“PIPPA PASSES” FILMED
There was a frictional feeling in our return to prosaic studio
life after the glorious freedom of the country. But the new
“projections”--the pictures that had been printed and assembled in our
absence--would take the edge off and cheer us up some; we were all
a-thrill about seeing the first run of the pictures we had taken in the
country; and we were eager about the picture we were to do next.
During our absence we would have missed seeing not only our own
releases but those of the other companies, which, our day’s work
finished, we used to try to catch up on. Mondays and Thursdays had come
to be release days for Biograph pictures. Then at some theatres, came
whole evenings devoted to them. On these occasions exhibitors would put
a stand outside saying “Biograph Night.” After the first showing it was
a difficult job to locate a picture. From Tenth Avenue to Avenue A,
we’d roam, and no matter how hot, stuffy, or dirty the place might be,
we’d make the grade in time.
“Pippa Passes,” which was to make or unmake us, was all this time
hanging fire. Mr. Griffith was getting an all star cast intact. The
newly recruited James Kirkwood and Henry Walthall gave us two good men
who, with Owen Moore and Arthur Johnson, were all the actors needed.
For the women, there were Marion Leonard, Gertrude Robinson, and
myself. And little Mary Pickford whom our director had engaged with
Pippa in mind (?). When the day came to shoot Browning for the first
time, it was winsome Gertrude Robinson with black curls and dark blue
eyes who was chosen for the rôle of the spiritual Pippa. David thought
Mary had grown a bit plump; she no longer filled his mental image of
the type.
When at last we started on “Pippa Passes,” things went off with a bang.
Each of the four themes--Morn, Noon, Evening, Night--would be followed
by a flash of Pippa singing her little song.
It was “Morn” that intrigued. To show “daybreak” in Pippa’s little room
would mean trying out a new light effect. The only light effect so far
experimented with had been the “fireside glow.” The opportunity to try
a different kind so interested Mr. Griffith that before he began to
“shoot” Pippa, he had a scheme all worked out.
He figured on cutting a little rectangular place in the back wall of
Pippa’s room, about three feet by one, and arranging a sliding board
to fit the aperture much like the cover of a box sliding in and out of
grooves. The board was to be gradually lowered and beams of light from
a powerful Kleig shining through would thus appear as the first rays of
the rising sun striking the wall of the room. Other lights stationed
outside Pippa’s window would give the effect of soft morning light.
Then the lights full up, the mercury tubes a-sizzling, the room fully
lighted, the back wall would have become a regular back wall again,
with no little hole in it.
All this was explained to the camera men Billy Bitzer and Arthur
Marvin, for the whole technical staff was in attendance on the
production of this one thousand foot feature--one thousand feet being
the length of our features at this time. Bitzer didn’t think much of
the idea, but Arthur Marvin, who had seen his chief’s radical ideas
worked out successfully before, was less inclined to skepticism. But
response, on the whole, was rather snippy. While David would have
preferred a heartier appreciation, he would not be deterred, and he
spoke in rather plain words: “Well, come on, let’s do it anyhow; I
don’t give a damn what anybody thinks about it.”
Pippa is asleep in her little bed. The dawn is coming--a tense
moment--for Pippa must wake, sit up in her little bed, rise, cross to
the window, and greet the dawn in perfect harmony with the mechanical
force operating the sliding board and the Kleigs. All was manipulated
in perfect tempo.
The skeptical studio bunch remained stubborn until the first projection
of the picture upstairs. At first the comments came in hushed and awed
tones, and then when the showing was over, the little experiment in
light effects was greeted with uncontrolled enthusiasm.
“Pippa Passes” was released on October 4, 1909, a day of great anxiety.
We felt pretty sure it was good stuff, but we were wholly unprepared
for what was to happen. On the morning of October 10th, while we
were scanning the news items in the columns of the _New York Times_,
the while we imbibed our breakfast coffee, our unbelieving eyes were
greeted with a column headlined thus:
BROWNING NOW GIVEN IN MOVING PICTURES
“Pippa Passes” the Latest Play
Without Words to be Seen
In the Nickelodeons
THE CLASSICS DRAWN UPON
Even Biblical Stories Portrayed For
Critical Audiences--Improvement
Due to Board of Censors
It was all too much--much too much. The newspapers were writing about
us. A conservative New York daily was taking us seriously. It seemed
incredible, but there it was before our eyes. It looked wonderful! Oh,
so wonderful we nearly wept. Suddenly everything was changed. Now we
could begin to lift up our heads, and perhaps invite our lit’ry friends
to our movies!
This is what the _New York Times_ man had to say:
“Pippa Passes” is being given in the nickelodeons and Browning is
being presented to the average motion picture audiences, who have
received it with applause and are asking for more.
This achievement is the present nearest-Boston record of the
reformed motion picture play producing, but from all accounts
there seems to be no reason why one may not expect to see soon
the intellectual aristocracy of the nickelodeon demanding Kant’s
Prolegomena to Metaphysics with the “Kritik of Pure Reason” for a
curtain raiser.
