Scott Lord Silent Film: Mary Pickford in What The Daisy Said (D.W. Griff...

During 1910 D.W. Griffith directed actress Mary Pickford in the short film "What The Daisy Said", photographed by G.W. Bitzer. Silent Film Biograph

Scott Lord Silent Film: Lonely Villa (D.W. Griffith, Biograph, 1909)

In her autobiography, Lillian Gish discusses D.W. Griffith's use of shot length in "The Lonely Villa". Author Stanley J. Solomon, in his volume The Film Idea sees "The Lonely Villa" as only the on,y the beginning of the development of new film techniques by D.W. Griffith, almost intimating that there would be a synthesis of Griffith as an autuer and new developments in filmmaking would combine. "Although Griffith was working now with materials that could not be effectively duplicated onstage, 'The Lonely Villa' was not really totally cinematic. Griffith's understanding of spatial relationships was still limited; to get a person from one point to another, Griffith shows him moving there in stages." The passage is particularly refreshing because through it Solomon imparts to us where the title of his volume The Film Idea comes from and how it is his point of departure. He writes,"But Griffith learned quickly that a meaningful narrative must be embedded in a total film idea. Otherwise, when the surface movement is the whole film idea, the camera functions simply as a recording device and most of its expressive possiblilities are relegated to either unimportance or mere technique."

In her volume her volume D.W. Griffith, American film master, Iris Barry sees the film technique used by D. W. Griffith developed quickly during a short period of time, "In The Lonely Villa many scenes begin quietly with the entrance of the characters into the set, significant action follows this slow-paced start only belatedly. In The Lonedale Operator there is no leisurely entrance, the characters are already in mid-action when each shot begins and there is no waste footage- no deliberation in getting on with the story when haste and excitement are what is needed." Barry adds, "At no time did he use a scenario. But there was considerable protest when, quite early in his directorial career, he insisted on retaking unsatisfactory scenes and succedded in gaining permission to do so in The Lonely Villa. Bitzer and others were aghast at his extravagence with film."

Silent Film D. W. Griffith Biograph Film Company

Scott Lord Silent Film: Biograph Film Company; The Lure of the Gown (D.W...

Actresses Marion Leonard and Florence Lawrence appeared with Linda Arvidson in "The Lure of the Gown", directed by D.W. Griffith and photographed by G.W. Bitzer in 1909. Silent Film D.W. Griffith D.W. Griffith

Scott Lord Silent Film: Confidence (D.W. Griffith, 1909)

D.W. Griffith wrote and directed the one reel film "Confidence" during 1909. Photographed by G.W. Bitzer and Authur Marvin, the filmfeatures Florence Lawrence along with D.W. Griffith's wife, Linda Arvidson, and Kate Bruce.

SILENT film D.W. Griffith Biograph Film Company

Scott Lord Silent Film: A Strange Meeting (D.W. Griffith, Biograph, 1909)

"A Strange Meeting", directed by D. W. Griffith for the Biograph Company during 1909 starred actress Stephanie Longfellow. Silent Film D.W. Griffith Biograph Film Company

Scott Lord Silent Film: The Country Doctor (D.W. Griffith, Biograph, 1909)

One technique used to present narrative by D.W. Griffith, although the principle thematic action was two interior scenes connected by cutting on action, was to introduce the film with an exterior panning shot as the establishing shot. The film is concluded with a similar exterior shot which pans in the opposite direction to imply the story had reached an irrevocable conclusion.

