: RL VICTIMS OF SPEED (Komic) – 1 April 1914 (split reel); cast: Tod Browning, Tammany Young, Baldy Belmont. Note: on split reel with the film Vanderbilt Cup Race; source: RL THE WARNING CRY (Majestic) – 3 April 1914 (1 r.); cast: Francelia Billington, Margaret Howard, Lamar Johnstone, Jack Pickford, Joe Swickard; source: RL THE FLOOR ABOVE (Reliance) – 4? April 1914 (4 r.). See DWG Project, #506; sources: RL, MPW THE RETURN OF CAL CLAUSON (Reliance) – 4 April 1914 (2 r.); dir.: Arthur Mackley; story: Birdsall Briscoe; cast: Irene Hunt, Courtenay Foote, Arthur Mackley; source: RL THE MYSTERIOUS SHOT (Reliance) – 4 April 1914 (2 r.); dir.: Donald Crisp and/or James Kirkwood; sc.: based on the story “The Higher Law”, by George Patullo; cast: Henry B. Walthall, Donald Crisp, Jack Pickford, Dorothy Gish; source: RL TEXAS BILL’S LAST RIDE (Majestic) – 5 April 1914 (2 r.); dir.: John Adolfi; cast: Fred Hamer, Eugene Pallette, Sam De Grasse, Billie West, J.L. Franks, J. McGuire; source: RL AN INTERCEPTED GETAWAY (Majestic) – 7 April 1914 (1 r.); cast: Billie West; source: RL THE GODFATHER (Reliance) – 11 April 1914 (2 r.); dir., sc.: James Kirkwood; cast: Mary Alden, Owen Moore, George Siegmann; source: RL THE HUNCHBACK (Majestic) – 12 April 1914 (2 r.); dir.: W. Christy Cabanne; sc.: Anita Loos; cast: Frank Turner, Lillian Gish, William Garwood, Tom Haverly, Edna Mae Wilson; source: RL HIS PUNISHMENT (Majestic) – 14 April 1914 (1 r.); source: RL THE RIGHT DOPE (Komic) – 15 April 1914 (1 r.); dir.: Edward Dillon; cast: Fay Tincher; source: RL OLD MAN (Reliance) – 17 April 1914 (1 r.); cast: Henry B. Walthall, Dorothy Gish, Earle Foxe, Ralph Lewis; source: RL APPLE PIE MARY (Reliance) – 18 April 1914 (2 r.); cast: Mae Marsh, Robert Harron; source: RL

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THE FATAL DRESS SUIT (Komic) – 18 April 1914 (1 r.); dir.: Ed. Dillon; sc.: Anita Loos; cast: Fay Tincher, Edward Dillon, James Young; sources: RL, MPW THE STILETTO (Reliance) – 18 April 1914 (2 r.); story: Frank Woods; cast: Courtenay Foote, Donald Crisp, Dark Cloud, Ralph Lewis, Mary Alden; source: RL THE TIE THAT BINDS (Majestic) – 19 April 1914 (2 r.); dir.: Frederick Broom; cast: Lamar Johnstone, Virginia Clark, Francelia Billington, F. Bennett, D. Mitsoras; source: RL AN UNREDEEMED PLEDGE (Majestic) – 21 April 1914 (length unknown); cast: Joe Swickard, Lamar Johnstone, D. Gilfeather, Francelia Billingon, Metta White, Dick Cummings; source: RL NEARLY A BURGLAR’S BRIDE (Komic) – 22 April 1914 (1 r.); dir.: Edward Dillon; sc.: Anita Loos; cast: Fay Tincher, Tod Browning; source: RL A DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH (Majestic) – 26 April 1914 (2 r.); dir.: John G. Adolfi; cast: Edna Mae Wilson, Miriam Cooper, Eugene Pallette, Sam De Grasse, Jack Leonard, H. McCabe, J. Dillon, F. Hamer; source: RL CIGAR BUTTS (Majestic) – 28 April 1914 (1 r.); dir.: Albert W. Hale; cast: Frank Bennett, J. McGuire, D. Gilfeather, Mary Alden, Dick Cummings, Margaret Howard, Jack Leonard; source: RL IZZY AND THE BANDIT (Komic) – 29 April 1914 (1 r.); source: RL THE MOUNTAIN RAT (Reliance; distributed by Continental Feature Film Corp.) – May? 1914 (4 r.). See DWG Project, #508; source: RL THE QUICKSANDS (Majestic) – 1 May 1914 (1 r.); dir., sc.: W. Christy Cabanne; story, Russell E. Smith; cast: Courtenay Foote, Lillian Gish, Fay Tincher, Douglas Gerrard, Robert Burns, Mary Alden; source: RL ASHES OF THE PAST (Reliance) – 2 May 1914 (2 r.); dir.: James Kirkwood; sc.: Frank Woods; story: Mary Rider Mechtold; cast: James Kirkwood, Blanche Sweet, Henry B. Walthall, Donald Crisp; source: RL THE DISHONORED MEDAL (Reliance-Majestic; distributed by Continental Feature Film Corp.) – 3 May 1914 (4 r.). See DWG Project, #507; sources: RL, MPW THE RETURN OF JOHN GRAY (Reliance) – [4] May 1914 (length unknown); sc.: Emmett Campbell Hall; cast: Henry B. Walthall, Jane Fearnley, Baby Rosanna, Gertrude Robinson, Mr. Johnson; source: L&L THE DIFFERENT MAN (Majestic) – 5 May 1914 (length unknown); dir.: John B. O’Brien; cast: Francelia Billington, Donald Crisp, Ralph Lewis; source: L&L THE BROKEN BOTTLE (Reliance) – 6 May 1914 (1 r.); cast: Spottiswoode Aitken, Mae Marsh, H.W. Long, Jack Dillon; source: RL 155

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DEPUTY SHERIFF’S STAR (Reliance) – 9 May 1914 (2 r.); dir.: Arthur Mackley; story: Walter Archer Frost; cast: Arthur Mackley, Robert Harron; source: RL THE WHEELS OF DESTINY (Majestic) – 10 May 1914 (2 r.); supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: John G. Adolfi; story: Philip Lonergan; cast: Spottiswoode Aitken, Billie West; source: RL A RACE FOR A BRIDE (Komic) – 10 May 10, 1914 (split reel); cast: Tod Browning, Tammany Young, Fay Tincher; source: RL THE SCENE OF HIS CRIME (Komic) – 10 May 1914 (split reel); cast: Fay Tincher, Tod Browning, Tammany Young; source: RL THE LIFE OF GENERAL VILLA (Mutual) – [10] May 1914 (7 r.); dir.: W. Christy Cabanne; story: Raoul Walsh?; cast: Raoul Walsh, Mae Marsh, Robert Harron, Irene Hunt, Teddy Sampson, Eagle Eye, Walter Long, W.E. Lawrence, Francisco (Pancho) Villa; sources: RL, AFI, L&L THE MINIATURE PORTRAIT (Majestic) – 12 May 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 156; started: 4 April 1914; completed: 11 April 1914; cost: $1,042.73; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: John B. O’Brien; story: Frank Woods; cast: Irene Hunt, Donald Crisp, Frank Bennett; sources: RL, PL DAD’S OUTLAWS (Reliance) – 13 May 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 37; started: 4 April 1914; completed: 18 April 1914; cost: $965.24; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: Arthur Mackley; story: Mary Rider Mechtold; cast: Mary Alden, Arthur Mackley; source: RL THE GIRL IN THE SHACK (Reliance) – 15 May 1914 (1 r.); supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: Ed Morrissey; story: Anita Loos; cast: Mae Marsh, Earle Foxe, Spottiswoode Aitken; source: RL GOLDEN DROSS (Reliance) – 16 May 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 21; working title: The Golden Door; started: 4 April 1914; completed: 15 April 1914; cost: $2,263.64; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: [Ed] Morrissey; cast: Irene Hunt, Courtenay Foote; sources: PL, L&L THE LOVER’S GIFT (Majestic) – 17 May 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 159; alternate title: The Gift of Love; started: 11 April 1914; completed: 29 April 1914; cost: $1,814.88; dir., sc.: W. Christy Cabanne; cast: Earle Foxe, Francelia Billington, George Siegmann, Mary Alden; sources: RL, PL THE MAN IN THE COUCH (Komic) – 17 May 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 36; working titles: The Man in the Coach; All for Mabel; started: 4 April 1914; completed: 17 April 1914; cost: $1,839.46; dir.: [Edward] Dillon; cast: Fay Tincher, Jack Dillon, Tod Browning; sources: RL, PL THE SWINDLERS (Majestic) – 19 May 1914 (1 r.); supv.: D.W. Griffith?; cast: Earle Foxe, Mae Marsh; source: RL IZZY THE OPERATOR (Reliance) – 20 May 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 41; started: 4 April 1914; completed: 18 April 1914; cost: $767.95; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: Arthur Mackley; cast: Max Davidson, Arthur Mackley; source: RL 156

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FOR THE SAKE OF KATE (Reliance) – 23 May 1914 (2 r.); supv.: D.W. Griffith; story: W.A. Frost; cast: Frank Bennett, Miriam Cooper, Robert Burns, Mary Alden, Arthur Mackley; source: RL THE DOUBLE KNOT (Majestic) – 24 May 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 162; started: 11 April 1914; completed: 7 May 1914; cost: $1,860.69; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: J.B. O’Brien; sc.: Raoul Walsh; cast: Mary Alden, Raoul Walsh, Jack O’Brien; sources: RL, PL NELL’S EUGENIC WEDDING (Komic, Majestic) – 24 May 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 158; started: 4 April 1914; completed: 1 May 1914; cost: $1,299.94; dir.: Edward Dillon; sc.: Anita Loos; cast: Baldy Belmont; sources: RL, PL THE SONG OF THE SHORE (Majestic) – 26 May 1914 (1 r.); supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: Walter Stanhope; cast: Courtenay Foote, Irene Hunt, Frank Bennett; source: RL THE ANGEL OF THE GULCH (Reliance) – 27 May 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 43; started: 15 April 1914; completed: 25 April 1914; cost: $892.13; dir.: Arthur Mackley; story: J. Porter Tomsen; cast: Billie West, Fay Brierly, Frank Bennett, Arthur Mackley, Vester Pegg, Jack Dillon; sources: RL, PL THE STOLEN RADIUM (Majestic) – 29 May 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 161; working title: The Stolen Radium; started: [?] April 1914; completed: 18 April 1914; cost: $683.23; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: John C. Adolfi; story: Russell E. Smith; cast: Miriam Cooper, Eugene Pallette; sources: RL, PL SILENT SANDY (Reliance) – 30 May 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 35; started: 4 April 1914; completed: 22 April 1914; Cost: $2,536.80; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: James Kirkwood; sc.: H.R. Durant, Russell E. Smith; cast: Dorothy Gish, Fred Kelsey; sources: RL, PL THE SOUL OF HONOR (Majestic) – 31 May 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 40; started: 6 April 1914; completed: 18 April 1914; cost: $2,758.11; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: James Kirkwood; story: Frank Woods; cast: Ralph Lewis, Henry B. Walthall, Blanche Sweet, James Kirkwood, Donald Crisp; sources: RL, PL, MPW AN EXCITING COURTSHIP (Komic) – 31 May 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 160; started: 11 April 1911; completed: 18 April 1914; cost: $896.52; dir.: Edward Dillon; cast: Baldy Belmont, Fay Tincher, Tod Browning; sources: RL, PL THE NEWER WOMAN (Majestic) – 2 June 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 163; started: 11 April 1914; completed: 25 April 1914; cost: $732.91; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: Donald Crisp; sc.: Russell E. Smith; cast: Dorothy Gish, Robert Harron, Donald Crisp; sources: RL, PL A PAIR OF CUFFS (Reliance) – 3 June 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 157; started: 4 April 1914; completed: 11 April 1914; cost: $714.58; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: John Adolfi; story: Russell E. Smith; cast: Billie West, Florence Crawford, Eugene Palette, F.A. Turner; sources: RL, PL THE ROSE BUSH OF MEMORIES (Reliance) – 6 June 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 39; working title: The Rosebush of Memories; started: 4 April 1914; completed: 25 April 1914; cost: $2,078.58; supv.: D.W. Griffith; sc.: Ed Morrissey; story: Russell E. Smith; cast: Miriam Cooper, Courtenay Foote, Earle Fox; sources: RL, PL 157

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THE INTRUDER (Majestic) – 7 June 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 164; started: 18 April 1914; completed: 5 May 1914; cost: $1,640.99; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: W. Christy Cabanne; story: Ethel Reed, from a story published in the magazine The Smart Set; cast: Francelia Billington, George Siegmann, Jack Livingston, W.E. Lawrence, Clifford Gray; sources: RL, PL THE LAST DRINK OF WHISKEY (Komic, Majestic) – 7 June 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 167; started: 18 April 1914; completed: 1 May 1914; cost: $1,195.92; dir.: Edward Dillon; sc.: Anita Loos; cast: Max Davidson, Tod Browning, Fay Tincher, Baldy Belmont, Tammany Young; sources: RL, PL HER BIRTHDAY PRESENT (Majestic) – 9 June 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 165; alternate title: The Birthday Present; started: 17 April 1914; completed: 25 April 1914; cost: $999.39; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: Donald Crisp; cast: Robert Harron, Mae Marsh, Tammany Young, Clifford Gray; sources: RL, PL THE COWBOY’S CHICKEN DINNER (Reliance) – 10 June 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 46; started: 1 May 1914; completed: 16 May 1914; cost: $965.10; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: Arthur Mackley; sc.: Russell E. Smith; cast: Mrs. Mackley, John Eberts, Fred Kelsey, Arthur Mackley, Mr. Freeman; sources: RL, PL DAN MORGAN’S WAY (Reliance) – 12 June 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 44; working title: Dan Morgtan’s Way; started: 23 April 1914; completed: 4 May 1914; cost: $948.01; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: Arthur Mackley; sc.: Mary Rider Mechtold; cast: Fred Kelsey, John Eberts, Fay Brierly, Vester Pegg, W.H. Long, Arthur Mackley, Billy Buster; source: RL, PL Reel Life, June 13, 1914, p. 36: “Komic farces released every Sunday, are produced under Majestic management, directed by a comedy director, long identified with Mr. Griffith’s comedy productions.”

THE HORSE WRANGLER (Reliance) – 13 June 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 166; started: 18 April 1914; completed: 2 May 1914; cost: $1,458.72; dir.: John G. Adolfi; story: George Patullo; cast: Miriam Cooper, Eugene Pallette, Sam De Grasse, Lou Defrose; sources: RL, PL THE REBELLION OF KITTY BELLE (Majestic) – 14 June 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 171; started: 2 May 1914; completed: 21 May 1914; cost: $1,767.58; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir., sc.: W. Christy Cabanne; sc.: George Patullo, from a story published in The Saturday Evening Post; cast: Lillian Gish, Robert Harron, Raoul Walsh, Alfred Paget, Kate Bruce, Joseph Carl; sources: RL, PL HUBBY TO THE RESCUE (Komic) – 14 June 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 170; started: 28 April 1914; completed: 9 May 1914; cost: $1,142.23; dir.: Edward Dillon; sc.: Russell E. Smith; cast: Fay Tincher, Tod Browning, Max Davidson, Teddy Sampson, Baldy Belmont, Miss Ainslee, Charles Rice, Frank Bennett; sources: RL, PL THEIR FIRST ACQUAINTANCE (Majestic) – 16 June 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 176; started: 9 May 1914; completed: 30 May 1914; cost: $464.06; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: Donald Crisp, John B. O’Brien; sc.: George Hennessy; cast: Dorothy Gish, Fred Turner, Robert Harron, Miriam Cooper, Vester Pegg, W.H. Lawrence, W.H. Long; sources: RL, PL

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THE PEACH BRAND (Reliance) – 17 June 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 172; started: 30 April 1914; completed: 19 May 1914; cost: $1,041.72; dir.: John Adolfi; cast: Francelia Billington, Eugene Pallette, Sam De Grasse; sources: RL, PL THE STOLEN CODE (Reliance) – 20 June 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 42; started: 18 April 1914; completed: 30 April 1914; cost: $1,871.83; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: Ed Morrissey; story: Frank E. Woods; cast: Robert Harron, Irene Hunt, F.A. Turner, Howard Gage, Courtenay Foote; sources: RL, PL THE DECEIVER (Komic, Majestic) – 21 June 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 175; started: 7 May 1914; completed: 27 May 1914; cost: $744.81; dir.: Edward Dillon; sc.: Anita Loos; cast: Edward Dillon, Tod Browning, Fay Tincher; sources: RL, PL THE SEVERED THONG (Majestic) – 21 June 21, 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 169; started: 28 April 1914; completed: 16 May 1914; cost: $2,192.23; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: Jack O’Brien; story: Frank E. Woods; cast: Mary Alden, George Siegmann, Dark Cloud, Eagle Eye, Fred Kelsey, E.A. Allen; sources: RL, PL THE BURDEN (Majestic) – 23 June 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 174; started: 12 May 1914; completed: 30 May 1914; cost: $1,019.53; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: John G. Adolfi; story: Philip Lonergan; cast: Irene Hunt, Eugene Pallette, Sam De Grasse; sources: RL, PL IZZY’S NIGHT OUT (Reliance) – 24 June 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 47; working titles: Izzy the Loafer; Izzy’s Night Out; started: 8 May 1914; completed: 16 May 1914; cost: $475.62; dir.: Arthur Mackley?; story: Russell E. Smith; cast: Max Davidson, Mrs. Arthur Mackley; sources: RL, PL THE LAND OF LIBERTY (Majestic) – 26 June 1914 (1 r.); source: RL Reel Life, June 27, 1914, p. 4. Ad for Majestic Motion Picture Co.: “D.W. Griffith supervises the production of all Majestic releases”; p. 33, ad for Reliance: “Like all other Reliance releases these were made under the supervision of D.W. Griffith. That guarantees their quality.”

THE BROKEN BARRIER (Reliance) – 27 June 1914; prod. no. 45; started: 25 April 1914; completed: 16 May 1914; cost: $2,795.08; dir.: Ed Morrissey. Note: see Her Mother’s Necklace (Majestic) – 16 August 1914. Not listed in the Moving Picture World release schedules for Reliance for June 1914. Several films were noted as destroyed in a fire, and this may be one. A number of titles were remade; sources: PL, MPW ARMS AND THE GRINGO (Majestic) – 28 June 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 177; started: 13 May 1914; completed: 30 May 1914; cost: $1,879.71; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: W. Christy Cabanne; sc.: Anna Tupper Wilkes; cast: Dorothy Gish, F.A. Lowery, Wallace Reid, Fred Kelsey, Howard Gaye; sources: RL, PL THE WHITE SLAVE CATCHERS (Komic) – 28 June 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 182; working title: The White Slave Catcher; started: 20 May 1914; completed: 6 June 1914; cost: $664.74; dir.: Edward Dillon; sc.: Anita Loos; cast: Fay Tincher, Edward Dillon, Tod Browning, Baldy Belmont, Frank Bennett, Tammany Young; sources: RL, PL

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SUFFRAGETTE BATTLE IN NUTTYVILLE (Majestic) – 30 June 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 183; working titles: Suffragette Battle of Nuttyville; The Peppermint Soldier; started: 23 May 1914; completed: 1 June 1914; cost: $1,008.47; dir.: W. Christy Cabanne; cast: Dorothy Gish; sources: RL, PL IZZY THE DETECTIVE (Reliance) – 1 July 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 50; started: 19 May 1914; completed: 30 May 1914; cost: $962.50; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: Arthur Mackley?; story: Russell E. Smith; cast: Max Davidson, Billie West, Frank Bennett, Richard Cummings; sources: RL, PL THE WEAKER STRAIN (Reliance) – 4 July 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 51; started: 23 May 1914; completed: 6 June 1914; cost: $1,943.26; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: Donald Crisp; story: Russell E. Smith; cast: Ralph Lewis, Mary Alden, Robert Harron; sources: RL, PL THE ANGEL OF CONTENTION (Majestic) – 5 July 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 180; started: 16 May 1914; completed: 4 June 1914; cost: $2,425.39; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: John B. O’Brien; sc.: George Patullo, based on Will Levington Comfort’s story, “The Sheriff of Contention”; cast: Lillian Gish, Spottiswoode Aitken, George Siegmann, Raoul Walsh; sources: RL, PL BILL’S JOB (Komic; Bill series, no. 1) – 5 July 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 184; working title: Bill No. 1; started: 5 June 1914; completed: 11 June 1914; cost: $856.33; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: Ed Dillon?; sc.: adapted from stories by Paul West; cast: Tammany Young, Tod Browning, Fay Tincher, Andy Rice, Baldy Belmont, Mae Washington; sources: RL, PL THE ONLY CLUE (Majestic) – 7 July 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 186; started: 2 June 1914; completed: 13 June 1914; cost: $1,222.93; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: Jack O’Brien; cast: Eugene Pallette, Irene Hunt, R.A. Walsh; sources: RL, PL HOW IZZY WAS SAVED (Reliance) – 8 July 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 53; started: 26 May 1914; completed: 30 May 1914; cost: $712.75; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: Arthur Mackley; story: Frank E. Woods; cast: Max Davidson, Frank Bennett, Billie West; sources: RL, PL A WIFE FROM THE COUNTRY (Reliance) – 10 July 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 52; started: 22 May 1914; completed: 30 May 1914; cost: $1,084.95; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: Fred Kelsey; story: H.R. Durant; cast: Francelia Billington, Josephine Crowell, Elmer Clifton, Jack Clifford, Richard Cummings, Charles Cortright; sources: RL, PL BLUE PETE’S ESCAPE (Reliance) – 11 July 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 54; started: 30 May 1914; completed: 18 June 1914; cost: $2,350.86; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: John Adolfi; story: George Randolph Chester; cast: Sam De Grasse, Billie West, Fred Hamer, F.A. Rice, Spottiswoode Aitken, Walter Long, Frank Bennett; sources: RL, PL A CITY BEAUTIFUL (Majestic) – 12 July 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 185; started: 29 May 1914; completed: 13 June 1914; cost: $2,439.56; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: W. Christy Cabanne; cast: Dorothy Gish, Wallace Reid, Charles Cortright, Fred Burns, W.A. Lowery; sources: RL, PL WRONG ALL AROUND (Komic) – 12 July 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 188; working title: Wrong All Round; started: 30 May 1914; completed: 30 June 1914; cost: $904.90; dir.: Ed. Dillon; 160

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cast: Tod Browning, Fay Tincher, Baldy Belmont, Tammany Young, Mrs. Arthur Mackley, Mrs. W.H. Brown; sources: RL, PL THE OLD DERELICT (Majestic) – 14 July 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 187; started: 30 May 1914; completed: 1 July 1914; cost: $776.55; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: Fred Kelsey; story: Mary Rider Mechtold; cast: Francelia Billington, F.A. Turner, A.S. Clinton; sources: RL, PL HOW IZZY STUCK TO HIS POST (Reliance) – 15 July 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 55; started: 30 May 1914; completed: 10 June 1914; cost: $1,061.06; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: Arthur Mackley; cast: Max Davidson, Miriam Cooper, Vester Pegg, Richard Cummings; sources: RL, PL Reel Life, July 18, 1914, pp. 28–29: ad for D.W. Griffith’s Home Sweet Home. “Mr. Griffith personally directs films produced by the Majestic and Reliance Companies and released as part of the Mutual Program, as well as the big theme-dramas which are booked through Continental Feature Film Corporation.”

