“THE BIRTH OF A NATION”
Late in the summer of 1912 the Kinemacolor Company of America, a
subsidiary of the English company, started the production of movies in
color at a studio in Whitestone, Long Island. The year of Kinemacolor’s
endeavor also marks Mr Griffith’s last year with Biograph, for he went
to the Mutual with Harry Aitken while I became leading woman with the
Kinemacolor.
Messrs. Urban and Smith had rather startled the world with their color
pictures of the Coronation of George the Fifth of England, and the
Durbar Imperial at Delhi; and even though their pictures were a bit
fringy, they were becoming ambitious for honors in color movies along
dramatic lines.
Great things were achieved in America in the movies, and great things
might have been achieved in America in Kinemacolor, but it was destined
otherwise. Kinemacolor was fated to be but a brief though fruitful
interlude in color-photography in the movies, which, for some seemingly
mysterious reason, is so long in arriving.
Sunshine being imperative for Kinemacolor, southern California’s staple
brand could not be denied, and soon the company left its studio in
Whitestone and repaired to the modest little town of Hollywood where it
took over the Revier Laboratories at 4500 Sunset Boulevard.
That the place had been used as a studio was not discernible from the
front. It was a pretty corner on which, some distance apart, stood two
simple cottages, Middle Western in character. They represented office
and laboratory. Dressing-rooms and stages of a crudeness comparable to
the original Biograph studio were at the back.
No fence gave privacy from passers-by, but a high board fence,
decorated with pictures of foxes and the words “Fox Pictures,”
protected the lot in the rear. It was not the William Fox of to-day who
thus sought to advertise his trademark and his wares. Another Mr. Fox
it was of whom we seem to hear nothing these days.
Here Kinemacolor moved in, with David Miles at its head, Jack Le
Saint director of the No. 2 company, and our old friend Frank Woods
making his movie-directing début as teacher to the actors of the No.
3 company. For Mr. Woods having tasted movie blood through his little
Biograph scenarios and his position as chief reviewer of the movies,
had grown anxious to plunge more deeply into the swiftly moving waters
of reel life. So Mr. Miles opened the way for him. And although
Kinemacolor opened up financially to a salary of only seventy-five
dollars a week, the Woodses made the most of it, for from that humble
beginning in less than ten years they have come to own a town near
Barstow, California. They have named it “Lenwood.” Charles H. Fleming,
who was assistant to David Miles, afterwards became a director and
tastefully executed a number of pictures.
When the Kinemacolor Company was gathering in what youth and looks
and talent it could afford, Mr. Miles, remembering a little deed of
kindness, recalled Gaston Bell and took him to Hollywood, and when
the much-loved and generous-souled Lillian Russell came out to do
some pictures in Kinemacolor, Mr. Bell was rewarded by being made her
leading man. Mahlon Hamilton loaned his good looks to the same films.
The Russell pictures were used to illustrate “Beauty Talks” in an act
in which Miss Russell was headlined on big vaudeville time throughout
the United States.
Mahlon Hamilton and Gaston were the company’s two best “lookers.” As to
“acting,” Mahlon made not a single pretense. He and the company quite
agreed as to his dramatic ability. To be so perfectly Charles Dana-ish,
and histronic also, was not expected of one man in those days. We had
not reached the Valentino or Neil Hamilton age. Mr. Mahlon Hamilton, of
late, not quite so Gibsonesque, has become a surprisingly good actor.
So do the years take their toll and yield their little compensations.
The wonderful possibilities of Kinemacolor had not even been
scratched when the American subsidiary was formed, for the foreign
photographers--English, French, and German--who had “taken” the
Coronation and also some picture plays that were produced in southern
France, insisted that the close-up was impossible in color. But Mr.
Miles, having had Biograph schooling, insisted contrariwise, and
after a long and hard scrap with his photographers, he succeeded in
inducing them to do as he said. The result proved his contention. The
Kinemacolor close-ups were things of great beauty.
During its short life, Kinemacolor made some impression; for Dan
Frohman after seeing some of the pictures said that “The Scarlet
Letter” was the most artistic movie he had seen up to that time. Many
distinguished visitors stopped at its Hollywood studio to see the
new color pictures. Madame Tetrazzini, the opera singer, among many
others, was tremendously enthusiastic.
