page_title: D. W. Griffith
section_title: Later film career
hierarchical_section_title: D. W. Griffith / Later film career
caption_attribution_description: English: D.W. Griffith, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin (seated) and Douglas Fairbanks at the signing of the contract establishing United Artists motion picture studio in 1919. Lawyers Albert Banzhaf (left) and Dennis F. O'Brien (right) stand in the background.
context_page_description: David Wark Griffith was an American film director. Widely considered as the most important filmmaker of his generation, he pioneered financing of the feature-length movie.
  His film The Birth of a Nation made investors a profit, but also attracted much controversy, as it depicted African Americans in a negative light and glorified the Ku Klux Klan. Intolerance was made as an answer to his critics, but not as an apology for the negative images of African Americans in film. Several of Griffith's later films were also successful, including Broken Blossoms, Way Down East and Orphans of the Storm, but the high costs he incurred for production and promotion often led to commercial failure. He had made roughly 500 films by the time of his final feature, The Struggle.
  Together with Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks he founded United Artists, enabling them to control their own interests, rather than depending on commercial studios. Griffith was also a founding member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
context_section_description: Though United Artists survived as a company, Griffith's association with it was short-lived. While some of his later films did well at the box office, commercial success often eluded him. Griffith features from this period include Broken Blossoms (1919), Way Down East (1920), Orphans of the Storm (1921), Dream Street (1921), One Exciting Night (1922) and America (1924). Of these, the first three were successes at the box office. Griffith was forced to leave United Artists after Isn't Life Wonderful (1924) failed at the box office.
  He made a part-talkie, Lady of the Pavements (1929), and only two full-sound films: Abraham Lincoln (1930) and The Struggle (1931). Neither was successful, and after The Struggle he never made another film.
  In 1936, director Woody Van Dyke, who had worked as Griffith's apprentice on Intolerance, asked Griffith to help him shoot the famous earthquake sequence for San Francisco, but did not give him any film credit. Starring Clark Gable, Jeanette MacDonald and Spencer Tracy, it was the top-grossing film of the year.
  In 1939, the producer Hal Roach hired Griffith to produce Of Mice and Men (1939) and One Million B.C. (1940). He wrote to Griffith: "I need help from the production side to select the proper writers, cast, et cetera, and to help me generally in the supervision of these pictures."
  Although Griffith eventually disagreed with Roach over the production and parted, Roach later insisted that some of the scenes in the completed film were directed by Griffith. This would make the film the final production in which Griffith was actively involved. However, cast members' accounts recall Griffith directing only the screen tests and costume tests. When Roach advertised the film in late 1939 with Griffith listed as producer, the latter asked that his name be removed.
  Although mostly forgotten by movie-goers of the time Griffith was held in awe by many in the film industry. In the mid-1930s he was given a special Oscar by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 1946 he made an impromptu visit to the film location of David O. Selznick's epic western Duel in the Sun, where some of his veteran actors, Lillian Gish, Lionel Barrymore and Harry Carey, were cast members. Gish and Barrymore found their old mentor's presence distracting and became self-conscious so, when the two were filming their scenes, Griffith hid behind the scenery.
caption: United Artists founders Griffith, Pickford, Chaplin and Fairbanks sign their contract for the cameras in 1919
exif: {}