THE VENGEANCE OF GOLD (Reliance) – 18 July 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 56; started: 6 June 1914; completed: 16 June 1914; cost: $1,200.06; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: Fred Kelsey; story: Cary Lee; cast: Mary Alden, Vester Pegg, Ralph Lewis, Robert Burns; sources: RL, PL HOW BILL SQUARED IT FOR HIS BOSS (Komic; Bill series, no. 2) – 19 July 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 190; working title: Bill No. 2; started: 4 June 1914; completed: 13 June 1914; cost: $929.07; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: Ed. Dillon; sc.: based on stories by Paul West; cast: Tammany Young, Tod Browning, Fay Tincher, Mrs. Arthur Mackley, Baldy Belmont, Mrs. W.H. Brown, Miss Carson, Miss Crawford; sources: RL, PL THE PAINTED LADY (Majestic) – 19 July 1914 (2 r.); See DWG Project, #511. Additional information: started: 10 June 1914; completed: 28 June 1914; cost: $2,438.63; sources: RL, PL, L&L A RED MAN’S HEART (Majestic) – 21 July 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 189; started: 5 June 1914; completed: 20 June 1914; cost: $824.09; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: Donald Crisp; sc.: based on a short story by Walter Archer Frost; cast: Francelia Billington, George Siegmann, Dark Cloud, Eagle Eye, Mary Alden; sources: RL, PL IZZY AND THE DIAMOND (Reliance) – 22 July 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 57; started: 6 June 1914; completed: [?] June 1914; cost: $673.41; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: Arthur Mackley; cast: Max Davidson, Frank Bennett, Miriam Cooper, Edna Mae Wilson; sources: RL, PL LEST WE FORGET (Majestic) – 24 July 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 194; started: 13 June 1914; completed: 26 June 1914; cost: $782.90; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: John B. O’Brien; cast: Raoul Walsh, Ralph Lewis, Miriam Cooper, Josephine Crowell, Elmer Clifton; sources: RL, PL THE SAVING OF YOUNG ANDERSON (Reliance) – 25 July 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 60; started: 17 June 1914; completed: 27 June 1914; cost: $1,450.56; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: Fred Kelsey; sc.: based on a story by O. Henry; cast: Francelia Billington, W.A. Ingerberry, F.A. Kelsey; sources: RL, PL 161

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THE MYSTERY OF THE HINDU IMAGE (Majestic) – 26 July 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 192; started: 10 June 1914; completed: 27 June 1914; cost: $2,509.45; supv.: D.W. Griffith; producer: Jack O’Brien; story: Frank Woods; cast: Raoul Walsh, Dark Cloud, Richard Cummings, N. Gage, Eagle Eye; sources: RL, PL LEAVE IT TO SMILEY (Komic) – 26 July 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 195; started: 13 June 1914; completed: 26 June 1914; cost: $1,067.90; dir.: Ed. Dillon; story: Marc Edmond Jones; cast: Mae Gaston, Tammany Young, Baldy Belmont, Fay Tincher, Tod Browning; sources: RL, PL THE SUFFRAGETTE POSTMISTRESS (Majestic) – 28 July 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 193; working title: Election in Nuttyville; started: 11 June 1914; completed: 20 June 1914; cost: $867.58; dir.: W. Christie Cabanne; cast: Mae Marsh. Note: This film was announced but apparently not released. Perhaps it was destroyed in a fire that caused several other films to be remade; sources: RL, PL THE WILD GIRL (Komic) – 28 July 1914 (RL) or 28 June 1914 (PL) (1 r.); prod. no. 178; started: 12 May 1914; completed: 23 May 1914; cost: $695.29; dir.: Ed. Dillon; sc.: Anita Loos; cast: Tod Browning, Ed Dillon; sources: RL, PL DOWN BY THE SOUNDING SEA (Majestic) – 28 July 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 197; starting 19 June 1914; completed: 28 June 1914; cost: $1,195.39; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: W. Christy Cabanne; cast: Robert Harron, Wallace Reid, Mae Gaston, Fred Burns; sources: RL, PL THE SHERIFF’S PRISONER (Reliance) – 29 July 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 59; started: 13 June 1914; completed: 22 June 1914; cost: $868.77; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: Arthur Mackley and/or Raoul Walsh; story: F. McGrew Willis; cast: Raoul Walsh, Eugene Pallette, F.A. Turner, Arthur Mackley, Vester Pegg, Florence Crawford, Richard Cummings. Note: The production log lists Mackley as director; Lauritzen & Lundquist added Walsh as director in their second edition; sources: RL, PL, L&L THE GUNMAN (Reliance) – 1 August 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 48 and 62; started: 22 May 1914 and 20 June 1914; completed: 30 May 1914 and 30 June 1914; cost: $1,429.02 and $902.52; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: John Adolfi, or W. Christy Cabanne and/or Raoul Walsh; story: George Patullo; cast: Miriam Cooper, Eugene Pallette, Sam De Grasse, Ralph Lewis. Note: This film was remade after the first version was burned. John Adolfi was listed as director of both versions; Lauritzen & Lundquist added Walsh as director in their supplemental volume; sources: RL, PL, L&L BILL TAKES A LADY OUT TO LUNCH – NEVER AGAIN! (Komic; Bill series, no. 3) – 2 August 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 198; working title: Bill No. 3; alternate title: Bill Takes a Lady to Lunch – Never Again; started: 16 June 1914; completed: 30 June 1914; cost: $1,114.52; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: Ed Dillon; sc.: based on stories by Paul West; cast: Tod Browning, Fay Tincher, Tammany Young, Mae Gaston; sources: RL, PL MOONSHINE MOLLY (Majestic) – 2 August 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 196; started: 14 June 1914; completed: 18 July 1914; cost: $2,253.18; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: W. Christy Cabanne; story: H.R. Durant; cast: Mae Marsh, Robert Harron, Wallace Reid, Fred Burns, Eagle Eye, Eleanor Washington; sources: RL, PL 162

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THE IDIOT (Majestic) – 4 August 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 179 and 202; started: 16 May 1914; completed: 23 May 1914; cost: $620.02; retake started: 4 July 1914; completed: 20 July 1914; cost: $889.34; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: Donald Crisp; story: Elmer Harris; cast: Robert Harron, F.A. Turner, Josephine Crowell. Note: originally scheduled for release 30 May 1914. The original film was destroyed in a fire and was remade; sources: RL, PL IZZY AND HIS RIVAL (Reliance) – 5 August 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 49 and 61; working title: Izzy the Sniper; Izzy and His Rival (retake); started: 12 May 1914 and 19 June 1916; completed: 1 June 1914 and 27 June 1914; cost: $728.50 and $583.73; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: Arthur Mackley; sc.: Anita Loos; cast: Max Davidson, W.A. Lawrence, Miriam Cooper. Note: This film was remade after the original was burned. Mackley directed both versions; sources: RL, PL ON THE BORDER (Reliance) – 7 August 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 58; started: 12 June 1914; completed: 20 June 1914; cost: $1,157.11; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: John Adolfi; cast: Irene Hunt, Eugene Pallette, Sam De Grasse, Frank Bennett; sources: RL, PL THE BANK BURGLAR’S FATE (Reliance) – 8 August 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 64; started: 25 June 1914; completed: 11 July 1914; cost: $1,936.70; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: John G. Adolfi; story: C.D. Brown; cast: Fred Hamer, Sam De Grasse, Eugene Pallette, Billie West; sources: RL, PL ETHEL’S TEACHER (Komic) – 9 August 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 200; working title: Ethel’s Aunt; alternate title: Ethel’s Aunt; started: 27 June 1914; completed: 10 July 1914; cost: $1,437.15; dir.: Ed Dillon; story: William J. Woodley; cast: Baldy Belmont, Fay Tincher, Edward Dillon, Tod Browning; sources: RL, PL TAVERN OF TRAGEDY (Majestic) – 9 August 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 168 and 199; working title: The Tavern of Tragedy; started: 25 April 1914; completed: 9 May 1914; retake started: 22 June 1916; completed: 18 July 1914; cost: $1,467.63; retake cost: $933.62; supv.: D.W. Griffith?; dir.: Donald Crisp; sc.: Russell E. Smith; cast: Dorothy Gish, Donald Crisp, Fred Turner, Mae Marsh, Fred Burns, Vester Pegg. Note: originally scheduled for release 28 June 1914; remade, probably because the original was destroyed in studio fire; sources: RL, PL THE SAVING FLAME (Majestic) – 11 August 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 205; started: 7 July 1914; completed: 18 July 1914; cost: $1,101.91; supv.: D.W. Griffith?; dir.: Donald Crisp; cast: Francelia Billington, Robert Harron, W.H. Lawrence; sources: RL, PL SO SHINES A GOOD DEED (Reliance) – 12 August 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 63; started: 27 June 1914; completed: 4 July 1914; cost: $919.01; dir.: Arthur Mackley; story: Delia Sheldohl; sources: RL, PL THE WAGON OF DEATH (Reliance) – 15 August 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 67; started: 10 July 1914; completed: 20 July 1914; cost: $1,775.00; dir.: Fred Kelsey; cast: Bob Burns, Fred Burns, Billie West, Vester Pegg; sources: RL, PL BILL SAVES THE DAY (Komic; Bill series, no. 4) – 16 August 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 204; working title: Bill No. 4; started: 1 July 1914; completed: 17 July 1914; cost: $1,031.56; dir.: Ed. Dillon; sc.: based on stories by Paul West; cast: Tammany Young, Tod Browning, Fay Tincher, Edward Dillon; sources: RL, PL 163

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HER MOTHER’S NECKLACE (Majestic) – 16 August 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 203; working title: The Broken Barrier; retake started: 6 July 1914; completed: 18 July 1914; cost: $1,939.52; dir.: W. Christie Cabanne; cast: Dorothy Gish, Irene Hunt, Howard Gaye, Lillian Gish?. Note: Lauritzen & Lundquist credit Donald Crisp as director; sources: RL, PL, L&L THE INNER CONSCIENCE (Majestic) – 18 August 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 206; started: 9 July 1914; completed: 18 July 1914; cost: $1,019.86; supv.: D.W. Griffith?; dir. John Adolfi; story: George Posner; cast: Olive Golden, Frank Bennett, Sam De Grasse; sources: RL, PL IZZY GETS THE WRONG BOTTLE (Reliance) – 19 August 1914; prod. no. 66; started: 4 July 1914; completed: 11 July 1914; cost: $667.10; dir.: Arthur Mackley; cast: Max Davidson, Mrs. Crawford, Richard Cummings; sources: RL, PL A LESSON IN MECHANICS (Majestic) – 21 August 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 209; started: 17 July 1914; completed: 25 July 1914; cost: $970.28; dir.: W. Christy Cabanne; sc. Anita Loos; cast: Dorothy Gish, Robert Harron, Donald Crisp, Kate Bruce; sources: RL, PL FOR THE LAST EDITION (Reliance) – 22 August 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 69; started: 17 July 1914; completed: 1 August 1914; cost: $2,046.57; dir.: Fred Kelsey; cast: Robert Burns, Irene Hunt, F.A. Turner; sources: RL, PL THE SECOND MRS. ROEBUCK (Majestic) – 23 August 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 201; started: 4 July 1914; completed: 1 August 1914; cost: $3,300.96; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: John B. O’Brien; sc.: George Patullo; based on a short story by W. Carey Wonderly in The Smart Set magazine; cast: Blanche Sweet, Raoul Walsh, Mary Alden, Wallace Reid. Note: Lauritzen & Lundquist credit W. Christie Cabanne as co-director; sources: RL, PL, L&L A PHYSICAL CULTURE ROMANCE (Komic) – 23 August 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 207; started: 11 July 1914; completed: 30 July 1914; cost: $1,185.15; dir.: Ed Dillon; cast: Fay Tincher, Tod Browning, Max Stanley, Ed Dillon, Marguerite Edwards; sources: RL, PL THE STOLEN ORE (Reliance) – 25 August 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 68; started: 11 July 1914; completed: 18 July 1914; cost: $954.06; dir.: Arthur Mackley; cast: Arthur Mackley, Eugene Pallette, Florence Crawford; sources: RL, PL GRANNY (Majestic) – 25 August 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 212; started: 28 July 1914; completed: 5 August 1914; cost: $1,261.05; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: W. Christy Cabanne; cast.: Dorothy Gish, W.E. Lawrence, A.D. Sears, Ida Wilkinson, Thomas O’Brien, Mrs. Marconi; sources: RL, PL THROUGH THE DARK (Reliance) – 29 August 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 71; started: 17 July 1914; completed: 5 August 1914; cost: $1,885.72; dir.: John G. Adolfi, sc.: M.B. Havey, Russell E. Smith; cast: Francelia Billington, Billie West, Sam De Grasse, Eugene Pallette; sources: RL, PL FRENCHY (Majestic) – 30 August 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 208; started: 17 July 1914; completed: 1 August 1914; cost: $2,031.02; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: Donald Crisp; sc.: based on a story by George Patullo; cast: Vester Pegg, Francelia Billington, Fred Burns; sources: RL, PL

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BILL ORGANIZES A UNION (Komic, Majestic; Bill series, no. 5) – 30 August 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 211; working title: Bill No. 5; started: 24 July 1914; completed: 1 August 1914; cost: $1,031.20; dir.: Edward Dillon; sc.: based on stories by Paul West; cast: Tammany Young, Fay Tincher, Tod Browning, Baldy Belmont, Max Davidson, Ed Dillon, Fatty Crame; sources: RL, PL THE MILKFED BOY (Majestic) – 1 September 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 214; started: 31 July 1914; completed: 8 August 1914; cost: $653.39; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: Donald Crisp; story: Frank E. Woods; cast: Paul Willis, Mary Alden; sources: RL, PL THE MINER’S BABY (Reliance) – 2 September 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 70; started: 17 July 1914; completed: 25 July 1914; cost: $722.51; dir.: Arthur Mackley; story: F. McGrew Willis; cast: Arthur Mackley, Richard Cummings, Florence Crawford; sources: RL, PL TURNED BACK (Reliance) – 4 September 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 72; started: 18 July 1914; completed: 5 August 1914; cost: $1,885.72; dir.: John Adolfi; sc.: Russell E. Smith; cast: Francelia Billington, Sam De Grasse, Eugene Pallette, Mae Gaston; sources: RL, PL IN THE NICK OF TIME (Reliance) – 5 September 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 75; started: 1 August 1914; completed: 15 August 1914; cost: $1,988.40; dir.: Fred A. Kelsey; from a story in Railroad Man’s Magazine [by F.W. Holmes]; cast: Vester Pegg, Irene Hunt, Richard Cummings; sources: RL, PL Reel Life, August 22, 1914, p. 3: ad for the Majestic Motion Picture Company: “D.W. Griffith has general supervision over Majestic releases”.

FOR THOSE UNBORN (Majestic) – 6 September 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 216; started: 1 August 1914; completed: 22 August 1914; cost: $2,765.95; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir., sc.: W. Christy Cabanne; cast: Blanche Sweet, Robert Harron, Wallace Reid, Irene Hunt, William E. Lawrence; sources: RL, PL THE MASCOT (Komic, Majestic) – 6 September 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 213; started: 25 July 1914; completed: 7 August 1914; cost: $1,092.14; dir.: Edward Dillon; story: Russell E. Smith; cast: Fay Tincher, Max Davidson, Tod Browning; sources: RL, PL SIERRA JIM’S REFORMATION (Majestic) – 8 September 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 215; started: 31 July 1914; completed: 8 August 1914; cost: $1,235.35; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: John B. O’Brien; cast: Wallace Reid, Raoul Walsh, Gertrude McLynn, Fred Burns, Eagle Eye, Dark Cloud; sources: RL, PL THE SHERIFF’S CHOICE (Reliance) – 9 September 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 73; started: 25 July 1914; completed: 1 August 1914; cost: $929.05; dir.: Arthur Mackley; cast: Arthur Mackley, Mrs. Mackley, John Conway; sources: RL, PL BROKEN NOSE BAILEY (Reliance) – 12 September 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 77; started: 7 August 1914; completed: 21 August 1914; cost: $2,176.64; dir.: John G. Adolfi; cast: Eugene Pallette, Sam De Grasse, Francelia Billington, Billie West, Fred Hamer, daughters of Fred Burns; sources: RL, PL

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THE FINAL VERDICT (Majestic) – 13 September 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 221; working titles: The Final Verdict; Women of the Early West; started: 8 August 1914; completed: 22 August 1914; cost: $2,014.76; supv.: D.W. Griffith?; dir.: John O’Brien; cast: Francelia Billington, Raoul Walsh, Joseph Singleton, Eagle Eye. Note: Another source lists Raoul Walsh as a possible director; sources: RL, PL BILL GOES IN BUSINESS FOR HIMSELF (Komic; Bill series, no. 6) – 13 September 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 218; working title: Bill No. 6; alternate title: In Business for Himself; started: 1 August 1914; completed: 13 August 1914; cost: $1,087.65; dir.: Ed. Dillon; sc.: based on stories by Paul West; cast: Tammany Young, Fay Tincher, “Fatty” Crame, Max Davidson, Tod Browning, Paul Willis; sources: RL, PL EVERY MAN HAS HIS PRICE (Majestic) – 15 September 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 74; alternate title: Every Man Has His Own Price; started: 28 July 1914; completed: 7 August 1914; cost: $706.69; dir.: Arthur Mackley; story: Will M. Ritchey; cast: Arthur Mackley; sources: RL, PL THE HIGH GRADER (Reliance) – 16 September 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 76; working title: The Highgrader; started: 1 August 1914; completed: 8 August 1914; cost: $987.67; dir.: Arthur Mackley; story: William McLeod Raine; cast: Wallace Reid, Florence Crawford, Charles Cortright, Mrs. Arthur Mackley; sources: RL, PL DOWN THE HILL TO CREDITVILLE (Majestic) – 18 September 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 222; started: 8 August 1914; completed: 20 August 1914; cost: $921.40; supv.: D.W. Griffith?; dir.: Donald Crisp; sc.: George W. Terwilliger, adapted from a poem in Munsey’s Magazine; cast: Dorothy Gish, Wallace Reid, Donald Crisp, Kate Price; sources: RL, PL HOW THE KID WENT OVER THE RANGE (Reliance) – 19 September 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 79; started: 14 August 1914; completed: 22 August 1914; cost: $1,514.31; dir.: Fred Kelsey; sc.: Cyrus Townsend Brady; cast: Irene Hunt, Vester Pegg, Frank Bennett, Jack Conway; sources: RL, PL HER AWAKENING (Majestic) – 20 September 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 225; started: 18 August 1914; completed: 29 August 1914; cost: $2,752.03; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: W. Christy Cabanne; sc.: Frank E. Woods and/or Forrest Halsey; cast: Blanche Sweet, Wallace Reid, Ralph Lewis, Irene Hunt; sources: RL, PL FOILED AGAIN (Komic) – 20 September 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 223; started: 8 August 1914; completed: 15 August 1914; cost: $1,020.52; dir.: Ed. Dillon; cast: Fay Tincher, Tod Browning, Edward Dillon; sources: RL, PL MEG OF THE MINES (Majestic) – 22 September 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 224; working title: Meg of the Mine; started: 13 August 1914; completed: 21 August 1914; cost: $870.55; dir.: W. Christie Cabanne; cast: Mae Marsh, Eagle Eye, Ralph Lewis, Dark Cloud; sources: RL, PL THE LAST SHOT (Reliance) – 23 September 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 78; started: 12 August 1914; completed: 21 August 1914; cost: $831.09; dir.: Arthur Mackley; cast: William E. Lawrence, Joe Singleton; sources: RL, PL 166

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Reel Life, September 26, 1914, p. 3, ad for Majestic: “Majestic two part features and one reel regular releases are showing constant gains in popular favor. It has been our aim to make them, if possible, the most dependable one- and two-reel pictures in any program, free from padding, superior in story and treatment and featuring leading players such as Blanche Sweet, Mae Marsh, Lillian Gish and Dorothy Gish, so that exhibitors may feel assured of profitable box office results every time the word ‘Majestic’ appears in their billing. The verdict of the public, as evidenced by the gratifying increase in the demand for Majestic releases, would seem to indicate that we are measurably succeeding.”

THE RUNAWAY FREIGHT (Reliance) – 26 September 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 80; started: 21 August 1914; completed: 29 August 1914; cost: $1,875.09; dir.: John Adolfi; cast: Eugene Pallette, Francelia Billington, Sam De Grasse, Thomas O’Brien; sources: RL, PL THE GREAT GOD FEAR (Majestic) – 27 September 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 227; started: 29 August 1914; completed: 3 September 1914; cost: $1,794.27; dir.: Donald Crisp; story: Daniel Carson Goodman; cast: Mae Marsh, Robert Harron, F.A. Turner, Frank Bennett, W.E. Lawrence; sources: RL, PL BILL MANAGES A PRIZE FIGHTER (Komic; Bill series, no. 7) – 27 September 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 226; working titles: Bill No. 7; Bill Manages a Prizefight; started: 15 August 1914; completed: 29 August 1914; cost: $1,008.36; dir., sc.: Edward Dillon; sc.: based on stories by Paul West; cast: Edward Dillon, Fay Tincher, Tammany Young, Tod Browning, “Hobo” Dougherty; sources: RL, PL HIS MOTHER’S TRUST (Majestic) – 29 September 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 217; started: 1 August 1914; completed: 22 August 1914; cost: $930.44; dir.: Donald Crisp; cast: Robert Harron, E.A. Sears, Cora Drew; sources: RL, PL WHERE THE MOUNTAINS MEET (Reliance) – 30 September 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 81; started: 15 August 1914; completed: 28 August 1914; cost: $807.79; dir.: Arthur Mackley; story: Gardner Hunting; cast: Florence Crawford, W.A. Lowery, W.H. Lon; sources: RL, PL THE SHERIFF’S MASTER (Reliance) – 2 October 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 83; started: 27 August 1914; completed: 5 September 1914; cost: $926.83; dir.: Arthur Mackley; cast: Arthur Mackley, Mrs. Arthur Mackley?; sources: RL, PL THE WIRELESS VOICE (Reliance) – 3 October 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 82; started: 21 August 1914; completed: 29 August 1914; cost: $1,779.41; dir.: Edgar Lewis and/or Fred A. Kelsey; sc.: Anthony P. Kelly; cast: Jack Conway, Frank Bennett, Irene Hunt, J.P. McCarty, Vester Pegg. Note: Production log lists Kelsey as the director; Lauritzen & Lundquist list Lewis; sources: RL, PL, L&L OUT OF THE AIR (Majestic) – 4 October 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 230; started: 29 August 1914; completed: 28 September 1914; cost: $1,789.99; dir.: W. Christie Cabanne; cast: Fred Turner, Seena Owen, Charles Gorman, Capt. Hodgson; sources: RL, PL THE MILLION DOLLAR BRIDE (Komic) – 4 October 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 229; started: 22 August 1914; completed: 29 August 1914; cost: $1,798.99; dir.: Ed Dillon; sc.: Anita Loos; cast: Tod Browning, Ed Dillon, Fay Tincher; sources: RL, PL 167

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THE UNPAINTED PORTRAIT (Majestic) – 6 October 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 228; started: 21 August 1914; completed: 29 August 1914; cost: $1,291.26; dir.: J.B. O’Brien; cast: Raoul Walsh, Mary Alden, Cora Drew, Billie West; sources: RL, PL THE BADGE OF OFFICER (Reliance) – 7 October 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 86; started: 5 September 1914; completed: 11 September 1914; cost: $880.69; dir.: Arthur Mackley; cast: Arthur Mackley, Florence Crawford; sources: RL, PL THE TARDY CANNON BALL (Reliance) – 10 October 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 84; working title: The Tardy Cannonball; started: 29 August 1914; completed: 12 September 1914; cost: $1,630.92; dir.: John Adolfi; story: George Pattullo; cast: Florence Crawford, Eugene Pallette, Sam De Grasse, Francelia Billington, daughters of Fred Burns; sources: RL, PL BILL SPOILS A VACATION (Komic; Bill series, no. 8) – 11 October 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 233; working titles: Bill No. 8; Bill’s Vacation; started: 29 August 1914; completed: 14 September 1914; cost: $1,311.97; dir.: Ed. Dillon; sc.: based on stories by Paul West; cast: Maxfield Stanley, Fay Tincher, Max Davidson, Howard Gage, Tammany Young, Tod Browning, Baldy Belmont; sources: RL, PL SANDS OF FATE (Majestic) – 11 October 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 238; started: 11 September 1914; completed: 25 September 1914; cost: $1,202.30; dir.: Donald Crisp; cast: Donald Crisp, Robert Harron, Raoul Walsh, Cora Drew, Dorothy Gish, Eagle Eye, C. Eberts; sources: RL, PL THE WARNING (Majestic) – 13 October 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 219; started: 7 August 1914; completed: 11 August 1914; cost: $814.62; dir.: Donald Crisp; sc.: Russell E. Smith; cast: Dorothy Gish, Donald Crisp, Eleanor Washington; sources: RL, PL BAD MAN MASON (Reliance) – 14 October 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 87; started: 11 September 1914; completed: 19 September 1914; cost: $925.39; dir.: Arthur Mackley; cast: Florence Crawford, A.E. Lowery, Frank Bennett, Arthur Mackley, C. Eberts; sources: RL, PL BACK TO THE KITCHEN (Majestic) – 16 October 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 231; started: 29 August 1914; completed: 12 September 1914; cost: $1,354.10; dir.: John B. O’Brien; cast: Dorothy Gish, Claude Belmont, W.H. Brown; sources: RL, PL Reel Life, October 17, 1914, p. 25. An ad for Majestic announces: “Coming – The Clansman – America’s Biggest Film”.