It has been stated in error that the Kinemacolor pictures were never
released. They were very much released, being shown at the New York
Theatre Roof, besides many other theatres in New York, and contracts
for their service all through the country were made by the Kinemacolor
Company. Things started off with such a bang, we never did get over the
shock of the sudden closing.
It was one exciting year with Kinemacolor, but it ended suddenly and
tragically with the death of the president, Mr. Brock. While preening
our wings for a flight to southern France, a telegram arrived from
the New York office announcing the finish of picture production in
Kinemacolor.
The sudden disruption of the Kinemacolor Company sent a flock of actors
and a few directors scouting for new jobs. Frank Woods took up with
Universal, only to suffer a six weeks’ nightmare. Being unable to turn
out the class of stuff wanted, and anticipating what was coming, he
resigned, dug up the return half of his Kinemacolor round-trip ticket,
and was not long in New York before he got busy as a free-lance; and
not so long after that a telephone from D. W. Griffith asked him to
become his scenario writer. With great joy he accepted, filling the
position with Mr. Dougherty, who was now back at Biograph after a short
spasm with Kinemacolor.
Right away Mr. Woods and Mr. Griffith got busy on “Judith of Bethulia,”
for having produced such a classic, Mr. Griffith wanted some special
titling for it. He turned it over to Frank Woods, who phrased the
captions in the style of language of the day--the first time that was
done. However, it proved too much of a strain for the exhibitors, for
they afterward fixed the titles up to suit themselves in good old New
Yorkese.
Mr. Griffith’s connection with the Mutual Film organization and his
association with H. E. Aitken resulted in the production of such
eventful and popular pictures as “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “Home, Sweet
Home,” “The Escape,” “The Avenging Conscience,” and “The Battle of the
Sexes.” The Clara Morris home out on Riverdale Road served as a studio
until the 29 Union Square Place was acquired.
Billy Bitzer, D. W.’s photographer, went with him in his new
affiliation, as also did Frank Woods and Christy Cabanne. As Mr.
Griffith’s work with the Mutual became organized, one by one he took
over his old actors, but he left them working with Biograph until he
could put them directly into a picture. So they trailed along; Henry
Walthall, Blanche Sweet, James Kirkwood, Mae Marsh, Lillian and Dorothy
Gish, Eddie Dillon, and many others.
After a short time at the Mutual studio, Mr. Griffith and his company
went to California. At the old Kinemacolor lot they encamped, the
Mutual having taken over that studio. The carpenters got busy right
away, and soon little one-story wooden buildings crowded to the
sidewalk’s edge, and the place began to look like a factory. The
sprinkling can that had given sustenance to red geraniums and calla
lilies was needed no more.
* * * * *
Now before the Kinemacolor Company had started work at Whitestone
they had held a contract with George H. Brennan and Tom Dixon for
the production in color of Tom Dixon’s “The Clansman.” The idea was
that the dramatic company touring through the Southern States in
“The Clansman” would play their same parts before the camera. In
these Southern towns all the Southern atmosphere would be free for
the asking. Houses, streets, even cotton plantations would not be too
remote to use in the picture. And there was a marvelous scheme for
interiors. That was to drag the “drops” and “props” and the pretty
parlor furniture out into the open, where with the assistance of some
sort of floor and God’s sunshine, there would be nothing to hinder work
on the picture version of the play.
But the marvelous scheme didn’t work as well as was expected; and
eventually the managers decided that trying to take a movie on a
fly-by-night tour of a theatrical company was not possible, so the
company laid off to take it properly. They halted for six weeks and
notwithstanding the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars was spent,
it was a poor picture and was never even put together. Although Tom
Dixon’s sensational story of the South turned out such a botch, it was
to lead to a very big thing in the near future.
Frank Woods, after several others had tried, had written the continuity
of this version of “The Clansman,” and had received all of two
hundred dollars for the job. That the picturizing of his scenario had
proved such a flivver did not lessen his faith in “The Clansman’s”
possibilities.
Mr. Griffith was doing some tall thinking. His day of one- and
two-reelers having passed, and the multiple-reel Mutual features
having met with such success, he felt it was about time he started
something new. So, one day, he said to Frank Woods: “I want to make a
big picture. What’ll I make?” With his Kinemacolor experience still
fresh in mind Mr. Woods suggested “The Clansman.” With the Dixon story
and the play Mr. Griffith was quite familiar as he had heard from his
friend Austin Webb, who had played the part of the mulatto _Silas
Lynch_, about all the exciting times attending the performance of the
play--the riots and all--and more he had heard from Claire MacDowell,
who was also in the show, and more still from Mr. Dixon himself.
