Frank Wonderlee who had gone out with the late James K. Hackett in a legitimate play which lasted two inglorious weeks dropped into my office in search of work. He told me of the disastrous venture. The play had shocked theater-goers and critics by its frankness, for the stage was less radical, realistic and licentious than it is today. The denunciations hurled at it by critics convinced me that in spite of its bad taste it must have some elements of drama and power. So when Wonderlee added, "I understand the author, Lawrence Griffith, is working for Biograph," I was amazed.
That lean, big-nosed, silent man a playwright, author of a drama which had created a veritable sensation? The next time I was in the studio I studied him with dawning interest. Then I had several talks with the man and my interest grew although I blushed more than once; for I had been raised in a mid-Victorian home, where many topics were deemed improper for polite conversation. And Griffith was twenty years ahead of his age. His ideas were revolutionary, stark rude almost, but he was absolutely and innocently unaware of it, and never dreamed that he had shocked me. Though his intellect fairly blazed, I was uncomfortable in his presence, never knowing what he would say next. But he saw my interest had been aroused and every time I came through the studio he waylaid me with the same query :
"Why don't they give an actor a chance to direct? I wish I had the opportunity."
The repeated suggestion began to work, and very soon there came a moment when it came out in the open. Mr. Marvin needed a new director and cast envious eyes at Olcott who was doing fine work for Kalem but he did not dare make Sid a direct offer until he had severed his connection with Kalem, which Olcott was not inclined to do. So one afternoon Mr. Marvin called me to his office and announced:
"I am going to give Tony Sullivan a chance to direct."
I was surprised.
"Why Sullivan?" I asked.
"He has been with us longer than anyone else and therefore I think he should have the first opportunity. What's your objection?"
"Well, in the first place he is a low-comedy character actor and does not understand dramatic work or know dramatic values. Why don't you try Griffith?"
"Who is he, and why do you think he would make good?"
"He plays our heavies, the dark man who did the man about town in At the Crossroads of Life. He has unusual intelligence, dramatic sense, is very anxious for an opportunity, and has recently written a play which though it failed must have had something in it to cause so much discussion."
"All right, send him up and I will talk to him."
A little while later Griffith came to my desk, his face beaming.
"I'm to direct a picture," he said, "and Mr. Marvin has given me free rein. He told me to ask you for a script."
I selected one which told a simple quiet story, a play easy to take because it required exteriors only. It was called The Adventures of Dolly. I recalled the place at Sound Beach where I had been thrown into the mill dam on my first picture. The upper stretches of the river and the surrounding country were just the locations needed for the scenes in this script. So I assigned him Billy Bitzer, our cleverest cameraman, told Griffith where to go, helped him select his cast, all except the leading lady whom he wished to pick for himself. What was my surprise when I found it was my little acquaintance with the big gray eyes, for whom I had been unable to find a part and who then proved to be Griffith's wife.
Griffith did not rush into his first picture unprepared; in fact he took several days to mull over the script; then disappeared for three more, keeping his people at Sound Beach until the picture was finished. An air of mystery enveloped the whole proceedings, no inkling of their progress reached us. Waiting there in the office I grew anxious. Three days for a simple picture that Olcott would have taken in less than a day! Even after his return I did not see Griffith for several days. Then I received a message to come to Mr. Marvin's office and I found them together.
"Mr. Griffith and I have just run off his picture. We would like to know what you think of it."
Not a hint as to whether it was good or bad! We stepped across the hall to the projection room and I saw the first thousand feet of film which started the master of directors on his triumphant way.
It was a lovely little thing. Somehow he had managed to infuse into the plain unvarnished tale a feeling of poetry. It moved along as smoothly and gently as the river which played such a large part in it. Bitzer had given it the finest photography I had yet seen, and the short six or eight scenes of the original had been elaborated into some thirty or more by means of a new technique, unknown, undreamed of up to that hour- the use of the flashback.
You will understand of course that this first picture of his was charming judged by the standards of 1908. My reaction might be very different if I could see it now. Just then it was worth all the thrills I felt.
Griffith's entry as director was most opportune for in a few weeks Biograph gave up its fight against the Motion Picture Patents Company and entered the fold. This had been a losing fight and had reduced the company to desperate financial straits. I doubt very much whether Griffith would have had such as swift success had they remained independent in spite of the fact that his pictures began immediately to create a furore. As an Independent, Biograph had been selling but ten or twelve copies of each picture. Now with a sure market and a director acclaimed as great, their sales quickly surpassed all others. Before long it was not uncommon for them to sell a hundred copies of each production.
Griffith soon became the rage in the profession. Actors, directors and producers eagerly awaited each release and conscientiously studied his methods and the new effects he was always achieving. he introduced large figures cut off at the knees, and a discussion followed. It raged hotly in the Kalem office where Mr. Marion denounced it.
More controversy followed when he brought a man, James Kirkwood it happened to be, right up to the camera until the gigantic figure filled the screen. Then came the close-up and the back-lighted Rembrandt effects and the slightly out-of-focus photographs; the rage for blondes with the back lighting on the fluffy hair giving the effect of a halo. The flashback had also been elaborated until some scenes consisted of only a few feet, and a thousand-foot picture was cut into fifty or sixty scenes. The element of suspense was greatly augmented by the flashes, as was also the effect of contrasts.
It was all very revolutionary, and, however much the other companies criticized, the sale of Biograph pictures immediately outstripped them all, the public endorsed the new type of direction, and the other directors began to imitate it.
No amount of technical and mechanical imitation could produce a rival for those early Griffith pictures, for they contained a spirituality and a force and sometimes a stark crude realism that no other director could achieve. It is difficult to say just what it was; but the same thing held in later Griffith pictures. It was what made Broken Blossoms a masterpiece. Naturally those early efforts contained crudities and were often uneven, but they radiated a sincerity and a poetic illumination that placed them far above those produced by other directors even with as good material.
Griffith soon gathered about him a stock company of distinction. With the tremendous sales he was able to pay enormous salaries, one hundred, one hundred and fifty dollars a week! And actors who had been successful on the stage left it for the new business.
Blondes appealed to him. He retained Marion Leonard; and among others were the little sixteen-year-old ingenue Mary Pickford, Florence Lawrence, and later Blanche Sweet and Lillian Gish, all blondes.
Tony Sullivan remained and was soon allowed to direct comedies under Griffith's supervision. For by popular demand, Biograph began to release three subjects a week. He chose good assistants, but Billy Bitzer remained his personal tried and true cameraman, and Biograph photography, with its rich soft tones, soon became the criterion for all cameramen. Bitzer told me on the one occasion I saw him after leaving Biograph (which was Mary Pickford's ball of farewell to the screen when she returned to the stage with Belasco) that he and Griffith oftentimes sat up all night working out together some photographic effect.
Meantime I was back with Kalem. There was no patching up of my break with Mr. Marion. Mr. Olcott put me into a picture the day after I left Biograph and when Mr. Marion saw it on the screen he said, "I see you have Miss Gauntier back." And that was all.
Through August, September and October I alternately worked in Kalem pictures and haunted managers' offices. For the stage bee still buzzed in my head. Nor did I dare speak of my screen work. Pictures had captured some of their dependable actors and theatrical managers were beginning to fear this new rival. An edict went forth that no one who worked in pictures would be employed so I kept my dark secret.
Excerpted from Gene Gauntier, "Blazing the Trail," Woman's Home Companion, Volume 55, Number 11, November 1928, pages 15-16, 132, 134.
Complete article available here.
© 1997, David Pierce, on editing and revisions (if any)
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