THE REVENUE OFFICER’S DEPUTY (Reliance) – 17 October 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 85; started: 4 September 1914; completed: 14 September 1914; cost: $1,622.07; dir.: Fred Kelsey; cast: W.E. Lowery, Irene Hunt, Jack Conway, Frank Bennett, W.H. Long, E. Lawrence; sources: RL, PL FOR HER FATHER’S SINS (Majestic) – 18 October 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 234; working title: Her Father’s Sins; started: 12 September 1914; completed: 30 September 1914; cost: $2,732.07; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: John B. O’Brien; sc.: Anita Loos; cast: Blanche Sweet, Wallace Reid, Billie West, Al W. Filson; sources: RL, PL

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DIZZY JOE’S CAREER (Komic) – 18 October 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 237; started: 9 September 1914; completed: 18 September 1914; cost: $1,074.74; dir.: Ed Dillon; sc.: C. Allan Gilbert, from A.B. Frost’s series of drawings in Century Magazine; cast: Ed Dillon, Tod Browning, Baldy Belmont, Max Stanley, Tammany Young, Max Davidson; sources: RL, PL ENVIRONMENT (Majestic) – 20 October 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 239; started: 7 September 1914; completed: 12 September 1914; cost: $924.86; dir.: W. Christy Cabanne; cast: Signe Auen, F.A. Turner, Charles Gorman, Leslie Warren; sources: RL, PL OUT OF THE DEPUTY’S HANDS (Reliance) – 21 October 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 90; started: 18 September 1914; completed: 26 September 1914; cost: $921.05; dir.: Arthur Mackley; from a story in The Cavalier magazine; cast: Arthur Mackley, Florence Crawford, Raoul Walsh, Joseph Singleton; sources: RL, PL THE BLOTTED PAGE (Reliance) – 24 October 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 88; started: 11 September 1914; completed: 26 September 1914; cost: $1,666.99; dir.: John Adolfi; from a short story of the same title by Elizabeth De Jeans; cast: Francelia Billington, Sam De Grasse, W.E. Lawrence; sources: RL, PL A FLIGHT FOR A FORTUNE (Majestic) – 25 October 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 241; working title: On the Wings of Love; started: 18 September 1914; completed: 4 October 1914; cost: $2,418.35; dir.: W. Christie Cabanne; cast: Signe Auen, Mae Gaston, E.D. Sears, Capt. Ernest Hodgson (aviator); sources: RL, PL BILL JOINS THE W.W.W.’S (Komic; Bill series, no. 9) – 25 October 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 240; working title: Bill No. 9; started: 12 September 1914; completed: 26 September 1914; cost: $1,114.00; dir.: Ed. Dillon; sc.: based on stories by Paul West; cast: Tammany Young, Fay Tincher, Tod Browning, Ed Dillon; sources: RL, PL A MOTHER’S INFLUENCE (Majestic) – 27 October 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 236; working title: His Mother’s Warning; started: 4 September 1914; completed: 19 September 1914; cost: $1,043.29; dir.: John B. O’Brien; cast: Wallace Reid, Billie West, Al Filson, Tom Wilson; sources: RL, PL SHERIFF FOR AN HOUR (Reliance) – 28 October 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 91; started: 25 September 1914; completed: 2 October 1914; cost: $763.21; dir.: Arthur Mackley; cast: Arthur Mackley, Wallace Reid, Josephine Crowell; sources: RL, PL THE AVAILING PRAYER (Reliance) – 30 October 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 242; started: 14 September 1914; completed: 26 September 1914; cost: $1,090.68; dir.: Donald Crisp; sc.: Richard Barker Sheldon; cast: Dorothy Gish, Raoul Walsh, Spottiswoode Aitken, J.P. McCarty, Robert Burns; sources: RL, PL Reel Life, October 31, 1914, p. 4. An ad for Majestic says that Lillian Gish is back from working on The Clansman and will appear in The Tear That Burned.

THE WRONG PRESCRIPTION (Reliance) – 31 October 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 89; started: 12 September 1914; completed: 26 September 1914; cost: $1,984.79; dir.: F.A. Kelsey; cast: Irene Hunt, Mary Alden, Ralph Lewis, Jack Conway, Vester Perry; sources: RL, PL 169

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PAID WITH INTEREST (Majestic) – 1 November 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 232; started: 29 August 1914; completed: 2 October 1914; cost: $2,616.78; dir.: Donald Crisp; sc.: Anthony P. Kelly, Russell E. Smith; cast: Mae Marsh, Robert Harron, Ralph Lewis, Irene Hunt, Raoul Walsh; sources: RL, PL CASEY’S VENDETTA (Komic) – 1 November 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 243; started: 19 September 1914; completed: 2 October 1914; cost: $1,176.86; dir.: Edward Dillon; cast: Edward Dillon, Fay Tincher, Tod Browning, Max Davidson, Miss Ashton; sources: RL, PL FALSE PRIDE (Majestic) – 3 November 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 235; started: 5 September 1914; completed: 10 October 1914; cost: $1,821.86; dir.: W. Christie Cabanne; cast: Signe Auen, Elmer Clifton, F.A. Turner, R. Hull, Jennie Lee, Phoebe Bassor, Charles Gorman; sources: RL, PL THE MINER’S PERIL (Reliance) – 4 November 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 94; started: 29 September 1914; completed: 16 October 1914; cost: $973.80; dir.: Arthur Mackley; cast: Florence Crawford, Arthur Mackley, Howard Gage, Charles Eberts; sources: RL, PL A WOMAN SCORNED (Reliance) – 7 November 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 92; started: 24 September 1914; completed: 10 October 1914; cost: $2,476.08; dir.: John Adolfi; cast: Eugene Pallette, Mary Alden, Sam De Grasse, Francelia Billington, Jack Flynn, Frank Bennett; sources: RL, PL THE TEAR THAT BURNED (Majestic) – 8 November 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 244; started: 26 September 1914; completed: 16 October 1914; cost: $2,522.39; supv.: D.W. Griffith?; dir.: John B. O’Brien; sc.: Anthony P. Kelly; story: John W. Kellette; cast: Lillian Gish, Wm. Lowery, John Dillon, Josephine Crowell; sources: RL, PL ETHEL’S ROOF PARTY (Komic; Bill series, no. 10) – 8 November 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 245; working title: Bill no. 10; started: 26 September 1914; completed: 19 October 1914; cost: $1,368.67; dir.: Edward Dillon; cast: Fay Tincher, Tammany Young, Tod Browning, Baldy Belmont, Mae Gaston, Maxfield Stanley, Edward Dillon, Anna May Walthall; sources: RL, PL THE NIGGARD (Majestic) – 10 November 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 249; working title: The Tightwad; started: 10 October 1914; completed: 16 October 1914; cost: $757.98; dir.: Donald Crisp; sc.: Hal Reid; cast: Wallace Reid, Cora Drew, Billie West, Donald Crisp, Wm. Lowery, F.A. Turner, T.A. Henneberry; sources: RL, PL THE WIDOW’S CHILDREN (Reliance) – 11 November 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 96; working title: The Widow’s Mite; started: 9 October 1914; completed: 16 October 1914; cost: $723.72; dir.: Arthur Mackley; cast: Arthur Mackley, Mrs. Mackley, Elmer Clifton; sources: RL, PL THE FOLLY OF ANNE (Majestic) – 13 November 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 251; working title: The Folly of Ann; started: 15 October 1914; completed: 24 October 1914; cost: $1,549.97; dir.: John B. O’Brien; sc.: George Patullo, based on the short story “The Folly of Anne” by Ellen Farley, in Munsey’s Magazine; cast: Lillian Gish, Elmer Clifton, W.E. Lawrence, Donald Crisp, Jack Conway, Josephine Crowell; sources: RL, PL 170

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THE FLOATING CALL (Reliance) – 14 November 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 93; working title: The Floating Call; started: 25 September 1914; completed: 16 October 1914; cost: $2,004.65; dir.: Fred A. Kelsey; cast: Irene Hunt, W.E. Lawrence, George Siegmann, Ralph Lewis, Vester Perry, Robert Burns, Mrs. W.G. Brown; sources: RL, PL THE ODALISQUE (Majestic) – 15 November 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 246; started: 2 October 1914; completed: 16 October 1914; cost: $2,435.05; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: Donald Crisp; sc.: Anthony P. Kelly, from the story “The Odalisque” by Leroy Scott; cast: Blanche Sweet, Henry B. Walthall, Miriam Cooper, Wallace Reid, Robert Harron, Lucille Brown, Jennie Lee. Note: Lauritzen & Lundquist list W. Christy Cabanne as director; sources: RL, PL, L&L OUT AGAIN, IN AGAIN (Komic) – 15 November 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 248; alternate titles: Out Again and In Again; Out Again – In Again; started: 6 October 1914; completed: 10 October 1914; cost: $799.60; dir.: Edward Dillon; cast: Fay Tincher, Tod Browning, Baldy Belmont, Tammany Young, Max Davidson; sources: RL, PL THE LITTLE COUNTRY MOUSE (Majestic) – 17 November 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 253; working title: A Little Country Mouse; started: 14 October 1914; completed: 23 October 1914; cost: $1,028.65; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: Donald Crisp; cast: Blanche Sweet, Mary Alden, Wallace Reid, Raoul Walsh, Howard Gage; sources: RL, PL THE HIDDEN MESSAGE (Reliance) – 18 November 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 98; started: 16 October 1914; completed: 24 October 1914; cost: $774.05; dir.: Arthur Mackley; cast: Arthur Mackley, Florence Crawford, W.E. Lowery, Walter Long, Beulah Burns, Mrs. Arthur Mackley; sources: RL, PL HIS RESPONSIBILITY (Reliance) – 21 November 1914 (2 r.); prod. nos. 220 and 95; started: 8 August 1914 and 6 October 1914; completed: 8 August 1914 and 17 October 1914; cost: $222.38 and $1,784.82; dir.: J.B. O’Brien and Fred Kelsey; cast: Irene Hunt, W.E. Lawrence, Ralph Lewis, Beulah Burns, Spottiswoode Aitken, Vester Perry. Note: The film was apparently shot twice, or the earlier production was halted. O’Brien was listed as director of the early version (prod. no. 220); Kesley as director of the second (prod. no. 95); sources: RL, PL THE SAVING GRACE (Majestic) – 22 November 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 247; working titles: Saving Grace; A Child of God; started: 7 October 1914; completed: 24 October 1914; cost: $2,846.02; dir.: W. Christy Cabanne; cast: Dorothy Gish, Fred Burns, George Siegmann, Robert Burns, Richard Cummings, Jennie Lee, Dark Cloud; sources: RL, PL ETHEL HAS A STEADY (Komic; Bill series, no. 11) – 22 November 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 250; working title: Bill No. 11; started: 10 October 1914; completed: 16 October 1914; cost: $769.59; dir.: Edward Dillon; sc.: based on stories by Paul West; cast: Fay Tincher, Tod Browning, Edward Dillon, Mae Gaston, Walter Long, Tammany Young, Max Davidson, Mae Ashton, Lucille Brown, Anna May Walthall; sources: RL, PL ANOTHER CHANCE (Majestic) – 24 November 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 254; working title: Another Choice; started: 23 October 1914; completed: 31 October 1914; cost: $571.59; dir.: Donald Crisp; sc.: Hal Reid, George Hennessy; cast: Donald Crisp, Wallace Reid, William Lowery, Mary Alden, Kate Price, J.E. Wilson, Maxfield Stanley; sources: RL, PL 171

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THEY NEVER KNEW (Reliance) – 25 November 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 100; started: 23 October 1914; completed: 29 October 1914; cost: $768.56; dir.: Arthur Mackley; cast: Florence Crawford, Vester Pegg, Raoul Walsh, Vester Perry, George Siegmann; sources: RL, PL THE HOP SMUGGLERS (Reliance) – 27 November 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 99; started: 16 October 1914; completed: 26 October 1914; cost: $1,224.95; dir.: Fred Kelsey; cast: Irene Hunt, W.A. Lowery, Ralph Lewis, Jack Dillon, Eagle Eye, Josephine Crowell; sources: RL, PL THE KAFFIR’S SKULL (Reliance) – 28 November 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 97; working title: The Kafir’s Daughter; started: 10 October 1914; completed: 24 October 1914; cost: $2,354.09; dir.: John G. Adolfi; sc.: based on “The Kaffir’s Skull”, a story by James F. Dyer; cast: Eugene Pallette, Francelia Billington, Sam De Grasse, F.A. Turner, Miss Washington, Fred Hamer; sources: RL, PL THE SISTERS (Majestic) – 29 November 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 257; started: 22 October 1914; completed: 9 November 1914; cost: $2,326.45; dir., sc.: W. Christie Cabanne; sc.: from a story by Myron T. Brinig; cast: Dorothy Gish (Carol, younger sister), Lillian Gish (May), Elmer Clifton (Frank, Carol’s country lover), W.E. Lawrence (George, from the city), John Dillon; sources: RL, PL A CORNER IN HATS (Komic) – 29 November 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 252; started: 16 October 1914; completed: 23 October 1914; cost: $1,093.83; dir.: Ed. Dillon; sc.: Anita Loos; cast: Baldy Belmont, Sylvia Ashton, Tod Browning, Fay Tincher; sources: RL, PL THE OLD GOOD-FOR-NOTHING (Majestic) – 1 December 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 256; working title: Old Good for Nothing; started: 23 October 1914; completed: 31 October 1914; cost: $943.68; dir.: J.B. O’Brien; cast: Spottiswoode Aitken, Signe Auen, Josephine Crowell, Jack Conway, Ralph Lewis, John Dillon; sources: RL, PL THE LUCKY SHOT (Reliance) – 2 December 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 102; started: 24 October 1914; completed: 31 October 1914; cost: $905.74; dir.: Arthur Mackley; cast: Arthur Mackley, Florence Crawford; sources: RL, PL WHO SHOT BUD WALTON? (Reliance) – 5 December 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 101; working title: Who Killed Bud Walton; started: 24 October 1914; completed: 7 November 1914; cost: $2,411,87; dir.: John G. Adolfi; based on George Patullo’s story “Who Shot Bud Walton?”; cast: Sam De Grasse, Eugene Pallette, Raoul Walsh, Francelia Billington; sources: RL, PL A QUESTION OF COURAGE (Majestic) – 6 December 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 260; started: 28 October 1914; completed: 7 November 1914; cost: $1,868.44; dir.: Donald Crisp or W. Christy Cabanne; sc.: Forrest Halsey; cast: Josephine Crowell, Elmer Clifton, Dorothy Gish, Donald Crisp, Mae Marsh?, Lillian Gish?, Miriam Cooper?, Jennie Lee, Ralph Lewis. Note: Crisp is listed as director in production book; Cabanne is listed as director in Lauritzen & Lundquist; sources: RL, PL, L&L MR. HADLEY’S UNCLE (Komic; Bill series, no. 12) – 6 December 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 259; working title: Bill No. 12; started: 24 October 1914; completed: 31 October 1914; cost: $1,022.95; dir.: Edward Dillon; sc.: based on stories by Paul West; cast: Tod Browning, Tammany Young, Baldy Belmont, Fay Tincher, Max Davidson, Edward Dillon; sources: RL, PL 172

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HER BRAVE HERO (Majestic) – 8 December 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 258; started: 22 October 1914; completed: 30 October 1914; cost: $526.00; dir.: Donald Crisp; story: George Hennessy; cast: Claude Belmont, Billie West, Miss Washington; sources: RL, PL THE FOREST THIEVES (Reliance) – 9 December 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 104; started: 30 October 1914; completed: 7 November 1914; cost: $694.08; dir.: Arthur Mackley; story: Arthur Chapman; cast: Bob Burns, George Siegmann, Florence Crawford, Fred Burns; sources: RL, PL IN WILD MAN’S LAND (Majestic) – 11 December 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 263; working title: In Wildman’s Land; alternate title: In Wildman’s Land; started: 3 November 1914; completed: 7 November 1914; cost: $634.14; dir.: W. Christie Cabanne; cast: W.E. Lawrence, Elmer Clifton, Signe Auen; sources: RL, PL ON THE LEDGE (Reliance) – 12 December 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 103; started: 24 October 1914; completed: 6 November 1914; cost: $1,838.78; dir.: Fred A. Kelsey; sc.: Russell E. Smith; cast: Wallace Smith, Irene Hunt, Lucille Brown, George Siegmann, Beulah Burns, J.A. Hennebery, Richard Cummings, Howard Gage; sources: RL, PL THE HOUSEBREAKERS (Komic) – 13 December 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 255; started: 20 October 1914; completed: 30 October 1914; cost: $906.69; dir.: Edward Dillon; cast: Edward Dillon, Max Davidson, Fay Tincher, Sylvia Ashton, Tod Browning, Ed Rice; sources: RL, PL THE OLD MAID (Majestic) – 13 December 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 261; working title: Dorothy in the Garret; started: 30 October 1914; completed: 14 November 1914; cost: $2,438.16; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: John B. O’Brien; sc.: George Patullo; adapted from John Townsend Trowbridge’s poem, “Dorothy in the Garret”; cast: Blanche Sweet, Mary Alden, Spottiswoode Aitken, Jack Conway, Billie West, Howard Gage; sources: RL, PL AT DAWN (Majestic) – 15 December 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 264; started: 5 November 1914; completed: 13 November 1914; cost: $1,291.00; dir.: Donald Crisp; sc.: Hal Reid, from a story by Frederick Moore; cast: Wallace Reid, George Siegmann, Billie West, William Lowery, Claire Anderson, Eagle Eye, Miss Blake, Fred Burns; sources: RL, PL THE JOKE ON YELLENTOWN (Reliance) – 16 December 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 105; started: 6 November 1914; completed: 14 November 1914; cost: $1,119.94; dir.: Arthur Mackley; cast: Baldy Belmont, Vester Perry; sources: RL, PL THE BEAT OF THE YEAR (Reliance) – 19 December 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 107; alternate title: The Best of the Year; started: 4 November 1914; completed: 21 November 1914; cost: $2,549.07; dir.: John Adolfi; sc.: from the story “The Beat of the Year” by Robert Livingston Beecher; cast: Eugene Pallette, Sam De Grasse, Fred Hamer, Francelia Billington, Beulah Burns, Thelma Burns; sources: RL, PL IN FEAR OF HIS PAST (Majestic) – 20 December 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 267; working title: A Ray of Sunshine; started: 10 November 1914; completed: 28 November 1914; cost: $2,287.77; dir.: J.B. O’Brien; cast: Mary Alden, Jack Conway, Spottiswoode Aitken; sources: RL, PL

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BILL AND ETHEL (Komic; Bill series, no. 13) – 20 December 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 265; working title: Bill No. 13; started: 7 November 1914; completed: 14 November 1914; cost: $1,299.31; dir.: Edward Dillon; sc.: based on stories by Paul West; cast: Fay Tincher, Tod Browning, Tammany Young, Edward Dillon, Mazie Radford, Florence Crawford; sources: RL, PL THE BETTER WAY (Majestic) – 22 December 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 266; started: 7 November 1914; completed: 24 November 1914; cost: $1,743.32; dir., sc.: W. Christie Cabanne; cast: Dorothy Gish, Josephine Crowell, Fred Turner, Seena Owen, W.E. Lowery; sources: RL, PL A LUCKY DISAPPOINTMENT (Reliance) – 23 December 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 108; started: 13 November 1914; completed: 21 November 1914; cost: $678.21; dir.: Arthur Mackley; story: George Hennessy; cast: Florence Crawford, Baldy Belmont, Arthur Mackley, Elmer Clifton, Vester Perry, Mr. Wood; sources: RL, PL BOBBY’S MEDAL (Reliance) – 25 December 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 111; started: 23 November 1914; completed: 5 December 1914; cost: $1,229.61; cast: Bobby Feuhrer, Irene Hunt, Howard Gage, W.E. Lowery; sources: RL, PL THE EXPOSURE (Reliance) – 26 December 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 106; started: 5 November 1914; completed: 27 November 1914; cost: $2,028.09; dir.: Fred Kelsey; cast: Irene Hunt, Wallace Reid, Ralph Lewis, Raoul Walsh, Howard Gage, W.E. Lowery; sources: RL, PL THE OLD FISHERMAN’S STORY (Majestic) – 27 December 1914 (2 r.); prod. no. 275; started: 25 November 1914; completed: 14 December 1914; cost: $2,564.90; dir.: John O’Brien; cast: Mary Alden, Spottiswoode Aitken, Jack Conway, Raoul Walsh, Signe Auen; sources: RL, PL THE RECORD BREAKER (Komic, Majestic) – 27 December 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 276; working title: Gas and Water; started: 27 November 1914; completed: 30 November 1914; cost: $434.63; dir.: Edward Dillon; cast: Fay Tincher, Eddie Pullen, Edward Dillon, Tod Browning, Max Davidson; sources: RL, PL THE BABY’S RIDE (Majestic) – 29 December 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 269; started: 14 November 1914; completed: 28 November 1914; cost: $1,038.50; dir.: George Beranger; cast: Wallace Reid, Loretta Blake; sources: RL, PL THE MESSAGE (Reliance) – 30 December 1914 (1 r.); prod. no. 112; started: 27 November 1914; completed: 5 December 1914; cost: $1,229.61; dir.: Arthur Mackley; story: George Hennessy; cast: Charles Eberts, Baron von Ritzau, Mrs. Arthur Mackley, Arthur Mackley; sources: RL, PL

1915 A BANAKIE MAIDEN (Reliance) – 2 January 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 109; working titles: The Navajo Maiden; The Banakie Maiden; Banakie Maiden; started: 14 November 1914; completed: 11 December 1914; cost: $2,194.93; dir.: Arthur Mackley; cast: Irene Hunt, Dark Cloud, Dove Eye, Fred Burns, Vester Perry; sources: RL, PL 174

