The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1916-02-14
AN observing officer of n moving
~ picture corporation WAS watch
- ing VehesVsals for Z little tilm

AN Observing 0uleer or n moving
~ picture corporation was watch
III ing vehesVsals fop = little film
drama 0ns morning seven
years sgo when 4 complication do,
vslopsd, and " was patent that, AZ
arranged Tor, the idea, In the langla 10
Of the studio would not get over, One
~ the players In the company, a slen-
der young leading man, went up to the
producing director and said, "Why
couldn't It be done 30 and SOL" indicat-
ing his plan.
The producing director nodded en-
phatically. Fright" he said, and it
was right. Whereupon the observing
omcer frst mentioned turned to the
actor. saying seriously. -"Why don't
you try producing, GrifYithY"
II wouldn't mind having a chance
to work out a few little IDEAS" was
the answer.
work them out, then" was the de.
cision.
At the Liberty Theater. New York,
during the last several months people
have stood in line which stretched
from the box Office nearly whole
block, suffering for the privilege Of
paying 81 a seat, In many cases, to see
nothing but a moving picture drama.
The man who produced that 81 movie
is the man addressed in the studio
seven years before, the man who said
he had a few little ideas to work out
He was Grifiith then, now he is
David Wark Griffith. for whom even
the most surfeited regular dramatic
critic had words of praise when that
movie had its first night in New York
and Of whom also other men who
study and observe rather than direct
declare that he has raised the film
drama to an art with a capital A and
that he has unfolded new possibilities,
pioneered in hitherto unsupported
fields.
In brief, Mr.. Griffith took "The Clans
man." a novel by the Rev. Thomas
Dixon, and from it evolved an ambi-
tious spectacle for the camera in
which, working on a stage roughly
speaking Eve miles long and two miles
deep. he employed altogether $4,000
persons and 1900 horses. He delineat-
ed battle scenes conducted according
to the records preserved in the War
Department at Washington, using ar
tillery, cavalry and infantry as they
We're used in real battle of the civil
war.
His artillery duels were real artillery
duels, his cavalry charges were passed
by the men who participated in such a
charge fifty years before. His men died
as men had died in the trenches Of the
South. and they suffered Just as the
men who did suffer said they had. He
built or caused to be built no less than
Ave complete Southern towns, faithful
to the last architectural detail, and he
burned three Of them. W
He massed and handled great mobs
as history said the real mobs acted. He
reproduced one theater exactly life size
and delineated the great national trag-
edy Of the assassination of President
Lincoln just as history says it occurred.
He built the legislative halls of 4
Southern State and with an actual still
photograph as a model brought back to
ago. Above all. throughout two hours
and forty minutes he ran the threads
Of love story.
Thus It was that Mr.. Griffith leaned
back In his chair putting contentedly at
an after luncheon cigar, taking his first
vacation In about fourteen months. He
was at that moment digesting. among
other things. four questions which
would take several hours to answer.
"Who are your
"Where did you learn how?"
"How did you do this?"
what will come after?"
Mr.. Griffith told how he was born In
Kentucky some thirty odd years ago,
the son Of Jacob Wark Griffith, pre-
vet Brigadier General Of the Confeder- |
ate army. His family comes near to
being eligible for about all the patriotic |
snc{atioS FOR his grandfather was Can