"Blazing the Trail"

Part Three

With the opening of the theatrical season of 1907-8, Sid Olcott's actors, who had been engaged from picture to picture only, began to desert him. Joe Santley was to star in "Lucky Jim" with Vignola playing the villainous Mexican. Olcott was offered a part and was about to accept. He had no deep, real interest in moving pictures, just enough to do the daily task. He loved acting and the effortless life of the theater. Moreover he was very tired and he did not sense the future of the industry and his opportunities in it.

But my woman's intuition was keener. I had seen him advance from a carefree actor in third-rate plays to a position of authority and respect revealing unguessed possibilities. I believed he had found his calling and used every argument to induce him to remain with Kalem through the season. In the end such insistence prevailed and we all trooped off, leaving him to a horrible nerve-racking winter alone.

The first picture he made after we left was Way Down East, made in a tiny Sixth Avenue studio rented from the Edison Company. This was another case of pirating, for Harper and Brothers had not yet brought their famous suit over Ben Hur. However, I never heard that William Brady made any trouble over the production, possibly because it was such a fiasco that he never heard of it!

There were plenty of excuses for this failure. The studio was small and cold, the lights utterly inadequate, and Kalem experienced here its first encounter with static.

For the benefit of the uninformed, I will explain that static is a species of electricity generated by the rapid passing of the cold celluloid film through the camera. There were many forms of it, and all of them were disheartening. One kind resembled forked lightning running from top to bottom of the picture; and again it took the form of sheet lightning, white flashes moving from side to side. Cold weather and dry atmosphere were conducive to it, even in a warm studio. For years, war was waged against it, the Eastman Company joining the struggle and putting out a nonstatic film, which at first was not satisfactory.

Because of the failure of the studio picture, Mr. Marion cast about for one that could be taken in open air in winter, and Washington at Valley Forge was the result. It was made in blizzards and the coldest weather of the year. A military school up the Hudson cooperated and a passable picture was produced, but at the cost of desperately hard work, frostbites and sickness. In early spring came The Scarlet Letter, which was a little better, and then in April a real success- The Japanese Invasion.

Everyone connected with Colonel Verbeck's Military Academy at Manlius, New York, cooperated with fine enthusiasm. The Colonel had been born in Japan. On the ground of the school was a lovely Japanese garden, with tiny stream, arching bridges, tea house and rockeries. The boys were fine young chaps, keen about exhibiting their military training on the screen. The picture depicted the invasion of California by the Japanese, and its battle scenes created almost as great a furore at that time as did those in The Birth of a Nation some six years later.

The big feature was the use of the newly invented airplane for the first time in story or picture. It was a Curtiss plane and if I am not mistaken Mr. Curtiss himself drove it.

Meantime I was playing through the Middle West with "Texas," and one week I wrote two scenarios: a comedy, Huldy's Lovers taken from a Will Carleton poem, and a tragedy The Music Master inspired by an engraving I had run across. As they called for interiors and were useless to Kalem I sent them to Biograph, and at Christmas time I received a cordial letter from the general manager of Biograph, Henry Marvin, asking me to call on him when I returned to New York.

When we passed through New York en route for our closing week in Boston, I called at the Biograph offices and found Mr. Marvin to be a prince of a man, tall and commanding with handsome rugged features and a most sympathetic personality. He had my two pictures run off. They were well done. Edward Dillon and Tony Sullivan, who later became well-known directors, played comedy parts in Huldy's Lovers and D.W. Griffith had the tragic lead in The Music Master.

Thus began my relations with the Biograph people. But when I returned to New York for the summer it was as assistant to Sid Olcott at a weekly salary of twenty dollars for which I was to write, assist with directing and act when I liked. In two weeks I heard again from Mr. Marvin and after the vague indirect negotiations peculiar to that period I agreed to enter the employ of Biograph in the same capacity I was filling at Kalem but at twice the salary, forty dollars a week.

My conscience hurts me to this day for abandoning the Kalem Company so abruptly, but there was excuse for both Mr. Marvin and myself. Biograph was losing its fight against the Motion Picture Patents Company and desperately up against it for scenarios, actors and a market. People who could fill the kind of all-round job I had held at Kalem were scarce in those days. There was the long summer at twenty dollars a week, and I felt that Kalem had taken advantage of my ignorance in offering me that small salary.

I must admit that I paid for my disloyalty to the firm which gave me my start in the moving pictures. I was not happy at Biograph where I spent most of my time working over scenarios in the office, my writing interrupted by a steady stream of visitors whom I had to interview. Moreover, after Sid Olcott's calm and efficient management, the Biograph studios seemed a perfect bedlam.

The director, the elder Mr. McCutcheon, was very ill and Mr. Marvin had given the son, Wallace McCutcheon, an opportunity to show what he could do. Wally was only twenty-two and was a close friend of Mr. Marvin's sons. He was a good-looking frivolous musical comedy actor, with a great interest in boxing matches and pretty chorus girls and was not happy unless there were three or four Broadway beauties around the studio. He was always asking me to write in bits in which he could use them.