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VENGEANCE IS MINE (Majestic) – 3 January 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 277; working title: For the Children; started: 4 December 1914; completed: 26 December 1914; cost: $1,235.31; dir.: George Siegmann; sc. Frank E. Woods; cast: Billie West, Elmer Clifton, W.E. Lawrence, Florence Crawford; sources: RL, PL ETHEL’S FIRST CASE (Komic, Majestic; Bill series, no. 14) – 3 January 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 278; working title: Bill No. 14; alternate title: Ethel Gets the Evidence; started: 4 December 1914; completed: 19 December 1914; cost: $905.28; dir.: Edward Dillon; sc.: based on stories by Paul West; cast: Fay Tincher, Tod Browning, Tammany Young, Mrs. Anderson, Ched Withey, Bobby Feuhrer; sources: RL, PL HIS LESSON (Majestic) – 5 January 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 268; started: 10 November 1914; completed: 28 November 1914; cost: $2,287.77; dir.: Donald Crisp; cast: George Siegmann, Billie West, Vester Perry, Olga Grey; as extras: Frank E. Woods, D.W. Griffith, W. Christy Cabanne, Edward Dillon?, Arthur Mackley, Fred Kelsey, John O’Brien, G.W. “Billy” Bitzer, Walter Long, Fred Burns, Lucille Brown. Note: “A very unusual mob scene was filmed by Donald Crisp, when he found he had but one more set to finish His Lesson, a two-reeler for Majestic release. No extras were to be found so he called all the heads of departments and everyone else at the studio in to take part. Included were F.E. Woods, scenario manager; directors Griffith, Cabanne, Dillon, Mackley, Kelsey and O’Brien; three or four camera men. Including Billy Bitzer, who made his first appearance before the lens. Crisp is authority for the statement that every one of his mob belongs to the class known as lens lice” (The Moving Picture News, vol. X, no. 12 [1914], p. 39); sources: RL, PL A NIGHT’S ADVENTURE (Reliance) – 6 January 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 114; started: 4 December 1914; completed: 11 December 1914; cost: $1,378.99; dir.: Donald Crisp; cast: Howard Gaye, Olga Gray, Walter Long, J.P. McCarty; sources: RL, PL BRANCH NUMBER 37 (Majestic) – 8 January 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 274; working title: Branch No. 37; started: 25 November 1914; completed: 5 December 1914; cost: $1,065.00; dir.: George Beranger; cast: Loretta Blake; sources: RL, PL THE LOST RECEIPT (Reliance) – 9 January 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 113; started: 4 December 1914; completed: 19 December 1914; cost: $1,952.94; dir.: Fred Kelsey; story: Frank E. Woods; cast: Eugene Pallette, Anna May Walthall, George Cosgrove; sources: RL, PL THREE BROTHERS (Majestic) – 10 January 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 281; started: 12 December 1914; completed: 19 December 1914; cost: $1,245.35; dir.: W. Christy Cabanne; cast: Wallace Reid, Claire Anderson, Josephine Crowell, A.D. Sears, William Hinckley; sources: RL, PL LOVE AND BUSINESS (Komic, Majestic) – 10 January 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 262; started: 24 October 1914; completed: 7 November 1914; cost: $996.25; dir.: Edward Dillon; cast: Fay Tincher, Tod Browning; sources: RL, PL PROBATION (Majestic) – 12 January 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 279; started: 12 December 1914; completed: 2 January 1915; cost: $1,366.71; dir.: George Beranger; cast: Cora Drew, Loretta Blake, Joseph Chanler, F. McDermott; sources: RL, PL THE TERROR OF THE MOUNTAINS (Reliance) – 13 January 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 115; started: 12 December 1914; completed: 19 December 1914; cost: $1,915.86; dir.: Arthur 175

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Mackley; cast: Florence Crawford, W.E. Lowry, Charles Eberts, Arthur Mackley; sources: RL, PL RUNAWAY JUNE (Reliance; Serial Publication Corp.) – serial in 15 episodes, first issued 13 January 1915 (2 r. each); dir.: Oscar Eagle; sc.: Marc Edmund Jones; story: George Randolph and Lillian Chester; cast: J.W. Johnston, Norma Phillips, Myra Brooks, Winifred Burke, Evelyn D[u]mo, Arthur Donaldson, Elizabeth Drew, Marguerite Marsh, Ricca Allen, Charles Mason, Dora Mills Adams, Alfred Fisher, Winifred Burke, Ezra Walck, William J. Marlo. Note: Only the first of the fifteen episodes is listed here. This was a successor to the “Our Mutual Girl” probably produced in New York with no connection to Griffith; source: RL ONE FLIGHT UP (Reliance) – 16 January 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 116; started: 18 December 1914; completed: 26 December 1914; cost: $1,747.30; dir.: Fred Kelsey; cast: Irene Hunt, Ralph Lewis, E.A. Hennebery; sources: RL, PL WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN (Majestic) – 17 January 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 282; started: 12 December 1914; completed: 26 December 1914; cost: $2,960.88; dir.: John B. O’Brien; story: Mrs. Frank E. Woods; cast: Mary Alden, Jack Conway, Spottiswoode Aitken, Billie West; sources: RL, PL A FLYER IN SPRING WATER (Komic, Majestic; Bill series, no. 15) – 17 January 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 280; working title: Bill No. 15; started: 11 December 1914; completed: 19 December 1914; cost: $1,148.49; dir.: Edward Dillon; sc.: based on stories by Paul West; cast: Fay Tincher, Bobby Feuhrer, Max Davidson, Tod Browning, Tammany Young, Sylvia Ashton, Edward Dillon; sources: RL, PL ON THE TABLE TOP (Majestic) – 19 January 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 284; started: 19 December 1914; completed: 26 December 1914; cost: $984.43; dir.: George Siegmann; cast: Billy West, W.E. Lawrence, Richard Cummings; sources: RL, PL THE SEA BRAT (Reliance) – 20 January 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 117; started: 18 December 1914; completed: 26 December 1914; cost: $1,304.67; dir.: George Beranger; cast: Thomas Hull, Loretta Blake, Robert McDermott, Charles Cortright, W.E. Lowery; sources: RL, PL AFTER TWENTY YEARS (Reliance) – 22 January 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 119; started: 18 December 1914; completed: 26 December 1914; cost: $962.62; dir.: Arthur Mackley; cast: Arthur Mackley, Eugene Pallette, Florence Crawford, J.P. McCarty; sources: RL, PL THE CRAVEN (Reliance) – 23 January 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 285; started: 19 December 1914; completed: 31 December 1914; cost: $1,810.70; dir.: W. Christy Cabanne; cast: Wallace Reid, Seena Owen, A.D. Sears, William Hinckley, Josephine Crowell, Claire Anderson; sources: RL, PL THE BETTER MAN (Majestic) – 24 January 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 283; started: 18 December 1914; completed: 29 December 1914; cost: $2,148.59; dir.: Donald Crisp; sc.: from a story by George Patullo published in The Saturday Evening Post; cast: Bob Burns, Fred Burns, Olga Gray, Miss Washington, Eagle Eye; sources: RL, PL

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A FLURRY IN ART (Komic, Majestic) – 24 January 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 270; started: 14 November 1914; completed: 27 November 1914; cost: $1,149.95; dir.: Edward Dillon; sc.: Anita Loos; cast: Fay Tincher, Edward Dillon, Baldy Belmont, Sylvia Ashton, Tod Browning; sources: RL, PL THE WORLD UPSTAIRS (Reliance) – 25 January 1915 (1 r.); cast: Margaret Loveridge, Winifred Burke, Viola [or Madeline] Cheshire, Charles Mason, Ricca Allen, Mr. Fay, George Marlo; source: RL THE BROKEN LULLABY (Majestic) – 26 January 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 287; started: 26 December 1914; completed: 2 January 1915; cost: $893.92; dir.: George Beranger; cast: Loretta Blake, William Lowery; sources: RL, PL THE EXPRESS MESSENGER (Reliance) – 27 January 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 120; started: 21 December 1914; completed: 2 January 1915; cost: $946.03; dir.: Arthur Mackley; cast: Florence Crawford, Teddy Sampson, Walter Long, Charles Cortright, M. McDonald, Arthur Mackley, J.P. McCarty; sources: RL, PL THE LOVE PIRATE (Reliance) – 30 January 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 118; started: 18 December 1914; completed: 9 January 1915; cost: $2,867.44; dir.: Edward Dillon; story: Theodosia Harris; cast: Fay Tincher, Raoul Walsh, Elmer Clifton, Beulah Burns; sources: RL, PL A FAREWELL DINNER (Majestic) – 31 January 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 286; started: 25 December 1914; completed: 9 January 1915; cost: $1,673.59; dir.: George Siegmann; sc.: from a story by Edward Boltwood in Munsey’s Magazine; cast: Billie West, W.E. Lawrence, Howard Gaye, Cora Drew, F.A. Turner, Anna May Walthall; sources: RL, PL CUPID AND THE PEST (Komic, Majestic) – 31 January 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 273; started: 28 November 1914; completed: 4 December 1914; cost: $905.50; dir.: Edward Dillon; cast: Fay Tincher, Max Davidson, Tod Browning, Billie West, Anna May Walthall, Chet Withey; sources: RL, PL AT THE BOTTOM OF THINGS (Reliance) – 1 February 1915 (1 r.); cast: Arthur Donaldson, George M. Marlo, Miss Braun, Mr. Forbes, Ezra Walck, Charles Mason; source: RL AN OLD FASHIONED GIRL (Majestic) – 2 February 1915 (length unknown); prod. no. 288; started: 31 December 1914; completed: 9 January 1915; cost: $1,150.63; dir.: Donald Crisp; sc.: Russell E. Smith; cast: Dorothy Gish, Seena Owen, William Hinckley, Eleanor Washington, Donald Crisp, Miss Adair, Mr. Cosgrove; sources: RL, PL THE BEAST WITHIN (Reliance) – 3 February 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 123; started: 4 January 1915; completed: 9 January 1915; cost: $943.30; dir.: Arthur Mackley; cast: Florence Crawford, Ben Lewis, Richard Cummings, Walter Long, J.P. McCarty, Mr. Henneberry; sources: RL, PL THE DOUBLE DECEPTION (Majestic) – 6 February 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 293; started: 2 January 1915; completed: 16 January 1915; cost: $1,089.99; dir.: Raoul Walsh; cast: Miriam Cooper, Elmer Clifton, Raoul Walsh, Jennie Lee, Charles Cortright, Mazie Radford; sources: RL, PL 177

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HEART BEATS (Reliance) – 6 February 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 122; started: 30 December 1914; completed: 23 January 1915; cost: $2,689.24; dir.: John C. Adolfi; story: John B. Campbell; cast: Francelia Billington, Frank Bennett, Sam De Grasse, Fred Turner, Mr. Flynn; sources: RL, PL BILL TURNS VALET (Komic, Majestic; Bill series, no. 16) – 7 February 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 294; working title: Bill No. 16; started: 9 January 1915; completed: 16 January 1915; cost: $969.95; dir.: Edward Dillon; sc.: based on stories by Paul West; cast: Fay Tincher, Bobby Feuhrer, Max Davidson, Edward Dillon, Tod Browning; sources: RL, PL THE STUDIO OF LIFE (Reliance) – 8 February 1915 (1 r.); dir.: Lawrence McGill; story: Marc Edmund Jones; cast: Margaret Loveridge, Winifred Burke, Charles Mason, Evelyn Dumo, Joseph Fay, George M. Marlo, Mrs. White, Miss James, Arthur Forbes, Catherine Lee, Jane Lee; sources: RL, PL HIS LAST DEAL (Majestic) – 9 February 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 292; started: 2 January 1915; completed: 22 January 1915; cost: $993.55; dir.: George Beranger; cast: Tom Wilson, Loretta Blake, C. MacDermott; sources: RL, PL THE CHINESE LOTTERY (Reliance) – 10 February 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 124; started: 5 January 1915; completed: 21 January 1915; cost: $1,660.93; dir.: Fred Kelsey; cast: Irene Hunt, Vester Perry, Eagle Eye; sources: RL, PL THE DEATH DICE (Reliance) – 13 February 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 121; started: 30 December 1914; completed: 23 January 1915; cost: $2,122.78; dir.: Fred Kelsey and/or Raoul Walsh; story: George Patullo; cast: Irene Hunt, Eugene Pallette, Fred Burns, Vester Perry, Ed Burns, J.P. McCarthy. Note: The production log lists Kelsey as director; Lauritzen & Lundquist credit “some sources” as listing Walsh as director. L&L incorrectly listed the title as The Death Dies in first volume and corrected the title in the second; sources: RL, PL, L&L MUSIC HATH CHARMS (Komic, Majestic) – 14 February 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 299; started: 13 January 1915; completed: 23 January 1915; cost: $1,034.08; dir.: Edward Dillon; cast: Fay Tincher, Augustus Carney, Tod Browning, Baldy Belmont, Max Davidson, Eleanor Washington; sources: RL, PL HOW HAZEL GOT EVEN (Majestic) – 14 February 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 271; started: 21 November 1914; completed: 5 January 1915; cost: $2,025.50; dir.: Donald Crisp and/or George Siegmann; cast: Dorothy Gish, W.E. Lawrence, Fred Burns, Eugene Pallette, Teddy Sampson?. Note: Donald Crisp is listed as director in production log; Siegmann as co-director in Lauritzen & Lundquist; sources: RL, PL, L&L THE OTHER MAN (Reliance) – 15 February 1915 (1 r.); cast: Glynn Braun, William Bailey, J.W. Johnston, Evelyn Dumo, Myra Brooks, Alfred Fisher, Ed Burns; source: RL A MAN AND HIS WORK (Majestic) – 16 February 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 295; started: 9 January 1915; completed: 22 January 1915; cost: $1,487.54; dir.: George Nicholls; cast: Charles Clary, Elinor Stone, Howard Gaye, Richard Cummings, Tom Wilson; sources: RL, PL

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THE DEPUTY’S CHANCE THAT WON (Reliance) – 17 February 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 125; started: 9 January 1915; completed: 22 January 1915; cost: $842.62; dir.: Arthur Mackley; story: Arthur Mackley and Chet Withey; cast: Arthur Mackley, W.E. Lawrence, Florence Crawford, Tom Wilson, Eagle Eye, J.H. Warnock, William Hinckley; sources: RL, PL ABOVE PAR (Reliance) – 19 February 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 300; started: 21 January 1915; completed: 30 January 1915; cost: $1,151.61; dir.: George Siegmann; cast: William Brown, Billie West, W.E. Lawrence, Mrs. Arthur Mackley; sources: RL, PL THE BOUNDARY LINE (Reliance) – 20 February 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 128; working title: The Boundary Line (Un-da-wa-nek); started: 16 January 1915; completed: 30 January 1915; cost: $1,856.45; dir.: Arthur Mackley; sc.: Dark Cloud; cast: Dark Cloud, Teddy Sampson, Dove Eye, Tom Wilson, Ray Myers; sources: RL, PL THE LOST LORD LOVELL (Majestic) – 21 February 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 298; working title: The Last Lord Lovell [?]; started: 11 January 1915; completed: 25 January 1915; cost: $2,198.99; dir.: Paul Powell; story: W. Carey Wonderly; cast: Dorothy Gish, Frank Bennett, Catherine Henry, Chester Withey, Belle Henry, Claire Anderson, Eleanor Washington, Richard Cummings; sources: RL, PL ETHEL GAINS CONSENT (Komic, Majestic; Bill series, no. 17) – 21 February 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 301; working title: Bill No. 17; alternate title: Ethel Gets Consent; started: 23 January 1915; completed: 30 January 1915; cost: $973.20; dir.: Edward Dillon; sc.: based on stories by Paul West; cast: Fay Tincher, Bobby Feuhrer, Baldy Belmont, Edward Dillon, Tod Browning, Eleanor Washington; sources: RL, PL THE MUFFLED BELL (Reliance) – 22 February 1915 (1 r.); cast: Marguerite Loveridge, Arthur Forbes, Alfred Fisher, George M. Marlo; source: RL THE FATAL BLACK BEAN (Majestic) – 23 February 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 127; started: 14 January 1915; completed: 30 January 1915; cost: $1,715.94; dir.: Raoul Walsh; sc.: Russell E. Smith; cast: Miriam Cooper, Elmer Clifton, Eagle Eye, Raoul Walsh, Jennie Lee; sources: RL, PL THE DOUBLE CROSSING OF SLIM (Reliance) – 24 February 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 130; started: 21 January 1915; completed: 4 February 1915; cost: $1,469.86; dir.: George Beranger; cast: Loretta Blake, O.V. MacDiarmid, Thomas Hull, Otto Lincoln; sources: RL, PL THE MAN WITH A RECORD (Reliance) – 27 February 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 296; started: 9 January 1915; completed: 22 January 1915; cost: $1,968.69; dir.: George Siegmann; cast: Cora Drew, Billie West, William Henneberry, Walter Long, W.H. Brown, F.A. Turner, Howard Gaye; sources: RL, PL A DAY THAT IS GONE (Majestic) – 28 February 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 129; working titles: A Day That Has Gone; A Day That Is Dead; alternate title: A Day That Is Dead; started: 16 January 1915; completed: 11 February 1915; cost: $3,840.35; dir.: George Nichols; story: adapted by Chet Withey from the poem Break, Break, Break! by Alfred Lord Tennyson; cast: Charles Clary, Eugene Pallette, Seena Owen, Olga Grey, Howard Gaye; sources: RL, PL

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A COSTLY EXCHANGE (Komic, Majestic) – 28 February 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 305; working title: In a Pickle; started: 26 January 1915; completed: 13 February 1915; cost: $1,269.01; dir.: Edward Dillon; cast: Fay Tincher, Max Davidson, Tod Browning, Edward Dillon, Eleanor Washington; sources: RL, PL THE LAWBREAKERS (Reliance) – 1 March 1915 (1 r.); cast: Gordon De Maine, Bradley Barker, George M. Marlo, Glynn Braun, Alfred Fisher, Mildred Cheshire; source: RL BOBBY’S BANDIT (Majestic) – 2 March 1915; prod. no. 304; started: 29 January 1915; completed: 6 February 1915; cost: $1,331.99; dir.: Fred Kelsey; cast: Bobby Feuhrer, Teddy Sampson, Tom Wilson, Fred Burns; sources: RL, PL YOUR BABY AND MINE (Reliance) – 3 March 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 131; started: 27 January 1915; completed: 6 February 1915; cost: $1,323.69; dir.: Arthur Mackley; sc.: George Hennessy; cast: Mrs. Arthur Mackley, Claude Belmont, Mae Gaston, Parker Oliver, Georgia Oliver, Florence Crawford, Augustus Carney, Al Filson; sources: RL, PL HIS RETURN (Majestic) – 5 March 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 303; started: 23 January 1915; completed: 12 February 1915; cost: $1,630.84; dir.: Raoul Walsh; story: Russell E. Smith; cast: Miriam Cooper, Elmer Clifton, Howard Gaye; sources: RL, PL THE GREEN IDOL (Reliance) – 6 March 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 132; started: 30 January 1915; completed: 15 February 1915; cost: $2,717.79; dir.: George Siegmann; cast: Mr. Henneberry, Francelia Billington, Frank Bennett, Al Filson, Chet Withey, Jack Dillon; sources: RL, PL BILL GIVES A SMOKER (Komic, Majestic; Bill series, no. 18) – 7 March 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 307; started: 6 February 1915; completed: 13 February 1915; cost: $664.57; dir.: Edward Dillon; sc.: based on stories by Paul West; cast: Fay Tincher, Bobby Feuhrer, Max Davidson, Chet Withey; sources: RL, PL MINERVA’S MISSION (Majestic) – 7 March 1915 (2 r.); prod no. 302; started: 23 January 1915; completed: 6 February 1915; cost: $1,765.34; dir.: Paul Powell; cast: Dorothy Gish, Cora Drew, W.E. Lawrence, James Gorman, Georgia Gerhart, William Freeman, W.E. Lowery, Charles Cosgrove; sources: RL, PL THE HEN’S DUCKLING (Reliance) – 8 March 1915 (1 r.); cast: Katherine Lee, Gordon De Maine, Ricca Allen, Winifred Burke, Alfred Fisher, Lawrence Hynes; source: RL A TEMPERANCE LESSON (Majestic) – 9 March 1915; prod. no. 306; started: 30 January 1915; completed: 10 February 1915; cost: $916.14; dir.: John B. O’Brien; cast: Spottiswoode Aitken, Claire Anderson, William De Vaull; sources: RL, PL THE LUCKY TRANSFER (Reliance) – 10 March 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 133; started: 5 February 1915; completed: 12 February 1915; cost: $979.78; dir.: Tod Browning; cast: Mary Alden, Tom Wilson, Thomas Hull, Vester Pegg, W.E. Lowery; sources: RL, PL THE LAST CARD (Majestic) – [13] March 1915; prod. no. 313; started: 13 February 1915; completed: 26 February 1915; cost: $1,324.43; dir.: Lloyd Ingraham; story: Will E. Ellis; cast: Billie West, Augustus Carney, Frank Bennett, Jennie Lee, Tom Wilson. Note: The Moving 180

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Picture World (vol. 23, no. 13, March 27, 1915, p. 1948) has a summary in “Manufacturers’ Advance Notes” but no indication of release. It was not listed in Reel Life’s schedules of Mutual Releases on 6 March 1915, 20 March 1915 or 3 April 1915; sources: RL, PL; MPW EX-CONVICT 4287 (Reliance) – 13 March 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 136; working title: The Shot in the Dark; started: 8 February 1915; completed: 27 February 1915; cost: $1,569.44; dir.: Arthur Mackley; cast: Ralph Lewis, Catherine Henry, Howard Gaye; sources: RL, PL HER BURIED PAST (Majestic) – 14 March 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 308; started: 6 February 1915; completed: 20 February 1915; cost: $2,058.54; dir.: Fred Kelsey; sc.: William Parker; cast: Irene Hunt, Florence Crawford, Jennie Lee, William H. Brown; sources: RL, PL CAUGHT BY THE HANDLE (Komic, Majestic) – 14 March 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 312; started: 10 February 1915; completed: 20 February 1915; cost: $946.22; dir.: Edward Dillon; sc.: Chester Withey; cast: Fay Tincher, Max Davidson, Eleanor Washington, Chester Withey, Jack Dillon; sources: RL, PL THE REWARD (Reliance) – 15 March 1915 (1 r.); cast: Winifred Allen, Alfred Fisher, Gordon De Maine, George M. Marlo, Lawrence Hynes, Mildred Cheshire; source: RL THE EMERALD BROOCH (Majestic) – 16 March 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 311; started: 12 February 1915; completed: 20 February 1915; cost: $916.03; dir.: Lloyd Ingraham; cast: Billie West, Eugene Pallette, Vester Perry, Tom Wilson, William Lowery; sources: RL, PL THE BALANCE (Reliance) – 17 March 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 135; started: 6 February 1915; completed: 19 February 1915; cost: $1,408.38; dir.: Claude Belmont; cast: Mae Gaston, Mr. Stone, Jennie Lee; sources: RL, PL ONLY A TRAMP (Reliance) – 19 March 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 137; working title: Midnight of Peace; started: 12 February 1915; completed: 27 February 1915; cost: $1,466.85; dir.: Raoul Walsh; cast: Miriam Cooper, Thomas Jefferson, Elmer Clifton; sources: RL, PL THE SLAVE GIRL (Reliance) – 20 March 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 138; working title: The White Slave; started: 12 February 1915; completed: 28 February 1915; cost: $2,469.61; dir.: Tod Browning; cast: Teddy Sampson, Mr. Lincoln, Mary Alden, W.E. Lawrence, Jennie Lee; sources: RL, PL THE FORGED TESTAMENT (Majestic) – 21 March 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 310; started: 12 February 1915; completed: 26 February 1915; cost: $2,149.48; dir.: George Nicholls; cast: Charles Clary, Cora Drew, Olga Grey, Seena Owen; sources: RL, PL THE GREASER (Majestic) – 21 March 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 317; started: 20 February 1915; completed: 27 February 1915; cost: $1,404.35; dir.: Raoul Walsh; cast: Raoul Walsh, Elmer Clifton, Miriam Cooper, Vester Pegg; sources: RL, PL ETHEL’S DOGGONE LUCK (Komic, Majestic; Bill series, no. 19) – 21 March 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 315; working title: Ethel’s Dog-gone Luck; Bill No. 19; started: 18 February 1915; completed: 27 February 1915; cost: $955.91; dir.: Edward Dillon; sc.: based on stories by Paul West; cast: Fay Tincher, Chester Withey, Bobby Feuhrer, Max Davidson, Edward Dillon, Sylvia Ashton; sources: RL, PL 181