Since popular opinion has been expressing itself through the
Board of Censors of the People’s Institute, such material as “The
Odyssey,” the Old Testament, Tolstoy, George Eliot, De Maupassant
and Hugo has been drawn upon to furnish the films, in place of the
sensational blood-and-thunder variety which brought down public
indignation upon the manufacturers six months ago. Browning,
however, seems to be the most rarefied dramatic stuff up to date.
As for Pippa without words, the first films show the sunlight
waking Pippa for her holiday with light and shade effects like
those obtained by the Secessionist Photographers.
Then Pippa goes on her way dancing and singing. The quarreling
family hears her, and forgets its dissension. The taproom brawlers
cease their carouse and so on, with the pictures alternately
showing Pippa on her way, and then the effect of her “passing”
on the various groups in the Browning poem. The contrast between
the tired business man at a roof garden and the sweatshop worker
applauding Pippa is certainly striking. That this demand for the
classics is genuine is indicated by the fact that the adventurous
producers who inaugurated these expensive departures from cheap
melodrama are being overwhelmed by offers from renting agents.
Not only the nickelodeons of New York but those of many less
pretentious cities and towns are demanding Browning and the other
“high-brow” effects.
There certainly was a decided change in the general attitude toward
us after this wonderful publicity. Directly we had ’phone calls from
friends saying they would like to go to the movies with us; and they
would just love to come down to the studio and watch a picture being
made. Even our one erudite friend, a Greek scholar, inquired where
he could see “Pippa Passes.” As the picture was shown for only one
night, we thought it might be rather nice to invite the dead-language
person and his wife to the studio. They came and found it intensely
interesting: met Mary Pickford and thought her “sweet.”
Besides the Greek professor, another friend, one of the big men of the
Old Guard--an old newspaper man, and president and editor of _Leslie’s
Weekly_ and _Judge_ at this time--began making inquiries.
The night the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in New York City opened, David thought
it wouldn’t be a bad idea to splurge a bit and invite Mr. Sleicher to
dinner, he being the editor who had paid him six dollars for his poem,
“The Wild Duck.” He’d surely think we had come a long pace ahead in the
movies, dining at the Ritz, and doing it so casual-like.
Talk there was at the dinner about newspapers and magazines, and then
we got around to the movies, and the money they were making. Mr.
Sleicher said: “Well, there’s more money in them than in my business,
but I like my business better. Now in my game, twenty-four hours or
even less, after a thing happens you can see a picture of it and read
about it in the paper, and you can’t do that in your movies.” (I
understand that even before the time of this dinner, events of special
interest occasionally found their way to the screen on the day they
happened. In London, in 1906, the Urbanora people showed the boat race
between Cambridge and Harvard Universities on the evening of the day
they were held, but we did not know about that.)
Mr. Griffith was not going to be outdone; so, with much bravado, for
he was quite convinced of its truth, he said: “Well, we are not doing
it now, but the time will come when the day’s news events will be
regularly pictured on the screen with the same speed the ambitious
young reporter gets his scoop on the front page of his newspaper. We’ll
have all the daily news told in moving pictures the same as it is told
in words on the printed page. Now, I’m willing to bet you.”
But John Sleicher was skeptical. Had he not been, he would then and
there have invested some of his pennies in the movies. He regretted the
opportunity many times afterward, for while the prediction has not been
fulfilled exactly, the News Reel of to-day gives promise that it will
be. However, Mr. Sleicher lived to enjoy the News Reel quite as much as
he did his newspaper, and that meant a great deal for him.
These little happenings were encouraging. Intelligent persons on the
outside were taking interest. So again we’d buck up and go at the movie
job with renewed vigor.
For a time we lived in the clouds--our habitat a mountain peak. But
that couldn’t last. No kind of mountain peak existence could. We should
have known. Even after all the encouragement, down off our peak we’d
slip into the deep dark valley again.
We tried to keep an unswerving faith, but who could have visioned the
great things that were to come? Doubts still persisted. Yes, even
after the Browning triumph, longings came over us to return to former
ambitions. They had not been buried so deeply after all. We’d see a
fine play and get the blue devils. In this mood my husband would do the
rounds of the movie houses and chancing upon a lot of bad pictures,
come back utterly discouraged.
“They can’t last. I give them a few years. Where’s my play? Since I
went into these movies I haven’t had a minute to look at a thing I
ever wrote. And I went into them because I thought surely I’d get time
to write or do something with what I had.” (Monetary needs so soon
forgotten!) “Well, anyhow, nobody’s going to know I ever did this sort
of thing when I’m a famous playwright. Nobody’s ever going to know that
David W. Griffith, the playwright, was once the Lawrence Griffith of
the movies.”
So “Lawrence” continued on the next Biograph contract. The two names
would get all balled up sometimes and I’d get peeved and say: “Why
don’t you use your right name? I think you’re so silly.”
But David remained obdurate until he signed his third Biograph
contract.