With only one small stage there was necessarily much waste of time in resetting scenes, and these gay young people had jolly times dancing and frolicking about during the waits. Naturally Wally did not take his position seriously- it was just a lark. He had made good on his first pictures, which happened to be the two I had written on the road, but had done nothing worth while since. Nor did he welcome suggestions. It was my duty to supervise the last rehearsal, and he always sent for me; but to get him to accept any changes required great tact, all of which was very irritating.

Life at Biograph had its compensations, however, for there I met many interesting persons who later became famous in our profession. Mack Sennett, Charles French, Harry Salter (Florence Lawrence's husband) and "Larry" Griffith, known to the world later as David Wark Griffith, all stopped at my desk to chat.

One day two beautiful little girls came timidly to the gate, asking for work. They were prettily dressed in knee-length frocks and had long curls failing under their drooping hats, the one dark, the other blonde. They were playing in "The Warrens of Virginia" and as an old friend, Emma Dunn, was in the play I chatted with them but was sorry to say, we were unable to place them, as we rarely had need for girls of twelve. But I filed the names of the "Smith" sisters for reference. A year later, as Mary Pickford, Gladys Smith was beginning her startling screen career in the very same studio.

Often I was rather irritable and short with the callers who interfered so with my writing but for some I always stopped willingly. One of these was a tiny little woman, modest and quiet, with enormous gray eyes and a sad face, old for her years. I felt sorry for her and was always on the lookout for a part in which to cast her, but never succeeded in finding it. Her name was Linda Arvidson, and I found out later that at this time she was the secret bride of Larry Griffith.

Screen acting in those days was no job for a lazy person. When not engaged in acting, the men donned overalls and painted scenery. Even the leading woman at Vitagraph, Florence Turner, whose mother was wardrobe mistress, pulled out her sewing machine and got busy on costumes.

Florence Turner was by far the most popular picture actress of her day and deservedly so, for she photographed beautifully and was equally clever in romantic or character-comedy roles. Of course, she was not known by name to her large public, but was called the Vitagraph Girl just as I was the Kalem Girl and Marion Leonard was exploited as the Biograph Girl. It had not as yet occurred to the producers to give out the names of their people nor their photographs. Indeed for the first few years they even thought it unwise to use the same faces too often in their films. Mr. Marion had very decided ideas on the subject, and was quite convinced that people would tire of seeing the same actors over and over, that what they wanted were frequent changes. What a contrast to the present day! But by 1908 they had outgrown that idea to some extent, and were beginning to realize that certain actors were drawing cards. This was probably because exhibitors scattered over the country had taken to writing in opinions of those who were becoming familiar to them.

The outstanding event of my brief connection with Biograph was the discovery of Larry Griffith's ability as a director.

Frank Wonderlee who had gone out with the late James K. Hackett in a legitimate play which lasted two inglorious weeks dropped into my office in search of work. He told me of the disastrous venture. The play had shocked theater-goers and critics by its frankness, for the stage was less radical, realistic and licentious than it is today. The denunciations hurled at it by critics convinced me that in spite of its bad taste it must have some elements of drama and power. So when Wonderlee added, "I understand the author, Lawrence Griffith, is working for Biograph," I was amazed.

That lean, big-nosed, silent man a playwright, author of a drama which had created a veritable sensation? The next time I was in the studio I studied him with dawning interest. Then I had several talks with the man and my interest grew although I blushed more than once; for I had been raised in a mid-Victorian home, where many topics were deemed improper for polite conversation. And Griffith was twenty years ahead of his age. His ideas were revolutionary, stark rude almost, but he was absolutely and innocently unaware of it, and never dreamed that he had shocked me. Though his intellect fairly blazed, I was uncomfortable in his presence, never knowing what he would say next. But he saw my interest had been aroused and every time I came through the studio he waylaid me with the same query :

"Why don't they give an actor a chance to direct? I wish I had the opportunity."

The repeated suggestion began to work, and very soon there came a moment when it came out in the open. Mr. Marvin needed a new director and cast envious eyes at Olcott who was doing fine work for Kalem but he did not dare make Sid a direct offer until he had severed his connection with Kalem, which Olcott was not inclined to do. So one afternoon Mr. Marvin called me to his office and announced:

"I am going to give Tony Sullivan a chance to direct."

I was surprised.

"Why Sullivan?" I asked.

"He has been with us longer than anyone else and therefore I think he should have the first opportunity. What's your objection?"

"Well, in the first place he is a low-comedy character actor and does not understand dramatic work or know dramatic values. Why don't you try Griffith?"

"Who is he, and why do you think he would make good?"

"He plays our heavies, the dark man who did the man about town in At the Crossroads of Life. He has unusual intelligence, dramatic sense, is very anxious for an opportunity, and has recently written a play which though it failed must have had something in it to cause so much discussion."

"All right, send him up and I will talk to him."

A little while later Griffith came to my desk, his face beaming.

"I'm to direct a picture," he said, "and Mr. Marvin has given me free rein. He told me to ask you for a script."