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THE GAME OF THRILLS (Reliance) – 22 March 1915 (1 r.); cast: George M. Marlo, Gladys du Pell, Gordon De Maine, Charles Bryant, Alfred Fisher; source: RL THE BLACK SHEEP (Reliance) – 24 March 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 140; started: 19 February 1915; completed: 27 February 1915; cost: $1,081.89; dir.: Claude Belmont; story: Will H. Ellis; cast: Joseph Henabery, Loretta Blake, Mr. Elmore, Elinor Stone; sources: RL, PL THE LOST HOUSE (Majestic; a Mutual Masterpicture) – 25 March 1915 (4 r.); prod. no. 272; working title: The Last House [?]; started: 20 November 1914; completed: 13 February 1915; cost: $8,978.62; dir.: W. Christy Cabanne; sc.: Anita Loos; ph.: William E. Fildew; sc.: from a story of the same name by Richard Harding Davis; cast: Lillian Gish, Wallace Reid, Fred Turner, A.D. Sears, Elmer Clifton; sources: RL, PL BUBBLING WATER (Reliance) – 27 March 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 141; started: 18 February 1915; completed: 12 March 1915; cost: $1,789.28; dir.: Arthur Mackley; cast: Catherine Henry, Charles Gorman, Ray Myers, Bessie Buskirk; sources: RL, PL THE OLD CHEMIST (Majestic) – 28 March 1915 (2 r.); cast: Thomas Jefferson, Augustus Carney, Frank Bennett, Jennie Lee, Howard Gaye, Tom Wilson, Olive Adair; source: RL MIXED VALUES (Komic, Majestic) – 28 March 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 320; started: 25 February 1915; completed: 6 March 1915; cost: $1,205.59; dir.: Edward Dillon; sc.: Anita Loos; cast: Fay Tincher, Elmer Booth, Chester Withey, Edward Dillon, Mae Gaston, Jack Dillon; sources: RL, PL THE OUTCAST (Reliance; a Mutual Masterpicture) – 29 March 1915 (4 r.); prod. no. 289; started: 2 January 1915; completed: 2 March 1915; cost: $9,167.74; supv.: D.W. Griffith; dir.: John B. O’Brien; sc.: based on the story “The Outcast”, by Thomas Nelson Page; ph.: Harry B. Harris; cast: Mae Marsh, Robert Harron, Mary Alden, Spottiswoode Aitken, Jack Dillon, Jack Conway, Ralph Lewis. Note: The AFI Catalog gives a March 19, 1915 release date; a Mutual Ad in The Moving Picture World (vol. 24, no. 1, April 3, 1915, pp. 114–115) says “soon after the first of April”; sources: RL, PL, AFI, MPW THE JEWELED DAGGER OF FATE (Reliance) – 29 March 1915 (1 r.); cast: Winifred Allen, Alfred Fisher, George M. Marlo, Gordon de Maine, Winifred Burke, Ricca Allen; source: RL AN IMAGE OF THE PAST (Majestic) – 30 March 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 321; started: 26 February 1915; completed: 6 March 1915; cost: $1,220.63; dir.: Tod Browning; cast: Signe Auen, J.H. Allen, Charles Cosgrove; sources: RL, PL THE PRIMITIVE SPIRIT (Reliance) – 31 March 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 143; started: 27 February 1915; completed: 11 March 1915; cost: $1,048.79; dir.: Claude Belmont; cast: William Hinckley, Claire Anderson, W.E. Lowery, Elinor Stone; sources: RL, PL THE ARTIST’S WIFE (Majestic) – 2 April 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 322; started: 4 March 1915; completed: 12 March 1915; cost: $1,122.67; dir.: Raoul Walsh; cast: Miriam Cooper, Elmer Clifton, Lucille Younge, Vester Pegg, Jennie Lee; sources: RL, PL

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SYMPATHY SAL (Reliance) – 3 April 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 142; started: 26 February 1915; completed: 6 March 1915; cost: $1,844.66; dir.: Lloyd Ingraham; sc.: Anita Loos; cast: Teddy Sampson, Frank Bennett, Thomas Jefferson, Tom Wilson; sources: RL, PL DOCTOR JIM (Majestic) – 4 April 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 319; started: 20 February 1915; completed: 6 March 1915; cost: $2,218.96; dir.: Fred Kelsey; cast: Fred Burns, Catherine Henry, Vester Perry, Bobby Feuhrer; sources: RL, PL ETHEL’S DEADLY ALARM CLOCK (Komic, Majestic; Bill series, no. 20) – 4 April 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 324; working title: Bill No. 20; started: 3 March 1915; completed: 13 March 1915; cost: $1,448.95; dir.: Edward Dillon; sc.: based on stories by Paul West; cast: Elmer Booth, Fay Tincher, Chester Withey, Bobby Fuehrer; sources: RL, PL THE WINNING HAND (Reliance) – 5 April 1915 (1 r.); cast: Runa Hodges, Winifred Burke, George Daglenn, Violet Spencer, Alfred Fisher; source: RL THE LITTLE MOTHER (Majestic) – 6 April 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 323; started: 4 March 1915; completed: 13 March 1915; cost: $953.90; dir.: Arthur Mackley; cast: Violet Wilkey, Florence Crawford; sources: RL, PL THE INDIAN CHANGELING (Reliance) – 7 April 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 146; started: 6 March 1915; completed: 17 March 1915; cost: $1,277.93; dir.: Claude Belmont; cast: Ray Myers, May Gaston, Claire Anders; sources: RL, PL ENOCH ARDEN (Majestic; a Mutual Masterpicture) – 8 April 1915 (4 r.). See DWG Project, #514. Additional information: prod. no. 290; started: 2 January 1915; completed: 31 March 1915; cost: $10,889.48; sc.: Frank E. Woods; cast: Mildred Harris, D.W. Griffith?, Blanche Sweet, Kate Bruce, Betty Marsh; sources: RL, PL, MPW, AFI STATION CONTENT (Reliance) – 10 April 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 145; started: 5 March 1915; completed: 26 March 1915; cost: $2,247.55; dir.: Fred Kelsey; cast: Catherine Henry, Wallace Reid, Ben Lewis, William Hinckley; sources: RL, PL THE FENCING MASTER (Majestic) – 11 April 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 325; started: 6 March 1915; completed: 24 March 1915; cost: $2,717.87; dir.: Lloyd Ingraham and/or Raoul Walsh; sc.: Raoul Walsh; cast: Teddy Sampson, Thomas Jefferson, Frank Bennett, George Walsh, Margie Wilson. Note: The production log lists Ingraham as director; Lauritzen & Lundquist list Raoul Walsh as director and scenarist in their supplemental material in the second volume; sources: RL, PL, L&L BY FAIR MEANS OR FOWL (Komic, Majestic) – 11 April 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 328; started: 13 March 1915; completed: 20 March 1915; cost: $816.64; dir.: Edward Dillon; cast: Fay Tincher, Elmer Booth, Bobby Feuhrer, Chester Withey, Max Davidson; sources: RL, PL A MAN AND HIS MATE (Reliance; a Mutual Masterpicture) – 12 April 1915 (4 r.); prod. no. 126; started: 5 January 1915; completed: 6 March 1915; cost: $10,787.43; dir.: John C. Adolfi; sc.: from Harold Riggs’ play, “A Man and His Mate”; ph.: Hugh C. McClung; cast: Sam De Grasse, Henry Woodruff, Gladys Brockwell, F.A. Turner, Walter Long, Fred Hamer. 183

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Note: Some scenes for this film were shot at the end of December 1913 by W. Christy Cabanne while the Mutual’s Griffith crew traveled to California. It was shelved and revived in 1915, with John Adolfi directing; sources: RL, PL HIS BACHELOR DINNER (Reliance) – 12 April 1915 (1 r.); sc.: Albert Shelby Le Vino; cast: Bradley Barker, Miss Gear; source: RL THE LITTLE MATCHMAKER (Majestic) – 13 April 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 332; started: 20 March 1915; completed: 27 March 1915; cost: $1,080.88; dir.: F.A. Kelsey; story: Mary H. O’Connor; cast: Mildred Harris, Paul Willis, Margery Wilson, Margie Anderson, Joseph Henabery; sources: RL, PL THE JOB AND THE JEWELS (Reliance) – 14 April 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 147; working title: The Job v the Jewels; started: 12 March 1915; completed: 20 March 1915; cost: $791.19; dir.: Arthur Mackley; cast: Charles Gorman, Charles Cosgrove, Florence Crawford, Arthur Mackley, Jack Leonard; sources: RL, PL THE LIGHT IN THE WINDOW (Reliance) – 16 April 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 151; started: 19 March 1915; completed: 27 March 1915; cost: $1,189.22; dir.: Claude Belmont; cast: Otto Lincoln, William Hinckley, Mae Gaston, Eleanor Washington, Florence Crawford; sources: RL, PL A MAN FOR ALL THAT (Reliance) – 17 April 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 148; started: 13 March 1915; completed: 31 March 1915; cost: $1,839.96; dir.: Raoul Walsh; cast: Raoul Walsh, Miriam Cooper, Elmer Clifton, Tom Wilson, Jennie Lee, Paul Willis; sources: RL, PL THE HIGHBINDERS (Majestic) – 18 April 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 327; working title: The High Binders; started: 6 March 1915; completed: 20 March 1915; cost: $2,508.23; dir.: Tod Browning; cast: Seena Owen, Eugene Pallette, Billie West, Walter Long, Tom Wilson; sources: RL, PL ETHEL’S NEW DRESS (Komic, Majestic; Bill series, no. 21) – 18 April 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 331; working title: Bill No. 21; started: 18 March 1915; completed: 27 March 1915; cost: $1,388.08; dir.: Edward Dillon; sc.: based on stories by Paul West; cast: Fay Tincher, Bobby Feuhrer, Chester Withey, Gladys Brockwell, Max Davidson, Elmer Booth, Jack Dillon, Frankie Newman; sources: RL, PL MAN’S PREROGATIVE (Reliance; a Mutual Masterpicture) – 19 April 1915 (4 r.); prod. no. 318; working titles: Above Reproach; As Caesar’s Wife; started: 20 February 1915; completed: 13 March 1915; cost: $7,508.50; dir.: George Nichols; sc.: Frank Woods; cast: Robert Edeson, Mary Alden, Charles Clary, Billie West; sources: RL, PL THE STAIN OF DISHONOR (Reliance) – 19 April 1915 (1 r.); sc.: Howard Irving Young; cast: Alfred Sidwell, Glynn Braun, Bradley Barker, Carlyle Sherlock; source: RL THE STORY OF A STORY (Majestic) – 20 April 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 334; started: 20 March 1915; completed: 3 April 1915; cost: $1,479.38; dir.: Tod Browning; cast: Eugene Pallette, Miriam Cooper, Claire Anderson, Frankie Newman, Charles Lee; sources: RL, PL 184

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ROSE LEAVES (Reliance) – 21 April 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 152; started: 23 March 1915; completed: 3 April 1915; cost: $2,038.78; dir.: Nick Cogley; sc.: John A. Saxon; cast: John A. Saxon, Raymond Wells, Mae Gaston, Ray Myers, Ben Lewis, Maxfield Stanley, Lucille Young; sources: RL, PL CAPTAIN MACKLIN (Majestic; a Mutual Masterpicture) – 22 April 1914 (4 r.); prod. no. 139; working title: Capt. Macklin; started: 13 February 1915; completed: 7 April 1915; cost: $11,679.90; dir.: John B. O’Brien; ph.: H.B. Harris; sc.: Anthony P. Kelly and Russell E. Smith, based on the novel Captain Macklin: His Memoirs, by Richard Harding Davis; cast: Jack Conway, Lillian Gish, Spottiswoode Aitken, Courtenay Foote, Mary Alden, W.E. Lowery, Dark Cloud, Erich von Stroheim (as an extra?); sources: RL, PL GOD IS LOVE (Reliance) – 24 April 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 150; started: 19 March 1915; completed: 27 March 1915; cost: $1,166.58; dir.: Arthur Mackley; story: inspired by the novel Silas Marner, by George Eliot; cast: Arthur Mackley, Betty Marsh, Howard Gaye, Claire Anderson; sources: RL, PL FOR THE HONOR OF BETTINA (Majestic) – 25 April 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 333; started: 20 March 1915; completed: 3 April 1915; cost: $1,669.95; dir.: Lloyd Ingraham; cast: Teddy Sampson, Frank Bennett, Lloyd Ingraham, Margie Wilson, O. MacDiarmid; sources: RL, PL HOME AGAIN (Komic, Majestic) – 25 April 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 336; started: 27 March 1915; completed: 3 April 1915; cost: $1,139.51; dir.: Edward Dillon; cast: Fay Tincher, Elmer Booth, Anna May Walthall, Max Davidson; sources: RL, PL THE OPEN DOOR (Reliance) – 26 April 1915 (1 r.); story: Howard Irving Young; cast: Winifred Allen, Bradley Barker, Charles Darcy, William Sidwell; source: RL CHECKMATE (Majestic) – 27 April 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 337; started: 26 March 1915; completed: 3 April 1915; cost: $1,134.79; dir.: Arthur Mackley; cast: Charles Gorman, Vester Perry, William E. Lowery, Bessie Buskirk; sources: RL, PL THE BURIED TREASURE (Reliance) – 28 April 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 153; started: 24 March 1915; completed: 3 April 1915; cost: $1,335.27; dir.: Claude Belmont; cast: Florence Crawford, Walter Long, Fred Burns, Mr. Rhefield; sources: RL, PL A CHILD OF GOD (Reliance; a Mutual Masterpicture) – 29 April 1915 (4 r.); prod. no. 152; started: 21 November 1914; completed: 27 March 1915; cost: $8,857.01; dir.: John C. Adolfi, W. Christie Cabanne?; sc.: from the story by Cyrus Townsend Brady; ph.: Hugh C. McClung; cast: Sam De Grasse, Francelia Billington, Richard Cummings. Note: Production log lists Adolfi as director; sources: RL, PL, AFI, Motion Picture News THE LITTLE SOLDIER MAN (Majestic) – 30 April 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 338; started: 25 March 1915; completed: 10 April 1915; cost: $1,000.60; dir.: Fred Kelsey; cast: Mildred Harris, Paul Willis, Bobby Feuhrer, Eleanor Washington; sources: RL, PL THE HOUSE OF BENTLEY (Reliance) – 1 May 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 344; working title: The House of Bently [?]; started: 3 April 1915; completed: 10 April 1915; cost: $1,420.74; dir.: Lloyd Ingraham; cast: Teddy Sampson, Cora Drew, George Pearce, Frank Bennett, Mae Gaston; sources: RL, PL 185

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THE COMEBACK (Majestic) – 2 May 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 335; started: 25 March 1915; completed: 3 April 1915; cost: $1,777.94; dir.: Raoul Walsh; cast: Ralph Lewis, Billie West, Elmer Clifton, Jack Dillon, Bill Brown; sources: RL, PL ETHEL’S DISGUISE (Komic, Majestic; Bill series, no. 22) – 2 May 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 342; working title: Bill No. 22; started: 31 March 1915; completed: 10 April 1915; cost: $1,120.79; dir.: Edward Dillon; sc.: based on stories by Paul West; cast: Fay Tincher, Bobby Feuhrer, Chester Withey, Ed Dillon, Elmer Booth, Max Davidson; sources: RL, PL THE ABSENTEE (Majestic; a Mutual Masterpicture) – 3 May 1915 (5 r.); prod. no. 144; working title: The Man Between; started: 6 March 1915; completed: 3 April 1915; cost: $8,469.28; dir.: W. Christy Cabanne; sc.: W. Christy Cabanne and Frank Woods; cast: Robert Edeson, Olga Grey, A.D. Sears, Genevieve Rhodes, George Beranger, Augustus Carney, Loretta Blake, Mildred Harris, Wahnetta Hanson, Arthur Paget, Charles Lee, Otto Lincoln; sources: RL, PL THE MISSION OF MORRISON (Reliance) – 3 May 1915 (1 r.); cast: William Taylor, George Daly, Ruth Rose, Baron du Planta, Mrs. Adams, Alfred Sidwell; sources: RL, PL HER GRANDPARENTS (Majestic) – 4 May 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 341; working title: Her Grandparent [?]; started: 2 April 1915; completed: 10 April 1915; cost: $1,343.67; dir.: Frank Powell; cast: Dorothy Gish, W.E. Lawrence, Richard Cummings, Joseph Henabery, Lucille Young; sources: RL, PL THE BABY (Reliance; Majestic Children’s Pictures) – 5 May 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 155; started: 7 March 1915; completed: 10 April 1915; cost: $1,128.68; dir.: S.A. and C.M. Franklin; cast: Majestic Juvenile Troupe: Baby Bruce Guerin, Olive Johnson, Violet Radcliffe, Francis Carpenter. Note: Production log lists C.M. Franklin as director; Lauritzen & Lundquist list the Franklin Brothers; sources: RL, PL, L&L THE VICTIM (Majestic; a Mutual Masterpicture) – 6 May 1915 (3 r.); prod. no. 314; working title: Vengeance; started: 14 February 1915; completed: 17 March 1915; cost: $5,004.31; dir.: George Siegmann; story: Paul West; cast: Mae Marsh, Robert Harron, Eugene Pallette, William H. Brown, Betty Marsh, E.P. Evers; sources: RL, PL THE OLD SHOEMAKER (Reliance) – 8 May 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 157; started: 4 April 1915; completed: 26 April 1915; cost: $999.26; dir.: Arthur Mackley; cast: Tote Du Crow, Bessie Buskirk, O.V. MacDiarmid, Walter Long, Miriam Cooper; sources: RL, PL FLOOEY AND AXEL (Komic, Majestic) – 9 May 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 346; started: 10 April 1915; completed: 22 April 1915; cost: $1,012.88; dir.: Edward Dillon; cast: Victor Forsythe (Newspaper cartoonist), Clarence Barr, Bobby Feuhrer, Max Davidson, Margie Wilson; sources: RL, PL THE SPELL OF THE POPPY (Majestic) – 9 May 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 343; started: 3 April 1915; completed: 17 April 1915; cost: $2,343.33; dir.: Tod Browning; cast: Eugene Pallette, Lucille Young, Joseph Henabery; sources: RL, PL AT THE HOUR OF ELEVEN (Reliance) – 10 May 1915 (1 r.); cast: William Williams, Sarah 186

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McCombs, Runa Hodges, W.R. Randall; source: RL THE SMUGGLER (Majestic) – 12 May 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 158; started: 3 April 1915; completed: 12 April 1915; cost: $1,089.04; dir.: Raoul Walsh; cast: Raoul Walsh, Billie West, Ralph Lewis, Jack Dillon, J.P. McCarthy, Elmer Clifton; sources: RL, PL THE SON OF THE DOG (Reliance) – 12 May 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 159; started: 3 April 1915; completed: 10 April 1915; cost: $1,471.51; dir.: Claude Belmont; story: Epes W. Sargent; cast: Dark Cloud, George Walsh, Olive Adair; sources: RL, PL STRATHMORE (Reliance; a Mutual Masterpicture) – 13 May 1915 (4 r.); prod. no. 329; started: 16 March 1915; completed: 10 April 1915; cost: $4,940.66; dir.: Francis Grandon; sc.: based on Strathmore or Wrought by His Own Hand, by Ouida (pseud. of Luise De La Ramée); cast: Charles Clary, Elmer Clifton, Francelia Billington, Irene Hunt, Howard Gaye, Alfred Paget, Ray Myers, Wilbur Higby; sources: RL, PL MIKE’S ELOPEMENT (Reliance) – 14 May 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 161; started: 13 April 1915; completed: 17 April 1915; cost: $803.17; dir.: Ray Myers; cast: Harold Gordon, Violet Wilkey, Harold Goodwin, Fred Burns, Pearl Sherwood; sources: RL, PL ADDED FUEL (Reliance) – 15 May 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 156; started: 3 April 1915; completed: 24 April 1915; cost: $1,765.88; dir.: Fred Kelsey; cast: Irene Hunt, Jack Conway, Charles Lee, Vester Perry, W.E. Lowery; sources: RL, PL AT THE STROKE OF THE ANGELUS (Majestic) – 16 May 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 345; started: 3 April 1915; completed: 24 April 1915; cost: $4,172.33; dir.: Frank Grandon; cast: Charles Clary, Francelia Billington, Edward Warren, Anna May Walthall, Wilbur Higby; sources: RL, PL ETHEL’S ROMANCE (Komic, Majestic; Bill series, no. 23) – 16 May 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 349; working title: Bill No. 23; started: 14 April 1915; completed: 20 April 1915; cost: $1,040.05; dir.: Edward Dillon; sc.: based on stories by Paul West; cast: Fay Tincher, Bobby Feuhrer, Chester Withey, Edward Dillon, Elmer Booth, Frank Darien; sources: RL, PL WHEN CAMERON PASSED BY (Reliance) – 17 May 1915 (1 r.); dir.: Lawrence McGill; cast: William Williams, Gladie MacDonald, Alfred Krantz, William R. Randall. Note: The film was made at the Yonkers, NY studio; source: RL THE ELECTRIC ALARM (Majestic) – 18 May 1915 (2 r.); cast: Charles Gorman, Lillian Webster, Miss Payton, A.E. Freeman, Larry Payton; source: RL GRIDLEY’S WIFE (Reliance) – 19 May 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 162; started: 13 April 1915; completed: 24 April 1915; cost: $1,227.32; dir., sc.: Giles R. Warren; cast: Tom Wilson, Claire Anderson, Raymond Wells, Vera Lewis, Alfred Paget, M.G. Allen; sources: RL, PL THE HURON CONVERTS (Reliance; “Reliance Indian Stories” series) – 22 May 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 164; working title: The Converts; started: 10 April 1915; completed: 24 April 1915; cost: $2,433.38; dir.: Arthur Mackley; story: Dark Cloud; cast: Bessie Buskirk, Harry Moody, Dark Cloud, Joseph Henabery, Francis Carpenter; sources: RL, PL 187

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ELEVEN-THIRTY P.M. (Majestic) – 23 May 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 347; working title: Eleven Thirty PM; started: 10 April 1915; completed: 24 April 1915; cost: $2,457.83; dir.: Raoul Walsh; cast: Loretta Blake, Sam De Grasse, Erich von Ritzau, George Walsh, Al W. Filson, Curt Rehfeld, Olive Adair, Charles Lee; sources: RL, PL THE RIVALS (Komic; Majestic Children’s Pictures) – 23 May 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 348; started: 10 April 1915; completed: 17 April 1915; cost: $1,087.18; dir.: S.A. and C.M. Franklin; cast: George Stone, Violet Radcliffe, Carmen De Rue. Note: The production log lists C.M. Franklin as the sole director; sources: RL, PL GHOSTS (Majestic; a Mutual Masterpicture) – 24 May 1915 (5 r.). See DWG Project, #515. Additional information – prod. no. 149; started: 12 March 1915; completed: 23 April 1915; cost: $10,728.26; sc.: Russell E. Smith, Frank Woods; cast: Monte Blue?. Note: The entry for DWG Project #515 gives 1 June 1915 as a possible release date. The AFI Catalog cites modern sources crediting John Emerson as being originally scheduled to direct and responsible for the adaptation, and Erich von Stroheim as a wardrobe assistant and bit player. The film was reissued in 1919 as The Curse in a reconstruction with new titles. That version was given a pre-release title as The Wreck; sources: RL, PL, AFI THE CLIFF GIRL (Reliance) – 24 May 1915 (1 r.); dir.: Lawrence McGill?; cast: Alfred Krantz, William Williams, Gladie MacDonald, William R. Randall, Fan Bourke, Mr. Murray; Note: The film was made at the Yonkers, NY studio; source: RL A RIGHTFUL THEFT (Majestic) – 25 May 1915 (1 r.); cast: Eleanor Washington, Paul Willis, Charles Lee, Mildred Harris, William De Vaull; source: RL THE DEADLY FOCUS (Reliance) – 26 May 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 165; started: 23 April 1915; completed: 4 May 1915; cost: $1,484.02; dir.: Giles R. Warren; cast: Raymond Wells, Alfred Paget, Claire Anderson, Mrs. Wilson, Mrs. Von Buskirk; sources: RL, PL THE FAILURE (Reliance; a Mutual Masterpicture) – 27 May 1915 (4 r.); prod. no. 339; started: 3 April 1915; dir.: W. Christy Cabanne; sc.: W. Christy Cabanne and Tom Warder; ph.: William E. Fildew; cast: John Emerson, Wahnetta Hanson, A.D. Sears, Olga Grey, Augustus Carney, Erich von Stroheim?. Note: “Transferred New Feature Book”, May 10, 1915; sources: RL, PL LITTLE DICK’S FIRST CASE (Majestic) – 28 May 1915 (1 r.); dir.: S.A. and C.M. Franklin; cast: Majestic Juvenile Troupe, Harry Essman, Lloyd Perl, Jack Hull, Violet Radcliffe, Charles Gorman, George Stone, Carmen De Rue; source: RL FATHER AND SON (Mutual) – [29 May] 1915 (3 r.); dir.: Francis J. Grandon; story: Russell E. Smith; cast: Francelia Billington, Ralph Lewis, Henry Darien, Edward Warren; source: RL THE MAN OF IT (Reliance) – 29 May 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 163; started: 15 April 1915; completed: 27 April 1915; cost: $2,385.65; dir.: Fred Kelsey; cast: Irene Hunt, Jack Conway, Vester Perry, Margery Wilson, Ben Lewis, Elinor Stone, William E. Lowery; sources: RL, PL OUT OF BONDAGE (Majestic) – 30 May 1915 (2 r.) sc.: Chester Blinn Clapp; cast: Dorothy Gish, William Hinckley, Walter Long, Fred Turner, Richard Cummings, Frank Darien; source: RL 188