Written and directed by D.W. Griffith the film stars Gladys Egan, Mary Pickford, Florence Lawrence and Kate Bruce. D.W.Griffith D.W. Griffith Biograph Film Company

Scott Lord Silent Film: Corner in Wheat (D.W. Griffith, Biograph, 1909)

"The Miller's Daughter", "The Song of the Shirt"(1908) and "A Corner of Wheat", directed by D.W. Griffith for the Biograph Film Company are early films that depicted the individual within a social context. Kay Sloan, in her copyrighted paper "Silent Cinema as Social Criticism, Front Page Movies", writes, "The comedies, melodramas and occaisional westerns about labor conflict, tenement poverty or political corruption reveal through fantasy an America torn with ideological conflict." Pointing out that film companies looked to the contemporay "muckrackers" for story lines, she includes the films "The Suffragete's Revenge" and "The Reform Candidate" as being timely depictions of audience involved in reception, extending that audience to the readers of Upton Sinclair, but later attributes the decline of social drama to the development of the feature film after World War I. She adds to these the film "The Govenor's Boss" which took its storyline from Tammany Hall while modernizing its theme and message, a technique often attempted by D.W. Griffith. Studio advertisements for "A Corner in Wheat" hailed "The Story of Wheat in Symbolism", writing, "This is possibly the most stirring and artistic subject ever produced by Biograph. It starts with an animated portrayal of Millet's masterpiece 'The Sowers'." "A Corner of Wheat" had been adapted by D.W. Griffith and Frank Woods from the novel "The Pit" and the short story "A Deal in Wheat", both written in 1903 by the sometimes controversial author Frank Norris.

The steady, weekly competition from other studios during 1909 was typical for the release of the Biograph film "In a Corner of Wheat"; from Selig there was "Pine Ridge Fued", from Lubin there was "Romance of the Rocky Coast", from Essany there was "The Heart of a Cowboy", from Vitagraph there was "Two Christmas-Tides" and from Edison Films there was "Fishing Industry in Gloucester, Mass.". The following week Biograph released "A Trap for Santa Claus" while Vitagraph vied for its audience with "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and Selig with "A Modern Dr. Jeckyll". As the competition was weekly, the month before Kalem had released "Dora", a dramatization of the poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson and Vitagraph had offered "Lancelot and Elaine". Silent Film D.W. Griffith Biograph Film Company

Scott Lord Silent Film: The New York Hat (D.W. Griffith, Biograph)

Directed by D. W. Griffith, the film features the first photoplay written by Anita Loos. Subsequently, Loos was to write the scenarios and screenplays to films which starred Douglas Fairbanks. The New Movie Magazine during 1930 nostalgically related that the film had also introduced Lionel Barrymore to the screen and that Loos, who had only been sixteen years old at the time of its release, had received “the large sum of $15” for writing the film. Author Iris Barry explains that it was not only Anita Loos that was behind the scenes, “At this period, ideas for films were commonly bought from outsiders and members of the company alike. Mary Pickford, Mack Sennett and others contributed many of the plots Griffith used.” This in part can be taken into consideration when apply Autuer theory to the abrupt difference between the scriptwriting methods of D.W Griffith and Thomas Ince and when reconsidering autuer theory when comparing the directorial efforts of D.W. Griffith and Ingmar Bergman in the mileau of a theatrical acting company.
In the volume D.W. Griffith, American Filmaker, Iris Barry writes that 1912 was a year that D.W. Griffith was an innovator not only in the depiction of social themes and social problems but also in film technique and the uses of the camera as well as the legnthening of the onscreen running time of the two reeler. Barry describes the filmmaking involved in “The New York Hat” (one reel),The film uses cut-backs, close-shots and sharply edited scenes with ease and mastery: close-ups made acting a matter of expresssion and minute guestures instead of the stereotyped guestures of the popular theater.”
In the short scenes of Griffith’s film, Mary Pickford is shown to the right of the screen in medium close shot, trying on a hat, her hands and elbows shown in the frame. Griffith cuts on the action of her leaving the frame to exterior shots. In a later scene, Griffith positions her to the left of the screen, and, his already having shown time having elapsed between the two scenes, then brings the action back to the right of the screen frame. As an early reversal of screen direction, or screen positioning, there is the use of screen editing in between the complimentary positions of showing her in the same interior. During the film the actress is, almost referentially, often kept in profile, facing to the right of the screen's frame. Although Griffith may have been still developing editing techniques, it has been noted that the acting style in the film can be seen as an example of a more naturalistic and less histrionic acting style than that of other contemporary films.