So David Griffith said to Frank Woods: “I think there’s something to
that. Now you call Mr. Dixon up, make an appointment to see him, and
you talk it over, but say nothing about my being the same actor who
worked for him once.”
So the meeting was arranged; the hour of the appointment approached;
and as Mr. Woods was leaving on his important mission Mr. Griffith gave
final parting instructions, “Now remember, don’t mention I’m the actor
that once worked for him, for he would not have confidence in me.”
So while Tom Dixon nibbled his lunch of crackers, nuts, and milk,
Mr. Woods, without revealing his little secret, unfolded the mighty
plan, “We are going to sell Wall Street and get the biggest man in the
business.”
“Who?”
“D. W. Griffith.”
“Oh, yes, I’ve heard a lot about him--he used to work for me.”
Mr. Dixon was greatly interested and evinced no hesitation whatever
in entrusting his sensational story of the South to his one-time
seventy-five dollars a week actor. He’d already taken one sporting
chance on it, why not another? Yes, Mr. Griffith could have his
“Clansman” for his big picture.
H. E. Aitken, who had formed the Mutual Film Company, had had on his
Executive Committee Felix Kahn, brother of Otto Kahn, and Crawford
Livingston. They had built the Rialto and Rivoli Theatres. The
Herculean task of financing the “big picture,” Mr. Aitken presented
to Mr. Kahn, and he genially had agreed to provide the necessary
cash--the monetary end was all beautifully settled--when the World War
entered the arena and Mr. Kahn felt he could not go on. So Mr. Aitken
had to finance the picture himself. He financed it to the extent of
sixty thousand dollars, which was what “The Birth of A Nation” cost
to produce. With legal fees and exploitation, it came to all of one
hundred and ten thousand dollars. Mr. Felix Kahn and Mr. Crawford
Livingston afterwards offered to help out with fifteen thousand dollars
but there were fifteen directors on the executive committee of the
Mutual Film, and they over-ruled the fifteen thousand dollars tender,
leaving Mr. Aitken as sole financier.
Mr. Dixon received two thousand five hundred dollars cash and
twenty-five per cent of the profits. He wanted more cash--wasn’t so
interested in the profits just then. But afterwards he had no regrets.
For it happened sometimes in later days, when the picture had started
out to gather in its millions, that Mr. Dixon casually opening a drawer
in his desk, would be greeted by a whopping big check--his interest in
“The Birth of A Nation,” and one of these times, happening unexpectedly
on one such check, he said, “I’m ashamed to take it”--a sentiment that
should have done his soul good.
Well, Mr. Dixon is one who should have got rich on “The Birth of A
Nation,” but the one whose genius was responsible for the unparalleled
success of the epoch-making picture says he fared like most inventors
and didn’t get so rich. However, it probably didn’t make Mr. Griffith
so very unhappy, for so far he has seemingly got more satisfaction out
of the art of picture making than out of the dollars the pictures bring.
Had the Epoch Company not sold State Rights on the picture when they
did, Tom Dixon’s interest would have been fabulous. But as the State
Rights’ privilege was not for life, only for a term of years, now soon
expiring, or perhaps expired now, and as up to date the picture has
brought in fifteen million dollars, it seems as though there’s nothing
much to be unhappy about for any of those concerned.
One of the State Rights buyers who took a sporting chance on the
picture was Louis B. Mayer, who had begun his movie career with a
nickelodeon in some place like East or South Boston, borrowing his
chairs from an undertaker when they weren’t being used for a funeral.
Mr. Mayer managed to scrape together enough money to buy the State
Rights for New England and he cleaned up a small fortune on the deal
after the owners had figured they had skimmed all the cream off Boston
and other New England cities.
* * * * *
Oh, well, what’s money anyway? A little while and we all will rest
in good old mother earth, and if we’re lucky perhaps pink and white
daisies may nod in the soft spring breezes overhead. Or we may be grand
and have a mausoleum, or a shining shaft of stone, or a huge boulder
to mark our spot, or perhaps we may just rest in a neat little urn--a
handful of ashes.
And what then of the fêted days of Mary and Doug? Of the peals of
laughter that rocked a Charlie Chaplin audience? Of the suspenseful
rescue of a persecuted Griffith heroine on the ice-blocked river? Of
the storm-tossed career of Mabel Normand?