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GASOLINE GUS (Komic, Majestic) – 30 May 1915 (1 r.); dir.: Edward Dillon?; sc.: Chet Withey; cast: Fay Tincher, Elmer Booth, Edward Dillon, Max Davidson, Chester Withey, Frank Darien, Frankie Newman, Mildred Marsh; source: RL HER FILMLAND HERO (Majestic) – 1 June 1915 (1 r.); dir.: S.A. and C.M. Franklin; cast: Majestic Juvenile Troupe, Paul “Billy” Jacobs, Gordon Griffith, Olive Lord, Mildred Marsh; source: RL ONE WHO SERVES (Reliance) – 2 June 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 168; started: 6 May 1915; completed: 17 May 1915; cost: $983.83; dir.: Francis Powers; sc.: Frank E. Woods; cast: William Lowery, Katherine Henry, Richard Cummings, W. Freeman, Olive Adair; sources: RL, PL THE RACE LOVE (Reliance; “Reliance Indian Stories” series) – 5 June 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 166; started: 23 April 1915; completed: 8 May 1915; cost: $1,897.90; dir.: Arthur Mackley; sc.: C.N. Terry; story: Dark Cloud, based on legends he heard from his ancestors; cast: Joseph Henabery, Bessie Buskirk, Ray Myers, Dark Cloud; sources: RL, PL THE CELESTIAL CODE (Reliance) – 5 June 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 171; started: 8 May 1915; completed: 22 May 1915; cost: $1,880.23; dir.: Fred Kelsey and/or Raoul Walsh; cast: Irene Hunt, George Walsh, Harry James, Dark Cloud, Tote Du Crow, James Warnack, Harry Burns, Jack Dillon. Note: Production log lists Kelsey as director; Lauritzen & Lundquist list Walsh in the supplement to the second volume; sources: RL, PL, L&L THE LIVING DEATH (Majestic) – 6 June 1915 (2 r.); dir.: Tod Browning; cast: Billie West, Fred Turner, Edward Peil; source: RL BRAVE AND BOLD (Komic, Majestic) – 6 June 1915 (1 r.); story: Chester Withey; cast: Fay Tincher, Elmer Booth, Max Davidson, Edward Dillon, Chester Withey; source: RL A MOTHER’S JUSTICE (Reliance) – 7 June 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 170; started: 6 May 1915; completed: 17 May 1915; cost: $726.26; dir.: Arthur Mackley; story: Chester B. Clapp; cast: Mrs. Arthur Mackley, Bessie Buskirk, Joseph Henabery, Eleanor Washington, Charles Lee; sources: RL, PL DIRTY FACE DAN (Majestic) – 8 June 1915 (1 r.); dir.: C.M. and S.A. Franklin; cast: George Stone, Violet Radcliffe, Betty Marsh, Francis Carpenter, Master Van Brock; source: RL PAYMENT IN FULL (Reliance) – 9 June 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 169; started: 5 May 1915; completed: 15 May 1915; cost: $1,167.37; dir.: Giles R. Warren; cast: Frank Bennett, Anna Mae Walthall, Jack Cosgrave, Claire Anderson, Vester Perry; sources: RL, PL HER SHATTERED IDOL (Majestic; a Mutual Masterpicture) – 10 June 1915 (4 r.); prod. no. 340; started: 27 March 1915; dir.: John B. O’Brien; sc.: Anthony P. Kelly; from a story by Ella Woods; ph.: Harry B. Harris; titles: George Ade; cast: Mae Marsh, Robert Harron, Spottiswoode Aitken, Jennie Lee, Elmo Lincoln. Note: “Transferred New Feature Book”, March 27, 1915; sources: RL, PL THE TEN O’CLOCK BOAT (Reliance) – 11 June 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 173; started: 13 May 1915; completed: 22 May 1915; cost: $907.82; dir.: Arthur Mackley; story: Frank 189

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Dorance Hopley; cast: Joseph Henabery, Catherine Henry, Margery Wilson, John Sheehan, C.M. Linton, Betty Marsh, Elmo Lincoln; sources: RL, PL HEARTS UNITED (Reliance) – 12 June 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 172; working titles: United Again; Such Is the Kingdom; started: 12 May 1915; completed: 22 May 1915; cost: $1,562.75; dir.: Frank Powell; cast: Frank Bennett, Billie West, W.E. Lowery, Lucille Younge, Mildred Marsh, Violet Wilkey; sources: RL, PL THE BURNED HAND (Majestic) – 13 June 1915 (2 r.); dir.: Tod Browning; cast: Miriam Cooper, William Hinckley, William Lowery, Cora Drew, Jack Dillon, F.A. Turner, William Walbert; sources: RL, PL UNWINDING IT (Komic) – 13 June 1915 (1 r.); cast: Fay Tincher, Elmer Booth, Chester Withey, Margie Wilson, Max Davidson; source: RL THE OLD BATCH (Reliance) – 14 June 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 176; started: 22 May 1915; completed: 29 May 1915; cost: $664.94; dir.: Fred Kelsey; cast: William De Vaull, Paul Willis, Mildred Harris, Elinor Stone, Felix Modjeska; sources: RL, PL PIRATES BOLD (Majestic) – 15 June 1915 (1 r.); dir.: S.A. and C.M. Franklin; cast: Violet Radcliffe, Carmen De Rue, Harry Essman, Baby Radcliff, Elmo Lincoln, Rhea Haines, Jack Hull; source: RL THE HOUSEMAID (Reliance) – 17 June 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 177; working title: The House Maid; started: 21 May 1915; completed: 27 May 1915; cost: $793.73; dir.: Arthur Mackley; cast: Marguerite Marsh, Wilbur Higby, Mae Gaston, Frank Bennett; sources: RL, PL UP FROM THE DEPTHS (Reliance; a Mutual Masterpicture) – 17 June 1915 (4 r.); prod. no. 154; started: 27 March 1915; completed: 3 April 1915; cost: $11,896.44; dir.: Paul Powell and John Adolfi; asst. dir.: Roy Rice; sc.: Mary O’Connor, based on the play Up from the Depths by Charles Battell Loomis and Robert Stodard; cast: Courtenay Foote, Gladys Brockwell, Thomas Jefferson, William E. Lawrence, Mae Gaston. Note: Listed in Reliance short film production log but transferred to the new feature book where Adolfi was listed as co-director; sources: RL, PL THE OLD CLOTHES SHOP (Reliance) – 19 June 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 174; started: 13 May 1915; completed: 29 May 1915; cost: $2,213.37; dir.: Giles R. Warren; cast: Thomas Jefferson, Bessie Buskirk, W.E. Lawrence, Charles Gorman, Alice Field, Vester Perry; sources: RL, PL THE WOMAN FROM WARREN’S (Majestic) – 20 June 1915 (2 r.); cast: Lucille Younge, Charles West, Fred Turner, Billy Hutton, Frederick Thompson; source: RL WHERE BREEZES BLOW (Komic) – 20 June 1915 (1 r.); dir.: Edward Dillon; cast: Fay Tincher, Elmer Booth, Chester Withey, Edward Dillon; sources: RL, PL THE CHOIR BOYS (Reliance) – 21 June 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 178; started: 22 May 1915; completed: 29 May 1915; cost: $940.29; dir.: Fred Kelsey; cast: Bobby Fuehrer, Paul Willis, Mildred Harris, Ben Lewis, Howard Gaye, Mabel Dean, Miss Arnold; sources: RL, PL 190

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THE ASH CAN, OR LITTLE DICK’S FIRST ADVENTURE (Majestic) – 22 June 1915 (1 r.); dir.: S.A. and C.M. Franklin; cast: the Majestic Juvenile Troupe: Violet Radcliff, George Stone, Carmen De Rue, Harry Essman, Lloyd Perl, Jack Hull, Betty Marsh; source: RL THE SILENT WITNESS (Reliance) – 23 June 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 180; started: 27 May 1915; completed: 5 June 1915; cost: $1,456.12; dir.: Arthur Mackley; cast: Claire Anderson, Arthur Mackley, Mrs. Arthur Mackley, George Pierce, Vester Perry, Frank Bennett, Jack Leonard; sources: RL, PL THE MOTOR BOAT BANDITS (Majestic) – 25 June 1915 (1 r.); dir.: Fred Kelsey; cast: Irene Hunt, Felix Modjeska, Catherine Henry, Ben Lewis; source: RL The Moving Picture World, vol. 24, no. 13, June 26, 1915, p. 2074: “Mutual Stockholders Meet. Meeting Held at Richmond, Va. For the Purpose of Electing Directors – Rumors of Change in Management”. Rumor that Harry E. Aitken will not be candidate for the board, and an entirely new board will be elected. John R. Freuler mentioned as possible successor. Reel Life, June 26, 1915. The Election of John R. Freuler as President of the Mutual Film Corporation is announced. Edwin Thanhouser elected Vice-President; Felix E. Kahn re-elected as Treasurer and Samuel M. Field chosen as Secretary and General Counsel. Freuler, the head of American Film Manufacturing Co., replaces Harry E. Aitken.

A BAD MAN AND OTHERS (Reliance) – 26 June 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 179; started: 22 May 1915; completed: 5 June 1915; cost: $2,673.49; dir.: Francis Powers and/or Raoul Walsh; cast: William Lowery, Elmo Lincoln, Daisy Robinson, Violet Wilkey, George Walsh, Matt Deverish, W. Freeman. Note: Production log lists Powers; Lauritzen & Lundquist list Walsh in supplement to second volume; sources: RL, PL, L&L CHILDREN OF THE SEA (Majestic) – 27 June 1915 (2 r.); cast: Charles Clary, Francelia Billington, Wilbur Higby, Harry Moody, Joseph Henabery, William Hammond; source: RL BEAUTIFUL LOVE (Komic) – 27 June 1915 (1 r.); cast: Fay Tincher, Elmer Booth, Max Davidson, Loyola O’Connor, Miss Aichel; source: RL THE SHOWDOWN (Reliance) – 28 June 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 181; started: 29 May 1915; completed: 5 June 1915; cost: $1,389.15; dir.: Giles R. Warren; cast: Margie Wilson, Raymond Wells, Maxfield Stanley, Pearl Elmore, Mae Gaston; sources: RL, PL THE KID MAGICIANS (Majestic) – 29 June 1915 (2 r.); dir.: C.M. and S.A. Franklin; cast: George Stone, Carmen De Rue, Violet Radcliffe, Jennie Lee, Vera Lewis, Jack Hull, Betty Marsh, Edna Mae Wilson, Francis Carpenter; source: RL IN OLD MEXICO (Reliance) – 30 June 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 183; started: 3 June 1915; completed: 5 June 1915; cost: $819.48; dir.: W. Christy Cabanne; cast: Sam De Grasse, Walter Long, Alfred Paget, Ora Carew, Evelyn Carew; sources: RL, PL Motion Picture News, vol. XI, no. 26, July 3, 1915, p. 57: “J.R. Freuler Succeeds Aitken as Mutual Head” in annual election, Richmond, VA, 23 June. Edwin Thanhouser is first vice-president, succeeding Freuler; Felix E. Kahn re-elected treasurer. Daniel M. Field, Secretary and General 191

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Counsel, succeeds Miss E.L. Thomas in secretary and Arthur Seligsberg in General Counsel. Crawford Livingstone on Executive Committee with others. Mutual will concentrate on the selling end of the business. “Serve the exhibitor: ‘…I am one of those who believe that the moving picture business is one of volume… While occasionally features of unusual nature may command two dollar admission prices, one must not be confused over the real destiny of the moving picture business. It is essentially entertainment for the masses and not the classes. Hence it is our duty to furnish a program that may be used in a big, broad way by theatres charging fifteen, ten and five cents.’”

LITTLE MARIE (Reliance) – 3 July 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 182; working title: Redeeming Love; started: 29 May 1915; completed: 12 June 1915; cost: $1,683.90; dir.: Tod Browning; cast: Charles West, Signe Auen, Tom Wilson; sources: RL, PL THE OLD HIGH CHAIR (Majestic) – 4 July 1915 (2 r.); dir.: Jack Conway; cast: Gladys Brockwell, Marguerite Marsh, W.E. Lawrence, Ray Myers, C. Elliott Griffin; source: RL MR. WALLACK’S WALLET (Komic) – 4 July 1915 (1 r.); cast: Fay Tincher, Elmer Booth, Chester Withey, Max Davidson, Clarence Barr, Ed Dillon; source: RL THE HEALERS (Reliance) – 5 July 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 185; started: 5 June 1915; completed: 12 June 1915; cost: $1,374.59; dir.: Francis Powers; cast: Billie West, Bert Hadley, Violet Wilkey, Kate Toncray, William DeVaull, George Beranger, Elinor Stone; sources: RL, PL THE HIRED GIRL (Majestic) – 6 July 1915 (2 r.); dir.: Lloyd Ingraham; cast: Teddy Sampson, Claude Belmont, Cora Drew, Mazie Radford, Charles Lee, Elmer Clifton; source: RL THE FORTIFICATION PLANS (Reliance) – 7 July 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 186; working title: The Fortified Plans; started: 7 June 1915; completed: 19 June 1915; cost: $1,123.62; dir.: Jack Conway; cast: Elmer Clifton, Vester Perry, Gladys Brockwell, Fred Turner, Ben Wilson, Josephine Ashton, Ben Lewis; sources: RL, PL THE HEADLINERS (Reliance) – 10 July 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 184; working title: The Headliner; started: 5 June 1915; completed: 19 June 1915; cost: $2,561.66; dir.: Fred Kelsey; cast: George Walsh, Irene Hunt, William Lowery, Tote Du Crow, Phil Gastrock; sources: RL, PL THE MOUNTAIN GIRL (Majestic) – 11 July 1915 (2 r.); dir.: James Kirkwood; story: Mary Rider Mechtold; cast: Dorothy Gish, Ralph Lewis, W.E. Lawrence, Frank Bennett; sources: RL, MPW BEPPO, THE BARBER (Komic) – 11 July 1915 (1 r.); dir.: Edward Dillon; story: Chester Withey; cast: Fay Tincher, Edward Dillon, Elmer Booth, Chester Withey, Max Davidson, Frank Darien, Louise Aitchel; source: RL THE ARROW MAIDEN (Reliance) – 12 July 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 189; started: 12 June 1915; completed: 26 June 1915; cost: $1,344.21; dir.: Francis Powers; cast: Billie West, Eagle Eye, Dove Eye, Harry Moody, Daniel Davis, Prairie Flower; sources: RL, PL A TEN CENT ADVENTURE (Majestic) – 13 July 1915 (1 r.); dir.: C.M. and S.A. Franklin; sc.: Anita Loos; cast: George Stone, Carmen De Rue, Richard Cummings, Eleanor Washington, Charles Gorman, Jack Hull, Violet Radcliffe; source: RL 192

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A BREATH OF SUMMER (Reliance) – 14 July 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 190; started: 12 June 1915; completed: 26 June 1915; cost: $1,360.36; dir.: George Siegmann; sc.: Bernard McConville; cast: Charles Clary, Francelia Billington, Cora Drew, Olga Grey, William Hinkley, Joseph Landsberg; sources: RL, PL THE FOX WOMAN (Majestic; a Mutual Masterpicture) – 15 July 1915 (4 r.); dir.: Lloyd Ingraham; technical advisor: Henry Kotani; sc.: based on the novel The Fox-Woman, by John Luther Long; cast: Teddy Sampson, Seena Owen, Elmer Clifton, Bert Hadley, [unidentified Japanese players]; sources: RL, AFI Motion Picture News, vol. XII, no. 2, July 17, 1915, p. 87. “‘Sig,’ $ 4,000,000 Producing Company, Is Launched. Aitken, Baumann, the Kessels, and Griffith, Ince and Sennett Form Corporation Whose Name Consists of the Initials of the Three Directors, Sig – One Five-Reeler a Week Made by Griffith and Two Two-Reel Sennett Comedies are planned”. The details are learned from Charles Kessel. The company will own exchanges and plans to have 25 in place by mid-September. The service is to be exclusive, with theaters all over the country contracted to show films. One five-reel feature and two two-reel comedies will make up a weekly program. The contracts with Mutual for the New York Motion Picture Company, Reliance and Majestic expire in August. The major Reliance-Majestic stars will go to the new company. “One five-reel feature will be made a week under Mr. Griffith’s supervision, one five-reel feature under Mr. Ince’s supervision, and two tworeel comedies will be made each week under Mr. Sennett’s supervision.”

THE AMERICANO (Reliance) – 17 July 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 188; started: 12 June 1915; completed: 26 June 1915; cost: $3,371.63; dir.: John Emerson; cast: Thomas Jefferson, Marguerite Marsh, Lawrence Peyton, Raymond Wells, Karl Formes, Kate Toncray, Boyd Norton. [Editors’ note: This title should not be confused with another film with the same title, also directed by John Emerson (for the Fine Arts Film Company), in five reels, released on 28 January 1917 and starring Douglas Fairbanks]; sources: RL, PL THE MYSTIC JEWEL (Majestic) – 18 July 1915 (2 r.); dir.: Jack Conway; cast: Seena Owen, Lucille Younge, Charles West, Spottiswoode Aitken, Joseph Henabery, Elmo Lincoln, Jack Conway, William De Vaull; source: RL A CHASE BY MOONLIGHT (Komic) – 18 July 1915 (1 r.); cast: Fay Tincher, Elmer Booth, Clarence Barr, Max Davidson, Louise Aitchel, Elinor Stone, Edward Dillon, Gladys Brockwell; source: RL THE LIE (Reliance) – 19 July 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 193; working title: Toilers of the Sea; started: 19 June 1915; completed: 26 June 1915; cost: $1,037.76; dir.: Ray Meyers; sc.: based on a magazine story by D.W. Wonderly; cast: Adoni Fovieri, Joseph Singleton, William Hinkley, Betty Marsh; sources: RL, PL THE RUNAWAYS (Majestic) – 20 July 1915 (1 r.); dir.: C.M. and S.A. Franklin; cast: George Stone, Carmen De Rue, Violet Radcliffe; source: RL OLD MOTHER GREY (Reliance) – 21 July 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 195; started: 19 June 1915; completed: 26 June 1915; cost: $1,058.68; dir.: Francis Powers; cast: Teddy Sampson, Josephine Crowell, William Lowery, Olga Grey, Bert Hadley; sources: RL, PL

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THE LITTLE CATAMOUNT (Majestic) – 23 July 1915 (1 r.); dir.: Paul Powell; cast: Dorothy Gish, W.E. Lawrence, Ralph Lewis, Frank Bennett, William H. Brown; source: RL THE PRETENDER (Reliance) – 24 July 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 194; working title: The Tattooed Man; started: 23 June 1915; completed: 3 July 1915; cost: $2,090.26; dir.: Fred Kelsey; story: Bernard McConville; cast: George Walsh, Felix Modjeska, Vester Perry, Elsie De Wolfe, Ben Lewis, John Dillon; sources: RL, PL TANGLED PATHS (Majestic) – 25 July 1915 (2 r.); dir.: W. Christy Cabanne; cast: Francelia Billington, Sam De Grasse, Alfred Paget, Kate Toncray, Ora Carew, Signe Auen, Edward Warren; source: RL SAFETY FIRST (Komic, Majestic) – 25 July 1915 (1 r.); dir.: Edward Dillon; story: Edward Dillon, Chester Withey; cast: Fay Tincher, Frank Darien, Chester Withey, Max Davidson, Porter Strong, Bobby Feuhrer, Clarence Barr; source: RL HER FAIRY PRINCE (Reliance) – 26 July 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 196; started: 19 June 1915; completed: 26 June 1915; cost: $747.14; dir.: Joseph Belmont; cast: Violet Wilkey, Maxfield Stanley, Wilbur Higby, William De Vaull, Jennie Lee; sources: RL, PL THE STRAW MAN (Majestic) – 27 July 1915 (1 r.); dir.: C.M. and S.A. Franklin; cast: George Stone, Violet Radcliffe, Carmen De Rue, Augustus Carney, Jack Hull, Charles Gorman, Carl Formes, Jr.; source: RL BILLIE’S RESCUE (Reliance) – 28 July 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 199; started: 26 June 1915; completed: 3 July 1915; cost: $1,140.82; dir.: Ray Myers; cast: Joseph Henabery, Bert Hadley, Irene Hunt, Chandler House; sources: RL, PL FATE TAKES A HAND (Reliance) – 31 July 1915 (2 r.); dir.: Frances J. Grandon; cast: Francis McDonald, W.E. Lawrence, Wilbur Higby, Eleanor Washington, Adoni Fovieri; source: RL VICTORINE (Majestic) – 1 August 1915 (2 r.); dir.: Paul Powell; sc.: based on the story The Goings On of Victorine, by Julian Street; cast: Dorothy Gish, Ralph Lewis, William Hinckley, Walter Long, Mae Gaston, Vester Perry, Jennie Lee; source: RL THE BRIDE OF THE SEA (Reliance) – 2 August 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 198; started: 26 June 1915; completed: 10 July 1915; cost: $1,400.22; dir.: Francis Powers; cast: Billie West, Frank Bennett, Lucille Young, George Beranger, Olive Adair, Betty Marsh; sources: RL, PL THE DEACON’S WHISKERS (Komic) – 1 August 1915 (1 r.); dir.: Edward Dillon; sc.: Anita Loos; cast: Fay Tincher, Edward Dillon, Max Davidson, Chester Withey, Frank Darien, Elinor Stone; source: RL BILLIE’S GOAT (Majestic) – 3 August 1915 (1 r.); alternate or working titles?: Billie Goat; Billy Goat; cast: George Stone, Violet Radcliff, Harry Stoner, Jack Hull; source: RL THE LITTLE BOY THAT ONCE WAS HE (Reliance) – 4 August 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 191; alternate title: The Little Boy Who Once Was He; started: 19 June 1915; completed: 194

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3 July 1915; cost: $1,864.56; dir.: Jack Conway; sc.: based on a story by Zona Gale and a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; cast: Charles West, Spottiswoode Aitken, Marguerite Marsh, A.D. Sears, Jim Foley, Buddy Harris; sources: RL, PL A WOMAN OF NERVE (Reliance) – 6 August 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 200; started: 26 June 1915; completed: 3 July 1915; cost: $996.67; dir.: J.F. Belmont; cast: Olga Grey, Howard Gaye, Fred Kohler, Margie Wilson; sources: RL, PL Reel Life, August 7, 1915, p. 16: Mutual Film Corp. announces that beginning September 1st there will be a three-reel Knickerbocker Star Feature on the Mutual program every week. It will be produced by Gaumont, a new company on Mutual’s line-up.

