New-York tribune., 1919-03-23
ON THE TRAIL OF THE MOTION P
Griffith Giues the
Plot Scunf Courtesy
By Virginia Tracy

Somebody reminded us that since
Griffith had been taking ten reel pict-
ures he was said to use thirty or forty
reels upon each Of them and to spend
all the rest of his time trying to cut
down to ten--what was left of him now,
then, in five? Hoy does he go, real
lv, on programme 2" We replied
with hauChtiness that he went at least
his own way. "Hc that is ready may
ride with me, and he who can may
ride ahead"
The most wilful and original of all
producers, it does truly seem to US
that in machine made and initiative
days, days with one hand feverishly
clutching the public pulse and the
other chained by the censor to such
enlightenments as not mentioning an
illegitimate child unless born in an
cient times, to have preserved intact
that originality and will is enough even
for him; just the assurance that he
will always use what material inter
ests him in whatever way it interests
him to use it. Yet there remains the
DltLSI tIutu tudt plCt0iSo ocAhSSAAAS~
have to have in them things which do
not interest him, as he might not be
interested in floors, and yet his house
would be rather curious than comfort
, able without them. He does not mind
putting in the floors if he has time, but
in a programme picture he is so little
apt to have time.
In "a Romance of Happy Valley"
where his own material swarms upon
him with such richness-his own mate
rial of side-lighted, incidental, acci-
dental treatment--as to embarrass his
story, he does not hesitate in his
choice. 1t is the story he filings over
board like dead cargo. Sink or swim,
survive or perish, he is for the moods,
the temperaments the adjustments of
persons and places. Places, we should
say. are quite as much to him as per-
sons. and he will not have so much as
the heels Of these trodden upon by an
irrelevancy which, of course, he knows
only, don't bother him!-he must
stuff in somewhere; that irrelevancy OF
plot. Look at John Logan's side
yard in Happy Valley. How little it
resembles the pretty lawn Of the ma-
chine-madc picture! 1t looks 80
straggly and has such worn patches In
it! The boredom Of a thousand Sun
day afternoons hangs around that yard
and the steps leading into 1t; years OF
deferred hope, Of doing without every
thing you really want, and yet Of being
on the whole fairly comfortable, have
worn the edges of those dispirited
steps. The tollgate keepers starving
for gossip, the struggles Of the heroine
with her new dress, the bullying tenn
pers of the older generation, ground
hectoring and hopeless by hard work,
the excitement of the community as to
whether the minister can bring "young
~ ohm to the mourncrs' bench5vthe sc
are the things their producer is after,
and if any essential of the plot asks
for the space where the poor little
heroine is scared of burglar under
her bed, so much the worse for the
plot, and if it comes to q struggle be-
tween the story and the observance OF
that n0mely nerOlSm WHICH predVueS
from the face of plowed field, or of
that strange veil which Sunday drops
over landscape, then throw out the
story. How many would we how gladly
help throw outl But alas, this seems
such good Story!
For, do you suppose that when young
John backslides from the mourners'
bench so far as to run away from
Happy Valley, you are once more
asked to pity the rash youth ruined by
the wickedness Of the great city and
crawling back in defeat and ruin to
the innocent rural sweetness he has
defed? You do not know your Griffith.
1t is the sdventurer in the city whose
life, free 70 follow its own instructive
course, is too full and eager to waste
itself; it is the innocent country
father, plodding in the unbroken mo-
notony of those deferred hopes. who
comes to spiritual and worldly ruin.
But why develop your hero so ten