Of the magic city of Hollywood? And the Hollywooders? Of the exotic
and hectic life of the beautiful stars? Of the saner careers of the
domestically happy? Who was greatest? Who produced the best pictures?
Who was the most popular? Who made the most money?
All this will be told of in books reposing on dusty library shelves.
Possibly a name alone will be left to whisper to posterity of their
endeavor, or tinned celluloid reels shown maybe on special occasions,
only to be greeted by roars of laughter--even scenes of tender
death-bed partings--so old-fashioned will the technique be.
But David Wark Griffith’s record may yet perhaps shine with the steady
bright light of his courage, of his patient laboring day by day, of his
consecration to his work; and of his faithful love for his calling,
once thought so lowly.
* * * * *
And so eventually “The Birth of A Nation” was finished. At the Liberty
Theatre in West Forty-second Street, New York--1915 was the time--it
had its première--one wholly novel for a moving picture--for it was the
first time a movie was presented bedecked in the same fashion as the
more luxurious drama, and shown at two dollars per seat. It was not
the first picture to be given in a legitimate theatre, however, for
Mr. Aitken had previously booked at the Cort Theatre “The Escape,” the
picture made from the Paul Armstrong play of the same name.
At this first public projection of “The Birth of A Nation,” an audience
sat spellbound for three hours. The picture was pronounced the
sensation of the season. From critics, ministers, and historians came
a flood of testimonials, treatises, and letters on the new art and
artists of the cinema.
“The Birth of A Nation” remains unique in picture production. It
probably never will be laid absolutely to rest, as it pictures so
dramatically the greatest tragedy in the history of America, showing
the stuff its citizens were made of and the reason why this nation has
become such a great and wonderful country.
Through the success of “The Birth of A Nation” the two-dollar movie was
born. But here let there be no misunderstanding: the two-dollar-a-seat
innovation in the movies was H. E. Aitken’s idea. He was opposed in it
by both Mr. Griffith and Mr. Dixon, Mr. Dixon becoming so alarmed that
he type-wrote a twelve-page argument against it. However, Mr. Aitken
persisted and the result proved him right. The public will pay if they
think your show is worth it.
Through the success of “The Birth of A Nation,” the sole habitat of
the movies was no longer Eighth Avenue, Sixth Avenue, Avenue A and
Fourteenth Street; the movies had reached Broadway to stay. D. W.
Griffith had achieved that, and had he stopped right there he would
have done his bit in the magical development of the motion picture.
For though “Bagdad Carpets” fly, and “Ten Commandments” preach, and
“Covered Wagons” trek--miles and miles of movies unreel, and some of
them awfully fine, they must all acknowledge that the narrow trail that
led to their highway was blazed by Mr. Griffith.
Whoever might have had a dream that the degraded little movie would
blossom into magnificence, now was beginning to see that dream come
true. The two-dollar movie was launched; tickets were obtainable at the
box office for what future dates one pleased; there were surroundings
that made the wearing of an evening dress look quite inconspicuous;
serious criticism and sober attention were to be had from the
high-minded--these were the first stages of the dream’s fulfillment.
But little we then dreamed that to-day’s picture world was to be like
an Arabian Night’s tale! Kings and Queens and Presidents interested! A
University proposed for the study of the motion picture alone! James
M. Barrie consenting to “Peter Pan” in the movies and selecting the
_Peter_ himself!--Any one who had made such suggestions then would have
been put where he could have harmed no one!
The wildest flights of fancy hardly visioned a salary of one thousand
dollars a day for an actor. But it came, as every one now knows, and
with the approach of dizzy salaries departed the simple happinesses and
contentment, and the fun of the old days, when thirty or fifty dollars
weekly looked like a small fortune.
We had to grow up. It was so written. I, for one, am glad I served my
novitiate in a day when we could afford to be good fellows, and our
hearts were young enough and happy enough to enjoy the gypsying way of
things.
THE END
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation
marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left
unbalanced.
Except as noted below, the spellings of names and the titles of movies
in the original book are unchanged here.
Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs
and outside quotations. In versions of this eBook that support
hyperlinks, the page references in the List of Illustrations lead to
the corresponding illustrations.
Page references in the captions of some illustrations did not seem to
lead to relevant text.
Page 249: “Tell-tale Heart” was misprinted as “Tell ale Heart”; the
correction here is not definitive.