I selected one which told a simple quiet story, a play easy to take because it required exteriors only. It was called The Adventures of Dolly. I recalled the place at Sound Beach where I had been thrown into the mill dam on my first picture. The upper stretches of the river and the surrounding country were just the locations needed for the scenes in this script. So I assigned him Billy Bitzer, our cleverest cameraman, told Griffith where to go, helped him select his cast, all except the leading lady whom he wished to pick for himself. What was my surprise when I found it was my little acquaintance with the big gray eyes, for whom I had been unable to find a part and who then proved to be Griffith's wife.

Griffith did not rush into his first picture unprepared; in fact he took several days to mull over the script; then disappeared for three more, keeping his people at Sound Beach until the picture was finished. An air of mystery enveloped the whole proceedings, no inkling of their progress reached us. Waiting there in the office I grew anxious. Three days for a simple picture that Olcott would have taken in less than a day! Even after his return I did not see Griffith for several days. Then I received a message to come to Mr. Marvin's office and I found them together.

"Mr. Griffith and I have just run off his picture. We would like to know what you think of it."

Not a hint as to whether it was good or bad! We stepped across the hall to the projection room and I saw the first thousand feet of film which started the master of directors on his triumphant way.

It was a lovely little thing. Somehow he had managed to infuse into the plain unvarnished tale a feeling of poetry. It moved along as smoothly and gently as the river which played such a large part in it. Bitzer had given it the finest photography I had yet seen, and the short six or eight scenes of the original had been elaborated into some thirty or more by means of a new technique, unknown, undreamed of up to that hour- the use of the flashback.

You will understand of course that this first picture of his was charming judged by the standards of 1908. My reaction might be very different if I could see it now. Just then it was worth all the thrills I felt.

Griffith's entry as director was most opportune for in a few weeks Biograph gave up its fight against the Motion Picture Patents Company and entered the fold. This had been a losing fight and had reduced the company to desperate financial straits. I doubt very much whether Griffith would have had such as swift success had they remained independent in spite of the fact that his pictures began immediately to create a furore. As an Independent, Biograph had been selling but ten or twelve copies of each picture. Now with a sure market and a director acclaimed as great, their sales quickly surpassed all others. Before long it was not uncommon for them to sell a hundred copies of each production.

Griffith soon became the rage in the profession. Actors, directors and producers eagerly awaited each release and conscientiously studied his methods and the new effects he was always achieving. he introduced large figures cut off at the knees, and a discussion followed. It raged hotly in the Kalem office where Mr. Marion denounced it.

More controversy followed when he brought a man, James Kirkwood it happened to be, right up to the camera until the gigantic figure filled the screen. Then came the close-up and the back-lighted Rembrandt effects and the slightly out-of-focus photographs; the rage for blondes with the back lighting on the fluffy hair giving the effect of a halo. The flashback had also been elaborated until some scenes consisted of only a few feet, and a thousand-foot picture was cut into fifty or sixty scenes. The element of suspense was greatly augmented by the flashes, as was also the effect of contrasts.

It was all very revolutionary, and, however much the other companies criticized, the sale of Biograph pictures immediately outstripped them all, the public endorsed the new type of direction, and the other directors began to imitate it.

No amount of technical and mechanical imitation could produce a rival for those early Griffith pictures, for they contained a spirituality and a force and sometimes a stark crude realism that no other director could achieve. It is difficult to say just what it was; but the same thing held in later Griffith pictures. It was what made Broken Blossoms a masterpiece. Naturally those early efforts contained crudities and were often uneven, but they radiated a sincerity and a poetic illumination that placed them far above those produced by other directors even with as good material.

Griffith soon gathered about him a stock company of distinction. With the tremendous sales he was able to pay enormous salaries, one hundred, one hundred and fifty dollars a week! And actors who had been successful on the stage left it for the new business.

Blondes appealed to him. He retained Marion Leonard; and among others were the little sixteen-year-old ingenue Mary Pickford, Florence Lawrence, and later Blanche Sweet and Lillian Gish, all blondes.

Tony Sullivan remained and was soon allowed to direct comedies under Griffith's supervision. For by popular demand, Biograph began to release three subjects a week. He chose good assistants, but Billy Bitzer remained his personal tried and true cameraman, and Biograph photography, with its rich soft tones, soon became the criterion for all cameramen. Bitzer told me on the one occasion I saw him after leaving Biograph (which was Mary Pickford's ball of farewell to the screen when she returned to the stage with Belasco) that he and Griffith oftentimes sat up all night working out together some photographic effect.

Meantime I was back with Kalem. There was no patching up of my break with Mr. Marion. Mr. Olcott put me into a picture the day after I left Biograph and when Mr. Marion saw it on the screen he said, "I see you have Miss Gauntier back." And that was all.

Through August, September and October I alternately worked in Kalem pictures and haunted managers' offices. For the stage bee still buzzed in my head. Nor did I dare speak of my screen work. Pictures had captured some of their dependable actors and theatrical managers were beginning to fear this new rival. An edict went forth that no one who worked in pictures would be employed so I kept my dark secret.

Original article, 1928.

Gene Gauntier, "Blazing the Trail," Woman's Home Companion, Volume 55, Number 11, November 1928, pages 15-16, 132, 134.

© 1997, David Pierce, on editing and revisions (if any)

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