Silent Film D.W. Griffith Biograph Film Company

Scott Lord Silent Film: The Girl and Her Trust (Griffith, Biograph, 1912)

DUring 1912 actress Dorothy Bernard starred in for director D.W. Griffith at Biograph in the one reel "The Girl and Her Trust".

Dorothy Bernard went on to film for the Fox Film Corporation, beginning with the 1915 film "The Song of Hate" (seven reels) directed by J. Gordon Edwards.The film is presumed to be lost, with no surviving copies.

Silent Film

Scott Lord Silent Film: The Switchtower (Biograph, 1913)

During 1913 D.W. Griffith directed Lional Barrymore and Henry B. Wathall in the one reel film "The Switchtower". Silent Film SILENT FILM D.W. Griffith SILENT FILM

Scott Lord Silent Film: The Lonedale Operator (Griffith, 1912)

In her autobiography, Lillian Gish discusses D.W. Griffith's cutting between camera distances in "The Lonedale Operator" (one reel). The photoplay was written by Mack Sennett and photographed by G.W. Bitzer for the Biograph Film Company durin 1912. Linda Arvidson, writing as Mrs. D. W. Griffith, in her autobiography entitled "When the Movies Were Young" recounts the importance of "The Lonedale Operator" to the career of actress Blanche Sweet, "Mr. Griffith, as of yet unwilling to grant that she had any soul or feeling in her work, was using her for 'girl' parts. But he changed his opinion with 'The Lonedale Operator'. That was the picture in which he first recognized ability in Miss Sweet." Arvidson later phrases it as "screen acting that could be recognized as a portrayal of human conduct". In another account contained in the volume, Arvidson chronicles D.W. Griffith having met with Blanche Sweet "on the road" with an offer to film two reelers in Calfornia neccesitated by the departure of Mary Pickford to the IMP Studios. Silent Film D.W. Griffith Biograph Film Company

Scott Lord Silent Film: An Unseen Enemy (D.W. Griffith, Biograph 1912)

The year 1912 was to mark the first film with Lillian and Dorothy Gish, “An Unseen Enemy” (one reel), directed by D.W. Griffith. Lillian and Dorothy Gish appeared in a dozen two reel films together during 1912 and several more during 1913. In The Man Who Invented Hollywood, the autobiography of D.W. Griffith, published in 1972, Griffith outlines his arriving at the Biograph Film Company and adding actors, including Mary Pickford,tohis ensemble. Griffith recalls, "One day in the early summer of 1909, I was going through the dingy, old hall of the Biograph studio when suddenly the gloom seemed to disappear. The change was caused by the prescence of two young girls sitting side by side and on a hall bench...They were Lillian Gish and Dorothy Gish. Of the two, Lillian shone with an extremelyfragile, ethereal beauty...As for Dorothy, she was lovely too, but in another manner- pert, saucy, the old mischief popping out of her."
Silent Film


Lillian and Dorothy Gish Biograph Film Company

Scott Lord Silent Film: Lena and the geese (D.W. Griffith, Biograph, 1912)

During 1912 Mary Pickford, Kate Bruce and Mae Marsh starred for D.w. Griffith at Biograph in the one-teel "lena and the Geese". Silent Film D.W. Griffith Biograph Film Company

Scott Lord Silent Film: The Lesser Evil (D.W. Griffith, Biograph, 1912)

The Lesser of Evil starred actresses Blanche Sweet and Mae Marsh and was directed for Biograph by D.W. Griffithduring 1912. The film was photographed by G.W Bitzer. Silent Film Biograph Film Company

Scott Lord Silent Film: Sunbeam (Griffith, Biograph, 1913)

Directed by D.W.Griffith and photograped by G.W. Bitzer in 1912, "Sunbeam" featured the talents of actress Kate Bruce.

Silent Film D.W. Griffith Biograph Film Company

Scott Lord Silent Film: Mary Pickford in The Broken Locket (D.W. Griffit...