THE CEREMONIAL TURQUOISE (Reliance) – 7 August 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 205; started: 3 July 1915; completed: 17 July 1915; cost: $1,922.13; dir.: Fred Kelsey; cast: Irene Hunt, Dark Cloud, Eagle Eye, Charles West, Eric von Ritzau, Philip Gastrock, Raymond Wells; sources: RL, PL BIG JIM’S HEART (Majestic) – 8 August 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 197; started: 26 June 1915; completed: 17 July 1915; cost: $3,216.96; dir.: John B. O’Brien; cast: Teddy Sampson, Charles Clary, Emmett J. Flynn, William Lowery, Fred Turner, Eagle Eye; sources: RL, PL FATHER LOVE (Komic) – 8 August 1915 (1 r.); dir.: Edward Dillon; cast: Fay Tincher, Frank Darien, Chester Withey, Olga Grey; source: RL THE LITTLE ORPHANS (Reliance) – 9 August 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 201; working title: The Little Orphan; started: 3 July 1915; completed: 10 July 1915; cost: $745.91; dir.: Ray Myers; cast: Violet Wilkie, Harold Goodwin, Edward A. Warren, Richard Cummings, Elberta Lee, Charles Gorman, J.P. McCarthy; sources: RL, PL THE RIGHT TO LIVE (Majestic) – 10 August 1915 (1 r.); cast: George Stone, Carmen De Rue, Violet Radcliff, Edwin Harley, Jack Cosgrave, Jack Hull; source: RL THE NOON HOUR (Reliance) – 11 August 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 203; started: 3 July 1915; completed: 10 July 1915; cost: $632.81; dir.: J.F. Belmont; cast: Billie West, O.V. MacDiarmid, Florence Elmore, Cora Drew, Monte Blue, James Cosgrave, Kate Toncray; sources: RL, PL Reel Life, August 14, 1915, pp. 22–25. An ad for the new Mutual Program lists the following companies: “American Film Co., Producers of Flying A Photoplays, American Beauty Comedies and Dramas; Bostock Jungle and Film Co.; Gaumont, producer of Knickerbocker Star Features and All-Star Comedies; David Horsley Productions, producer of Cub Comedies and Centaur Sensational Features; Mustang Film Company; Reliance Motion Picture Corp., producer of Reliance Star-Cast two and three reel features; and Thanhouser Film Corp., producer of Thanhouser Feature Plays and Falstaff Comedies. The program will start September 13, 1915 with two three reel Broadway Star Features; five two-reel Banner Features and nine one-reel comedies every week.”

THE WAY OF A MOTHER (Reliance) – 14 August 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 202; started: 3 July 1915; completed: 17 July 1915; cost: $2,021.59; dir.: Jack Conway; cast: Marguerite Marsh, George Walsh, Josephine Crowell, Joseph Henabery, Margie Wilson, Claire Anderson, Betty Marsh; sources: RL, PL 195

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THE KINSHIP OF COURAGE (Majestic) – 15 August 1915 (2 r.); cast: Francelia Billington, William Lawrence, Wilbur Higby, William H. Brown, Walter Long, Mildred Marsh, Violet Wilkey, Porter Strong, Nathaniel Deverich; source: RL THE FATAL FINGER PRINTS (Komic) – 15 August 1915 (1 r.); dir.: Edward Dillon; sc.: Anita Loos; cast: Fay Tincher, Edward Dillon, Max Davidson, Jennie Lee, Eleanor Washington, Frank Darien, Clarence Barr, Chester Withey; source: RL THE BIG BROTHER (Reliance) – 16 August 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 204; started: 3 July 1915; completed: 10 July 1915; cost: $863.43; dir.: Francis Powers; story: Robert C. McElravy; cast: Francelia Billington, Frank Bennett, Bobby Fuehrer, William Brown, George Beranger, Ben Lewis, Billie West, Charles Cosgrove; sources: RL, PL PROVIDENCE AND THE TWINS (Majestic) – 17 August 1915 (1 r.); cast: Gladys Brockwell, Elinor Stone, Joseph Henabery, Ninon Fovieri, Beulah Burns; source: RL AN INDEPENDENT WOMAN (Reliance) – 18 August 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 206; started: 10 July 1915; completed: 24 July 1915; cost: $1,113.80; dir.: Fred Burns; cast: Bobbie Gould, Vester Perry, Elinor Stone, Augustus Carney; sources: RL, PL A YANKEE FROM THE WEST (Majestic; a Mutual Masterpicture) – 19 August 1915 (4 r.); prod. no. 330; started: 20 March 1915; completed: 7 July 1915; cost: $4,850.63; dir.: George Siegmann; sc.: Mary H. O’Connor, based on the novel of the same title by Opie Read; ph.: B.C. Hayward; cast: Seena Owen, Wallace Reid, Tom Wilson, Josephine Crowell, Chris Lynton, William H. Brown, George Siegmann, Al W. Filson; sources: RL, PL THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL (Majestic) – 20 August 1915 (1 r.); cast: Spottiswoode Aitken, Jennie Lee, Elmo Lincoln, Juanita Hanson; source: RL THE LITTLE LUMBERJACK (Reliance) – 21 August 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 211; working title: The Little Boy Who Had No Name; started: 17 July 1915; completed: 31 July 1915; cost: $2,984.46; dir.: Ray Myers; cast: Paul Willis, Mildred Harris, Bert Hadley, Mrs. Harris, Dark Cloud, Charles Gorman; sources: RL, PL THE FATAL HOUR (Majestic) – 22 August 1915 (2 r.); cast: Charles West, Frank Bennett, Margery Wilson, Edwin Harley, Sam De Grasse, Vester Perry, George Beranger; source: RL FAITHFUL TO THE FINISH (Komic) – 22 August 1915 (1 r.); dir., sc.: Edward Dillon; cast: Fay Tincher, Edward Dillon, Bobby Feuhrer, Chester Withey, Frank Darien, Max Davidson; source: RL FAREWELL TO THEE (Reliance) – 23 August 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 208; working title: Aloha Oe; started: 10 July 1915; completed: 17 July 1915; cost: $1,119.51; dir.: Ray Myers; cast: Lucille Younge, Bessie Buskirk, Alberta Lee, Bert Hadley, Erich von Stroheim; sources: RL, PL THE LITTLE CUPIDS (Majestic) – 24 August 1915 (1 r.); dir.: S.A. and C.M. Franklin; cast: Billie West, Joseph Henabery, Violet Radcliff, Carmen De Rue, George Stone; source: RL 196

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EDITIONS DE LUXE (Reliance) – 25 August 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 207; started: 10 July 1915; completed: 17 July 1915; cost: $975.84; dir.: J.F. Belmont; cast: A.D. Sears, Billie West, Monte Blue, Richard Cummings, Eleanor Washington, C. Rehfeldt, John Kahler; sources: RL, PL A BOLD IMPERSONATION (Reliance) – 28 August 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 209; started: 17 July 1915; completed: 7 August 1915; cost: $2,777.34; dir.: Fred Kelsey; story: Bernard McConville; cast: Olga Grey, Erich von Ritzau, Carl Formes, Jr., Maxfield Stanley, Francis McDonald, George Walsh, Felix Modjeska, Erich von Stroheim?; sources: RL, PL A CHILD OF THE SURF (Majestic) – 29 August 1915 (2 r.); story: Mary H. O’Connor; cast: Teddy Sampson, Frank Borzage, Spottiswoode Aitken, William Lowery, T. Butler; source: RL SHOCKING STOCKINGS (Komic) – 29 August 1915 (1 r.); dir.: Edward Dillon; cast: Edward Dillon, Fay Tincher, Chester Withey, Max Davidson, Clarence Barr; source: RL FOR HIS PAL (Reliance) – 30 August 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 210; started: 17 July 1915; completed: 24 July 1915; cost: $2,777.34; dir.: J.F. Belmont; cast: A.D. Sears, Irene Hunt, Monte Blue, J.P. McCarthy; sources: RL, PL HEARTS AND FLOWERS (Majestic) – 31 August 1915 (1 r.); dir.: George Siegmann; cast: W.E. Lawrence, Francelia Billington, Francis Carpenter, Howard Gaye, Walter Long; sources: RL, PL THE TURNING POINT (Reliance) – 1 September 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 212; started: 24 July 1915; completed: 31 July 1915; cost: $1,258.46; dir.: Francis Powers; cast: Ralph Lewis, George Stewart, Marguerite Marsh, Wilbur Higby, Henry Mack, James Cosgrave; sources: RL, PL HIDDEN CRIME (Reliance) – 3 September 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 213; alternate title: Hidden Crimes; started: 24 July 1915; completed: 31 July 1915; cost: $953.23; dir.: J.F. Belmont; cast: Irene Hunt, Bessie Buskirk, Monte Blue, A.D. Sears, Richard Cummings; sources: RL, PL THE FATHER (Reliance) – 4 September 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 216; started: 31 July 1915; completed: 14 August 1915; cost: $1,705.80; dir., sc.: Francis Powers; cast: Francelia Billington, Ralph Lewis, Chandler House, William H. Brown; sources: RL, PL HER OATH OF VENGEANCE (Majestic) – 5 September 1915 (2 r.); dir.: Francis J. Grandon; story: Elizabeth Lonergan; cast: Teddy Sampson, Charles West, Wilbur Higby, Frank Bennett, Joseph Henabery, Elinor Stone; source: RL OVER AND BACK (Komic) – 5 September 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 409; started: 5 August 1915; completed: 14 August 1915; cost: $1,578.11; dir.: Edward Dillon; cast: Fay Tincher, Frank Darien, Chester Withey, Max Davidson; sources: RL, PL THE INDIAN TRAPPER’S VINDICATION (Reliance) – 6 September 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 214; dir.: Ray Myers; cast: Dark Cloud, Bert Hadley, Alice Pettus, Paul Willis, Mildred Harris, Charles Gorman, Art Ortega. Note: Production log says: “#214 taken during time 197

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of and in connection with #211 [The Little Lumberjack] Bear Valley. See #211 for all expenses incurred on both negatives [$2,984.46].”; sources: RL, PL FOR LOVE OF MARY ELLEN (Majestic) – 7 September 1915 (1 r.); story: Eleanor Hoyt Brainerd; cast: George Stone, Adoni Fovieri, Carmen De Rue, Elsie De Wolfe, James Cosgrave, Violet Radcliffe, Charles Gorman, Jack Hull; source: RL THE FAMILY DOCTOR (Reliance) – 8 September 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 218; started: 31 July 1915; completed: 14 August 1915; cost: $1,105.16; dir.: J.F. Belmont; cast: Monte Blue, Irene Hunt, Richard Cummings, A.D. Sears, William Moody, Adoni Fovieri; sources: RL, PL THE WOLF-MAN (Reliance; a Mutual Masterpicture) – 9 September 1915 (4 r.); dir.: Paul Powell; sc.: C.B. Clapp; cast: Ralph Lewis, Jack Brammall, Richard Cummings, William Hinkley, Billie West, Alberta Lee, William H. Brown; sources: RL, AFI THE STRONGER MAN (Reliance) – 11 September 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 215; working title: The Bush Leaguer’s Fall; started: 31 July 1915; completed: 21 August 1915; cost: $2,602.49; dir.: Fred Kelsey; cast: Irene Hunt, Francis McDonald, Jack Brammall, A.D. Sears; sources: RL, PL HIS GUIDING ANGEL (Majestic) – 12 September 1915 (2 r.); cast: Charles Clary, Gladys Brockwell, Jack Dillon, Bert Hadley, O.V. MacDiarmid; source: RL THE JINX ON JENKS (Komic) – 12 September 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 412; working title: The Jinks on Jenks; alternate title: The Jinks on Jenks; started: 14 August 1915; completed: 21 August 1915; cost: $1,014.23; dir.: Edward Dillon; cast: Max Davidson, Frank Darien, Ann Slater, Pearl Elmore; sources: RL, PL A DARK HORSE (Reliance) – 13 September 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 217; started: 31 July 1915; completed: 7 August 1915; cost: $1,187.05; dir.: Ray Myers; cast: Bobby Feuhrer, Fred Burns, Margery Wilson, Ben Lewis, William Ryno; sources: RL, PL THE LITTLE LIFE GUARD (Majestic) – 14 September 1915 (1 r.); prod. no. 410; started: 6 August 1915; completed: 14 August 1915; cost: $1,233.93; dir.: C.M. and S.A. Franklin; story: Bernard McConville; cast: Violet Radcliffe, George Stone, Carmen De Rue, Porter Strong; sources: RL, PL THE DOLL HOUSE MYSTERY (Reliance) – 19 September 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 220; started: 14 August 1915; completed: 28 August 1915; cost: $2,100.60; dir.: S.A. and C.M. Franklin; ph: Frank B. Good; cast: Charles Gorman, George Stone, Carmen De Rue, Jack Hull, Marguerite Marsh, Ben Lewis, Francis Carpenter, Betty Marsh, Violet Radcliffe, S.A. Franklin; sources: RL, PL MERELY PLAYERS (Reliance) – 26 September 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 219; started: 14 August 1915; completed: 28 August 1915; cost: $1,785.71; dir.: Francis Powers; cast: Billie West, Charles West, Frank Bennett, Howard Gaye, Harry Moody, Wilbur Higby, Walter Belasco; sources: RL, PL

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AS IN DAYS OF OLD (Reliance) – 3 October 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 221; working title: In Days of Old; started: 25 August 1915; completed: 30 September 1915; cost: $3,047.79; dir., sc.: Francis Powers; cast: William Moody, Harold Goodwin, Maxfield Stanley, Francis McDonald, Julia Faye, Betty Marsh, Mary Higby, Wilbur Higby, William De Vaull, Elinor Stone, Edwin Harley; sources: RL, PL BRED IN THE BONE (Reliance; a Mutual Masterpicture) – 7 October 1915 (4 r.); prod. no. 309; started: 13 February 1915; completed: 31 March 1915; cost: $5,129.65; dir.: Paul Powell; sc.: Russell E. Smith, based on writings of Frank Kinsella; cast: Dorothy Gish, George Beranger, Margery Wilson, Alberta Lee, Richard Cummings, William Hinckley, Seena Owen, W.E. Lawrence, Al W. Filson, Mary Alden, Eleanor Washington; sources: RL, PL THE QUEEN OF THE BAND (Reliance) – 10 October 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 222; started: 2 September 1915; completed: 18 September 1915; cost: $2,057.57; dir.: Ray Myers; story: Tod Browning; cast: Adoni Fovieri, Frank Bennett, Gladys Field, John McDermott, Phil Gastrock, George Walsh, O.V. MacDiarmid, Jack Cosgrave, Marguerite Marsh; sources: RL, PL ON THE BREAD LINE (Reliance) – 13 October 1915 (3 r.); prod. no. 316; working title: The Bread Line; alternate title: The Bread Line; started: 20 February 1915; completed: 15 March 1915; cost: $5,110.26; dir.: Francis Grandon; cast: Ralph Lewis, Howard Gaye, Francelia Billington; sources: RL, PL THE EVER-LIVING ISLES (Reliance) – 17 October 1915 (2 r.); prod. no. 223; working title: The Ever Living Isle; started: 6 September 1915; completed: 18 September 1915; cost: $2,611.82; dir., sc.: Francis Powers; cast: Eugene Pallette, Bessie Buskirk, James Cosgrave, Mrs. Hanforth, Harold Goodwin, Charles Mack, Harry Moody; sources: RL, PL THE PENALTY (Reliance) – 24 October 1915 (2 r.); dir.: Ray Myers; cast: Eugene Pallette, R.J. Bowles, Lillian Webster, A. Witting; source: RL THE FEUD (Reliance) – 31 October 1915 (2 r.); dir.: F.I. Butler; cast: Marguerite Marsh, William Hinkley, Raymond Wells, Porter Strong, Kate Toncray; source: RL THE LAW OF DUTY (Reliance) – 7 November 1915 (2 r.); dir., sc.: Francis Powers; cast: Joseph Singleton, Frank Bennett, Edwin Harley, Charles Mack, Maxfield Stanley, Daisy Robinson, Mathaleen Aamold; source: RL .

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14. CORRECTIONS AND ADDITIONS TO VOLUMES 1–11 361 THE REVENUE MAN AND THE GIRL Archival sources: Andreas Benz Collection (Neckarsulm, Germany), 8mm acetate positive, Killiam Collection/Blackhawk Films (generation undetermined) The 8mm print was viewed by David Mayer, who identified some performers and provided the following information on the print: Released by Blackhawk Films as The Revenue Man and His Girl. The Biograph main title also offers this alternate version. Cast identified from print viewed: Dorothy West (Moonshiner’s daughter); Edwin August (Revenue man); Gladys Egan (Moonshiner’s youngest daughter); Charles Hill Mailes (Father, chief of moonshiners); Charles H. West (Moonshiner). Synopsis from print viewed (by David Mayer): The moonshiner’s daughter is first seen caressing and kissing her pet dove. Carrying hollowed gourds to be used as “jugs” for the distilled brew, she is sent by her father to assist at the illegal still. Meanwhile, a pair of revenue men sneak through the forest, intent on discovering the still. Coming upon the girl’s cabin, the revenue men arrest and disarm two moonshiners, then begin their trek to take the arrested men back to jail. Alerted to the men’s arrest by the younger daughter, the moonshiners arm themselves and track the revenuers to the point at which they are handing the arrested men to other unidentified law officers. In the gun battle between the revenue men and the moonshiners, the girl’s father and one of the revenuers are killed. The other revenue man, frightened and disoriented, runs from his pursuers, loses his rifle in a fast-moving creek, and reaches a temporary hiding place exhausted and unarmed. The girl, discovering her father’s corpse and that of the slain revenuer, mourns her parent and promises vengeance against revenuers even as she abuses the revenue man’s dead body. With the father buried and mourned, the girl, armed with a rifle, joins the remaining moonshiners in pursuit of the hidden revenuer. She stalks the fugitive through the forest, spies him, and is about to take aim, when her pet dove drops from a tree directly onto the revenue man. He picks up and caresses the dove, feeds and releases it. Observing the revenue man’s kindness to the dove and moved by his gentleness, the girl is now disposed to be kinder to the revenue man. She takes him to her cabin, hides him beneath her bed, and pretends to be asleep when the moonshiner posse comes in pursuit. Having successfully saved the revenue man, the girl sends him on his way, but he hangs back, declares his love for the girl, and, after some hesitation on her part, gets her to confess her affection for him. We last see them as, backs to the camera and her belongings in a bundle tied to a stick, they stroll from the forest onto a country road leading to town. Commentary: The background to this film – prohibition in Kentucky and efforts by the state and national governments to suppress and tax the manufacture of alcoholic beverages and the battles with tax evaders that these efforts caused (see The Griffith Project, Volume 5, Films Produced in 1911, pp. 120–121) – is far more interesting than the film itself. Although Grif200

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fith has re-imagined the hardwoods of New Jersey for the hickories of Kentucky, and although he had personal experience of the Ohio River Valley where the film is allegedly set, Griffith has done a perfunctory job of realizing performances from his leading characters. West, much like the other moonshiners, expresses anger and her intent to extract vengeance with large rhetorical gestures. The revenue men (who, fortunately, always carry birdseed when they’re on tax raids in Kentucky, where white doves tend to plummet suddenly from trees) express death wounds and fatigue by clutching their sides. Griffith tries to exploit his property doves, but there is a limit to what actors can do with them before they fly off set. DAVID MAYER 379 SAVED FROM HIMSELF Archival sources: Killiam Collection/Blackhawk Films (format and generation undetermined) Synopsis from print viewed (by Charlie Keil): A young hotel clerk engaged to be married invests his life’s savings in the stock market. When the stocks’ value begins to drop, his broker alerts him that it is essential he send another $2,000.00 in order to prevent a total loss. The temptation offered by a large amount of money deposited at the hotel for safekeeping almost proves too much, but the man is prevented from incriminating himself by his fiancée’s influence. Commentary: By 1911, Griffith had proved himself as adept at crafting dramas of conscience as ringing variations on the more action-oriented last-minute rescue. But such was the director’s reliance on the resources of editing that even a psychological drama restricted to one locale would play out over sixty-seven shots, just slightly lower than the number of shots devoted to a typical Biograph single-reeler in 1911. (By comparison, I have calculated that the average number of shots per 1,000-foot reel for films made by other American companies in the same year comes in at close to twenty-five shots.) By consistently alternating among a defined number of spaces, Griffith distinguishes himself from his contemporaries in his handling of narrative action. Saved from Himself draws additional interest for the way the circumscribed setting serves the scenario’s dramatic needs. With all the action taking place in a hotel, Griffith compresses the various causal strands forming the narrative into a remarkably tight weave. Moreover, new spaces within the hotel are introduced judiciously: the film alternates between just two rooms for its first fifteen shots, and relies on only eight distinct spaces in total. This economy of (spatial) means not only focuses the dramatic action, but also helps to reinforce the idea that all of that action radiates outward from the main protagonist. The insularity of its title finds its formal correlative in the spatial strategies of Saved from Himself. Choosing a hotel as the setting proves the key for naturalizing the film’s pronounced spatial restriction. It provides a believable way for the clerk to meet a friend from his past, who has become prosperous due to lucrative stock investments; it keeps him in constant contact with his fiancée, who also works there; it fuses the home and workplace of the couple and the protagonist’s mother, all of whom have rooms at the hotel; and it readily supplies a source of temptation for the clerk when he needs money, as a guest at the hotel uses the lobby safe as a place to store his cash. Saved from Himself is an object lesson in how the restrictions of the single-reel narrative can elicit approaches of considerable ingenuity from filmmakers: in this case, Griffith ensures that motivations will be close at hand and that the effects produced by causes will be immediate, simply by keeping all the narrative agents within the same building for the plot’s duration. The film also demonstrates the director’s fondness for contiguity, as most of the shot-to-shot relations involve spaces touching upon the border of another. Griffith promotes this by using a hub-and-spoke approach to the film’s two primary 201

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spaces: on the main floor, the lobby anchors the narrative action, appearing in almost a third of the film’s shots, with a room to each side of the lobby constituting the only other playing spaces on that level of the hotel; on the second floor, a center-hall plan allows for the rooms housing all the dramatis personae to co-exist in close proximity. A visible stairway links lobby level to the floor above, further enhancing the connectedness of all of these spaces. Creating such a remarkably self-enclosed physical environment for his narrative, Griffith allows himself ample opportunities for linking spaces through glances cast from one room to another adjoining it. In this way, character knowledge advances quickly, pushing the plot ahead economically and eliminating the need for information to be relayed either through intertitles or diegetic emissaries. At the climax, the film’s spatial design allows for the fiancée’s discovery of the clerk’s transgression, a scene of confrontation where she reminds him of his responsibility to his mother, and the imminent threat of exposure by the victim of the erstwhile theft to occur in rapid succession without the series of events striking the viewer as a set of preposterous coincidences or engineered contrivances. The brisk pace of narrative development produced by the film’s closely arranged spaces also allows Griffith time to inject some grace notes, especially at the film’s beginning and end. The opening shot in the hotel’s lobby depicts a marvel of carefully choreographed activity: characters come and go, some entering from beyond the foreground limits of the frame. Even characters only glimpsed for a few seconds create an impression, as Griffith expends considerable effort in creating a sense of local colour, establishing effortlessly that the hotel is a popular meeting spot. At the film’s conclusion, when the chastened hero returns to his suite of rooms, he finds a flower that his devoted mother has left on his pillow and cherishes it as he ponders his brush with moral confusion. This moment of quiet reflection, which stands in direct contrast to the frenzied action dominating the opening shot, also helps to reinforce the message embodied in the title, and demonstrates ably why Griffith’s reputation at this time rested not only on his deft editing, but also on his capacity for illuminating the characters at the centres of his compact dramas. CHARLIE KEIL 427 TWO DAUGHTERS OF EVE Archival sources: Andreas Benz Collection (Neckarsulm, Germany), 8mm acetate positive (generation undetermined) Addition to Cast List: Lillian Gish (Landlady) The one daughter is shown talking to her child. Later the husband enters the room and the three leave and enter their machine. Arriving at the shopping district, the husband and wife alight, leaving the baby in charge of the chauffeur. The child, seeing that the chauffeur is not watching her, leaves the machine and wanders down the street. Coming to the stage door o[f] a theater, she enters, it being matinee day. The actress sees her, and taking the child on her knees talks to it, the other members of the company showing the child much attention. By this time the father and mother have returned, and not finding the baby in the car go in search of her. They enter the theater where they find the baby on the actress’s knee. The mother is indignant and greets the actress with the following remark: “How dare you contaminate my child with your touch?” The husband tries to smooth things over, telling the actress he is very sorry for his wife’s actions. The show girl, however, vows vengeance. The husband and wife return home, and later he leaves the house to go to the theater. During the ballet of the “Dance of Death,” the show girl has her opportunity and flirts with the husband. He meets her after the show and escorts her to her home. Later he takes her out and the wife follows them. On his return home she tells him that she saw him and there202