Both Mary Pickford and Lottie Pickford appear in the one reel film "The Broken Locket", directed by D.W. Griffith and photographed by G.W. Bitzer. Silent Film D.W. Griffith Biograph Film Company

Scott Lord Silent Film: Linda Arvidson in The Adventures of Dollie (D.W....

Actress Linda Ardvison, writing in the periodcial Film Fun during 1916, includes the "now historic" film "The Advntures of Dollie" (one reel) directed by D.W Griffith for the Biograph Film Company in 1908. Arvidson wrote under the name Mrs. D.W. Griffith. In one installment she reminisces about travelling to film exterior scenes, claiming they hadn't automobiles yet and visited locations by train or by boat. In a later installment she dicusses her salary for the film, "How much money I made! Twenty eight dollars in two weeks, enough for a whole spring outfit." What is more enjoyable is the autobiography of Mrs. D.W. Griffith, When Movies Were Young, published in 1925. Much of the material from the Film Fun periodical is repeated, worded similarly, as she gives an account of D.W. Griffith the actor being offered a provisional chance to direct his first film, "The Adventures of Dollie", given that he could return to acting if necessary. Mrs. D.W. Griffith exlains Griffith having been accepted as a director for Biograph, "For one year now, those movies so covered with slime and so degraded would have to come first to come first in his thoughts and affections....agonizing days when he would have given his life to be able to chuck the job." She includes not only the studio on East Fourteenth Street but the theaters on Third and Ninth Avenues as places into which one would not be seen going.
Author Roger Manvell, in his sixty page introduction to the anthology "Experiment in the Film" credits "The Adventures of Dollie" as the first film in which D.W. Griffith had used the flashback. Silent Film D.W. Griffith D. W. Griffith

Scott Lord Silent Film: Marion Leonard in Over Silent Paths (Biograph, D...

Actress Marion Leonard co-starred with D.W. Griffith and his wife Linda Arvidson during 1908 in the film "At the Crossroads of Life" (one reels) directed by Wallace McCutheon Jr. D.W. Griffith directed her in "Over Silent Paths" (one reel) in 1910. Mack Sennet appears in the film. D.W.Griffith D.W. Griffith Biograph Film Company

Scott Lord Silent Film: Mary Pickford in The Unchanging Sea (Griffith, 1...

D.W. Griffith directed his wife, Linda Arvidson, and actress Mary Pickford in "The Unchanging Sea" (one reel) during 1910. The film was adapted from a poem by Charles Kingsley and photographed by G.W. Bitzer. Silent Film D.W. Griffith Biograph Film Company

Scott Lord Shakespeare in Silent Film: The Taming of the Shrew (D.W. Gri...

Robert Hamilton Ball, in his volume Shakespeare on Silent Films explains the increase of adaptations of Shakespeare's plays during 1908-1911. "By 1908, the story film had become general...Moreover, his variety of scenes fitted well with new conceptions of scenario structure, with cutting and editing." Ball notes that D.W. Griffith follows The Taming of the Shrew chronologically but only uses four or five scenes to explicate its central incidents. Ball points out that there are no explanatory intertitles used in the film, which could have been used in the exposition of plot, but that Shakespeare was also at liberty to use long passages of supplementary dialougue when writing plays. He offers a claim that there were ten Shakespearean films made in the United States alone during 1908 while noting that in regard to recent transnational studies of the recent historiography of silent film that "there were no doubt cross-influences from country to country." Only one of these adaptations were from the Kalem Studios, As You Like It and only one was produced by Biograph. The is scant information pertaining to the film Julius Caesar, produced that year by Lubin. The film adaptation of "The Taming of the Shrew" filmed in Great Britain during 1911 by Frank R Benson starring Constance Benson is a lost film, of which there are no surviving copies. Actress Florence Lawrence had come to Biograph from Vitagraph, which had produced several adaptations of Shakespeare that year, and camerman Arthur Marvin was being trained by innovator Billy Bitzer. King Lear
Shakespeare in Denmark
Biograph Film Company