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upon decides to leave him. Taking her child she goes from the house. The husband continues his visits to the actress and later presents her with a handsome necklace. After a time financial reverses come and the [actress will have] no more to do with him. During this time the wife is having a hard time getting along, and as a last resort she applies for a position in the chorus. Here she meets the actress whom she forbade touching her child. Later the actress repents and presents the wife with the jewels which the husband has given to her, telling her that they rightfully belong to her. She then goes with the wife to her home where she is allowed to kiss the baby. Leaving the house, the actress meets the husband on the street and tells him of the whereabouts of his wife and child. He goes to them, and his wife, after a little time, consents to take him back. Synopsis from Copyright Material submitted to the Library of Congress October 21, 1912, LU50

Commentary: I viewed a DVD copy of the 8mm print that has recently become available. According to contemporary sources, the original film was 1,057 feet. The copy was twelve minutes long and transferred at 16 2/3 fps, which suggests that it is missing about five minutes. The Synopsis from Copyright Material submitted to the Library of Congress published in the earlier entry on Two Daughters of Eve (see The Griffith Project, Volume 6, Films Produced in 1912, pp. 132–134) seems substantially correct. The 8mm print that I viewed lacks the opening titles and the initial shot of the mother and child, and of the family entering their car, which is described in the copyright synopsis. The copyright synopsis also describes a scene in the green room of the theater in which the husband tries to calm his wife at the moment when she retrieves her child and denounces the showgirl. In the 8mm print this action is truncated and footage appears to be missing. Following the exit of wife and child, the showgirl apparently moves to the extreme right foreground (this is a supposition since the footage in which she moves is lost, and the actress, Florence Geneva, is largely cropped in the viewing copy). The husband apologizes to her in front of the other members of the company. This seems to inaugurate his romantic interest in her. The copyright synopsis suggests that the wife’s discovery of the affair between her husband and the showgirl is the result of a deliberate decision to follow him. This does not seem to be borne out by the viewing copy. Rather, while out driving in a taxi, the wife sees the family car parked outside a beer garden or garden restaurant. Upon investigating, she sees the couple together although they do not see her. (The scene in the open-air restaurant is also missing footage. A long shot shows the couple in the left foreground, the wife entering at the rear right and walking left. As she reacts to the couple, there is a cut-in to a medium shot. She apparently begins to sit down but the shot is truncated. The film cuts back to long shot, but the wife is not visible; presumably the opening of this shot in which we would have seen the wife exit has been lost.) As the copyright synopsis suggests, financial difficulties inaugurate the split between the husband and the showgirl, but the viewing copy indicates that the gift of the jewels plays an important role in the break-up. At her apartment, the husband presents the actress with the jewels (apparently a necklace and a bracelet). In the next shot, in his home, he examines a letter and paces nervously (there is no indication of the letter’s content in the viewing copy, although there may originally have been a title or insert which provided this information). Later, he returns to the actress, explains his situation and requests the return of the jewels. She refuses and shows him the door. Following his exit, she laughs and exults at the successful completion of her revenge, but then, after making a gesture indicative of the child – she holds out her hand at waist height – she buries her face in her hands expressing remorse. The showgirl’s refusal to give the husband the jewels at this point sets up her later gift of them to the wife: the completion of the circuit of exchange restores the family. 203

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The ending is quite remarkable. As noted in the copyright synopsis, the showgirl sends the husband to his wife and child. The scene of their reunion begins with a proleptic dialogue title: “LET ME THINK A MINUTE.” The husband enters and, hat in hand, asks his wife to have him back. She gestures to a clock on the table beside her. Griffith cuts to a close-up of the clock face with a self-contained sixty-second dial visible just below the numeral twelve. He then cuts in even closer, showing the second dial exclusively, as the hand moves from the fifteen-second mark through to thirty seconds. Cut back to long shot, with the husband standing, his back to his wife, gesturing in apology. Cut to the clock, then to the extreme close-up of the second dial. The second hand has now moved past the sixty-second mark, the dial shows five seconds and it moves through to its original position at the fifteen-second mark. In the long shot, the husband continues his gestural soliloquy indicating apology, his back to his wife. She holds out her arms laterally to her husband without otherwise moving her body. He turns, sees her and approaches. The viewing copy stops rather abruptly at this point. The end title is not an original Biograph title and it is conceivable that the viewing copy may additionally lack a final shot or shots although the copyright synopsis does not suggest any substantial action after this point. The wait in the final scene seems arbitrary – there is little emphasis on the psychology of the wife, for example, although we do see her hand tapping nervously in the first insert of the clock face. Rather, the editing demonstrates the passing of time as such. It may be an attempt to generate the kind of suspense, and dramatic climax, that Griffith usually achieved through a cross-cut last-minute rescue in his films of this period. If so, it is a remarkably exposed instance of the device. Like The Fatal Hour (DWG Project, #38), Two Daughters of Eve marks the passage of time by showing the hands move on a clock face; but, unlike the earlier film, and many subsequent Biographs, the film does not interweave two lines of action through editing to produce the delay on which suspense depends. Suspense is thus reduced to the simple demand that the husband wait for the wife’s decision. While the ending is not, in my view, particularly compelling, it is of interest for the way that the film bares a device so central to Griffith’s technique. The film makes creative use of cut-ins as noted above in the scene with the clock and in the scene in the open-air restaurant (the latter anticipating the more complex editing of the scene in The Mothering Heart, DWG Project, #478, in which the wife, hiding behind a tree, observes her husband with another woman). Cut-ins also play a prominent role in the Dance of Death, in which the showgirl onstage apparently looks at the husband seated in the audience. As I surmised in my previous commentary on this title, long shots of the dancers on stage alternate with reverse angles of the audience in which the husband is seated front row center. This kind of reverse-field cutting is evident much earlier in Griffith’s work, most notably in the scene at the theater in A Drunkard’s Reformation (DWG Project, #118). However, in Two Daughters of Eve, Griffith adds a third element to the alternation: cuts-in to a medium shot of the showgirl who, from a position at the front of the stage, looks down and right, apparently at the husband in the stalls. He also cuts away from the space altogether to show the wife waiting in her parlor. Unfortunately the viewing copy is incomplete, possibly as a result of censorship. We see the dance unfold in a long shot, during which the principal female dancer enters and begins to entice the principal male dancer. Cut to a medium shot of the showgirl, then to the audience including the husband in long shot, then back to the showgirl. In long shot, the ballet continues as the principal dancers begin to embrace. This action is interrupted by a prolonged fade. The film then returns to a final iteration of the medium shot of the showgirl followed by a shot of the audience. After a cut-away to the wife waiting at home, the dance concludes abruptly with the death of the male dancer. The audience applauds and rises to depart. While it is just possible that the film originally contained 204

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the fade, I think it is unlikely: I do not know of any Griffith Biographs with prolonged fades in the middle of scenes. I think it more likely that footage was removed at some point in the history of the print, probably footage of the dancers’ embrace but perhaps also of the showgirl signaling to the husband in some way. In any case it seems clear that, as in The Drunkard’s Reformation, Griffith doubles the hero’s situation with the story enacted on stage. In Two Daughters of Eve, however, he uses cut-ins to augment the effect of this doubling: the enticement of the male dancer in the Dance of Death is replicated in the invitation conveyed to the husband through the showgirl’s look. LEA JACOBS 468 THE LITTLE TEASE Archival sources: Andreas Benz Collection (Neckarsulm, Germany), 8mm acetate positive (generation undetermined). In an email from Mr. Benz to Russell Merritt (September 27, 2007), Mr. Benz pointed out that a videocassette of this film (VHS, NTSC format) was available from Nostalgia Family Video, Inc., formerly known as Hollywood’s Attic (Baker City, Oregon), derived from another videotape released by the video company Matinee Classics (see below). At the time of publication of The Griffith Project, no print of The Little Tease was known to exist; hence its inclusion in “The Lost Films of D.W. Griffith” (vol. 11, p. 207). At the time of this writing, the whereabouts of the source elements for the 8mm acetate print and the VHS videocassette are not known. The correspondence related to the quest for print elements is worth reproducing in its main episodes. Russell Merritt to Andreas Benz and Paolo Cherchi Usai, October 24, 2007: “The mystery of The Little Tease continues. David Shepard confirms that neither Blackhawk, EmGee Films, or Lee/Essex Film Library ever distributed the title. Gary Handman, who runs the UC Berkeley’s Media Resource, confirms that the Center bought the relevant videotape, The Short Films of D.W. Griffith: Volume 2, sometime in the mid-1980s. It was part of a package assembled by a fly-by-night bootleg video company called Matinee Classics, but virtually nothing is known about the company, except that it no longer exists. Everything points to a European source, but not an archival one. Paolo can confirm, but I assume that a FIAF archive would have reported such a holding to the Project. I can tell you that the print quality on the Matinee Classics video is fair to good. It is identical to Andreas’ print, but a 16mm version. Of the half-dozen Biographs I saw on the video, it is among the best, though the bar has been set low… Andreas, I wouldn’t be concerned that the titles are in English rather than in a European language. Many English language prints of Biographs made their way to the continent and even into Russia. Because Biograph had no European offices, the prints mainly came from independents who did with them what they liked. My hunch is that, if indeed this is a European print, it was made after Biograph went bankrupt and George Kleine who had taken over the company was selling off prints to domestic and European distributors alike. But this is all speculation.” Russell Merritt to Ken Weissman, Head of the Motion Picture Conservation Center at the Library of Congress, October 26, 2007: “I was most interested in reading your e-mail message announcing the death of Cynthia Rosasco and the fate of the Ann Arbor Silent Film Society collection, willed to her by Arthur Stephan. Did you ever learn what happened to it… I’m told that the one known surviving print [of The Little Tease] is in AASFS’s collection. Any help you could give in helping locate the print would be greatly appreciated.” Ken Weissman to Russell Merritt, October 29, 2007: “Well I have some good news. I was able to make contact with a writer who had written an online article on the AASFS. Through his good graces, my colleague George Willeman and I were able to contact Cindy’s mother, who had the films in her garage. She was very happy to donate the films to the Library – she had been stressing over what to do with them, and was quite gracious about our inquiry. One road trip later, we had the 205

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collection at our vaults in Dayton. I don’t know if the full collection has been identified and put in our online database yet, but I’m going to turn your inquiry over to George, as he was processing the collection. If we can find the film, then you can speak with Mike Mashon, the head of our Moving Image section[,] about borrowing the film for Pordenone. I have copied both of them on this reply.” Tomboyish mountain girl Little Tease has her head turned by a smooth-talking, charismatic stranger she finds wandering through the woods. The stranger persuades Little Tease to run away from home, but in the valley she discovers his true colors. In a hotel, she sees him making love to another woman, and considers shooting him. Instead she runs away and finds work in a roadhouse where her childhood sweetheart urges her to return home. Pride keeps her at the roadhouse, but the mountain flower her sweetheart leaves behind stirs irresistible family memories. She starts up the mountain while, by degrees, her father moves out of his bitterness while reading his Bible. Softened by his reading, he opens his window to let in the sunshine, sees his daughter at prayer over her mother’s grave, and calls her back into his arms. [Synopsis by Russell Merritt, The Griffith Project: Volume 7, 1913, p. 28]

Commentary: Welcome news. In late 2007, thanks to the enterprise of an independent German film collector, The Griffith Project became aware of a print of The Little Tease. Not only did this lead to the Project’s discovery of three more Biographs that we had also thought unavailable for viewing, but the print confirmed what the enthusiastic trade reviews of The Little Tease had promised: another Biograph gem. If not in the first rank of 1913 Biographs, it is a major breakthrough for Mae Marsh and yet another example of Griffith’s flair with pastoral formulas. I argued as much in my original note, based on the examination of the registration frames, plot summary, and original copyright scene descriptions. But I can now confirm that Marsh’s scene where she reacts to seeing Walthall betray her in an adjoining room is a tour de force. It is less complex than Blanche Sweet’s breakdown at the end of The Painted Lady, but full of dramatic surprise – less a betrayed innocent going to pieces than an immature young girl suddenly confronting her own naïveté. I can spare the reader lengthy revision to my original note, mainly because the frame clippings and the other materials provided such detailed and reliable guides to the movie. I did go overboard in promising a view of Marsh’s bare feet. True, she wanders around barearmed, but she wears shoes and stockings, and keeps her legs primly tucked away while on display in her tree. I also wish I had played up W. Chrystie Miller’s role as the Old Testament father crushed by his daughter’s flight into the valley. Griffith creates wonderful economies with a lantern that the father hangs in the window as a beacon for wayfarers. Biblical and art associations get interwoven – from the reference to Jesus as the Light of the World who will “stand at the door and knock” (Revelation 3:20) to the lamp of conscience, the lamp of the church, and – most precisely – to the lamp of the Biblical Word, with which the father’s lantern is so closely associated (“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet”, Psalm 189:89). When the old man loses his faith, he not only slams the Bible shut, he takes the lantern away from the window to smash it. The stranger, to whom the lamp had been hung as a sign of hospitality, has betrayed the father. The slamming of the Bible closes the home to the daughter; the smashing of the lantern closes the house to wayfarers. Two surprises come not from what is in the print, but from what is missing. First, there is the intertitle that originally followed shot 107, in which Mae Marsh’s mother collapses into a chair: DEAD – THE LOST FAITH. This lost title, referring both to the dead mother and desolate father, tightens the link between Mae’s flight, the mother’s death, and the father’s 206

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refusal to pay further attention to scriptural directives about love and forgiveness. Second, three missing shots at the end of the film eliminate the daughter’s sweetheart from the final homecoming. The shot breakdown indicates that Griffith originally ended the film intercutting the reconciliation between father and daughter with three shots of Bobby Harron peering in from the porch, ending either with Harron leaving the porch to join Mae and Miller inside, or with Marsh coming out to join Harron. By removing Harron, the current version leaves a plot thread dangling. The Little Tease’s faithful suitor has not only encouraged her to return home, he has also by now set the Bible up at the table where Miller sleeps, turning it to the page where he will find the healing scriptural text: “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death.” In the missing shots, Harron is looking on as the stage manager of the reconciliation, reaping his own reward at the final fade out. A word about the recently discovered print of The Little Tease. This is the work of German film collector extraordinaire Andreas Benz, who found it in his own collection of 8mm and 16mm films, and who on his own initiative got in touch with the Giornate and me in September 2007. The film was not, strictly speaking, lost. But it had gone unnoticed in all the FIAF and other institutional catalog listings because neither negative nor print (paper or otherwise) survived in any international archive. So it circulated below the archival radar on the 16mm and 8mm non-theatrical market, but even there, it lurked outside the usual commercial circles. The Little Tease was part of neither the Blackhawk, EmGee, or the Lee/Essex Film Collections, nor was it sold through Kit Parker, Budget, or even Grapevine. Who owned the original material is still unknown. The surviving Andreas Benz print preserves all but two intertitles listed in the 1913 shot breakdown, each one printed in the standard Biograph format; and it retains all but the final missing three exterior shots described above. However, the head and end title cards have been re-shot for a reissue unauthorized by Biograph. Curiously, The Little Tease was not included among the 1915–1916 Biograph reissues. Nor was it one of those Aywon Biograph reissues retitled by Nathan Hirsch in 1920. Most likely it derives from a bootleg source that, judging from the border design and lettering on the replacement head title, was made in the mid- or late-teens, but which was later recopied off-center with a printer set for sound aperture. Throughout, the prints survived as mavericks. In the mid-1980s the low-budget Matinee Video Company working out of a small town in Oregon made a video copy from a 16mm print and included it on their anthology, The Short Films of D.W. Griffith: Volume 2. This was the single title on the videotape that had not been duped from a Library of Congress paper print, and by comparison, it sparkles. But despite inquiries, the source of the Matinee Video original remains unknown. The Andreas Benz 8mm version is an exact copy of the 16mm print. In 2005 Benz purchased it from a Dutch distributor who had earlier bought it from an American collector, Arthur Stephan, founder and president of the Ann Arbor (Michigan) Silent Film Society. Although much of Stephan’s collection was donated to the Library of Congress after his death a year later, The Little Tease was among the large number of individual titles that got away, sold to private collectors. So far, the circle remains incomplete: from the United States to Holland to Germany. Will a screening in Italy [at the Giornate del Cinema Muto in Pordenone, October 2008] lead to the discovery of an American source? RUSSELL MERRITT 609 AMERICA Archival sources: John Stone Collection (Arlington, Virginia), 16mm acetate positive (from 35mm nitrate negative of the UK release version)

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610 ISN’T LIFE WONDERFUL In an email correspondence to Paolo Cherchi Usai (October 31, 2007), Catherine Surowiec pointed out that the John Grierson quotation on the film appeared for the first time in a 1935 book, as follows: “Epic too can have its way if it is as rough-shod as The Covered Wagon, as sentimental for the status quo as Cavalcade, as heroic in the face of hunger as Nanook [of the North]. Heaven defend it if, as once happened in Griffith’s Isn’t Life Wonderful, the hunger is not of Eskimos but of ourselves.” John Grierson, “The Cinema To-day”, p. 222, in The Arts To-day, edited by Geoffrey Grigson (London: John Lane/The Bodley Head, 1935). Grierson’s full essay covers pp. 219–250. 618 THE DRUMS OF LOVE Archival sources: Mary Pickford Foundation (Los Angeles), 35mm acetate negative (intertitles only); 35mm acetate fine grain master; 35mm acetate positive, r. 1–2 624 ABRAHAM LINCOLN William M. Drew to Kevin Brownlow, May 16, 2008: “I had always assumed that Abraham Lincoln, while a critical success, performed so poorly at the box office that it quickly vanished from the theatres, not to resurface in archives and on 16mm rental until decades later. This assumption was confirmed by James Agee’s statement in his famous, eloquent tribute to Griffith in 1948 that he always regretted not having seen Abraham Lincoln, which he characterized as Griffith’s last film to be released, and how a friend had told him about the wonderful opening scene. Quite apart from the myth that The Struggle was never released (as I [point out below], it actually had a respectable run of nearly two years), this suggests that Abraham Lincoln, after its short run in the early 1930s, was almost impossible to see by the late 1940s. In fact, as I’ve discovered from my research on the newspaper archive, Griffith’s Abraham Lincoln had a longer run in the [United States] than any of his other films, apart from The Birth of a Nation. It was continually shown here for at least twenty years – from 1930 to 1950 or so and, with The Birth of a Nation, was only one of two Griffith films still in theatrical distribution at the time of his death. A number of these revivals resembled the annual Easter screenings of De Mille’s The King of Kings. That is to say, they were non-profit showings sponsored by church and civic groups, including annual showings on Lincoln’s birthday. But there were also innumerable theatrical revivals during the two decades that it was in circulation. Indeed, on one occasion in 1949, Griffith’s Abraham Lincoln was the featured attraction at a drive-in [theatre], perhaps the only Griffith film ever shown at a drive-in theatre. Why Agee was not aware of this and was unable to take advantage of its continual run to see it, I have no idea. Still, the [United States] is a big country and without the advantage of something like the Internet, Agee might not have been aware that Abraham Lincoln was widely being shown around the nation during those years. The fact that it did have such a constant presence – and long after the release of the later Lincoln films by John Ford and John Cromwell – indicates that, whether or not it was an immediate blockbuster, Griffith’s Abraham Lincoln nevertheless was quite popular with audiences who kept it on the screen for many years. It was only sometime in the 1950s that it seems to have become less visible for a time. It was edited for use in public schools in the 1950s, and I am still not clear if it was broadcast during the early years of television. Certainly, the fact that Abraham Lincoln fell into the public domain in 1958 indicates that there was no longer a strong commercial interest in it by then. Nevertheless, as noted above, I’ve found through my research that it did enjoy a rather remarkable long run. The one regrettable consequence of this was that parts of the film were edited out over the years, including, sadly, the sequences showing the horrors of 208

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slavery (especially ironic since one of the more persistent anti-Griffith myths is the claim that he was insensitive to slavery if not an out-and-out supporter of the ‘peculiar institution’). I hope that the print of Abraham Lincoln shown at Pordenone [in 2008] is the most complete one in existence, consistent with what Paul Killiam once distributed on videotape but which is rarely seen otherwise. (The last time Turner Classic Movies showed Abraham Lincoln [on television] it was the shorter version, minus the slavery scenes and other sequences exclusive to Killiam’s version.) Killiam’s version, the most complete I have seen, is still about five minutes shorter than the film was at its premiere.” 626 [PROLOGUES TO THE BIRTH OF A NATION REISSUE] William M. Drew to Kevin Brownlow, May 16, 2008: “Looking at the updated Pordenone website today, I noticed your paragraph on the Birth of a Nation prologue along with the other pieces on Griffith’s late films. Regarding your thought that the Walter Huston prologue was probably not used for public screenings, I have a clear memory from articles in the San Francisco papers that this prologue was featured with the synchronized Birth of a Nation when the film first opened at the Geary Theatre in San Francisco in the fall of 1930. However, it seems to have been cut from the film not long after as I can find no mention of the prologue in the many articles and advertisements heralding the nationwide reissue of the synchronized version throughout 1931 when I was searching the online newspaper archive. Fortunately, however, the prologue was eventually rediscovered and made available in the 1960s.” 627 THE STRUGGLE William M. Drew to Kevin Brownlow, May 16, 2008: “[Eileen Bowser] states [in The Griffith Project, vol. 10, pp. 241–242] […] that after the disastrous reception of The Struggle in New York, it never went beyond a few screenings in Philadelphia before being pulled from distribution and that some years later, it was reissued as a ‘laugh’ movie under the title Ten Nights in a Barroom. However, because of my access to the online newspaper archives, I have very different information. While, to be sure, it was not well received by contemporary critics and probably did not fare very well at the box office, The Struggle was hardly limited to a few screenings in just two U.S. cities followed not long after by a gagged-up reissue. In fact, The Struggle was exhibited in theatres across the United States throughout 1932 and well into 1933. I have found on the newspaper archive numerous cities where it was playing all over the [United States] at that time. Not only that[,] but it was exhibited in Jamaica and in Great Britain as well. As for the story suggesting that just a few years later it finally appeared to a presumably larger audience as a recut, gagged-up Ten Nights in a Barroom, that also turns out to be an exaggeration. This notion actually stems from a 1949 compilation film entitled The Good Old Days. Much of this consisted of scenes from silent comedies along with scenes from more serious early films, including Griffith’s Biographs, accompanied by humorous narration à la Flicker Flashbacks. From the early talkie era, there was footage from Shirley Temple’s Educational comedies and scenes from at least one sound feature about which the reviewer for the Los Angeles Times commented: ‘D.W. Griffith’s Ten Nights in a Bar Room [sic] provides the only really serious note, for Griffith’s genius is immortal. The cast is not given, but the late Hal Skelly was the leading man.’ While this indicates the extent to which The Struggle had been buried in obscurity in the years since its release with even the original title and other cast members forgotten, the reviewer’s observation suggests that, whether or not the inclusion of scenes from the film had been intended to be humorous, its effect on both the critic and the audience viewing this segment was hardly that of a ‘laugh’ movie but rather produced 209

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the serious effect that Griffith had intended. That makes it unlikely it would have been overlaid with funny narration or re-editing to make it appear risible. In any case, it was not a stand-alone reissue of the entire feature such as has been claimed over the years. Indeed, I have no indication that The Good Old Days was ever as widely seen in 1949 as The Struggle itself had been in 1931–33 (at this point, I’m not even sure if The Good Old Days played anywhere but Los Angeles), and I would hardly characterize 1949 as ‘some years’ or a ‘few years’ after 1931. It was, of course, one year after Griffith’s passing and nearly two decades after the film’s release – an eternity in film history years. The notion, therefore, that sometime in the later 1930s Griffith had to be subjected to the humiliation of a public travesty of his final film appears to be a somewhat melodramatic invention that is at odds with the facts. It is quite possible that this exaggerated story originated with Raymond Rohauer[,] who was beginning his long involvement with early films in Los Angeles at the time The Good Old Days was shown there and who later claimed rights to The Struggle.”

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