Scott Lord Silent Film: An Unseen Enemy (D.W. Griffith, Biograph 1912)

The year 1912 was to mark the first film with Lillian and Dorothy Gish, “An Unseen Enemy” (one reel), directed by D.W. Griffith for the Biograph Film Company. Lillian and Dorothy Gish appeared in a dozen two reel films together during 1912 and several more during 1913. In The Man Who Invented Hollywood, the autobiography of D.W. Griffith, published in 1972, Griffith outlines his arriving at the Biograph Film Company and adding actors, including Mary Pickford,to his ensemble. Griffith recalls, "One day in the early summer of 1909, I was going through the dingy, old hall of the Biograph studio when suddenly the gloom seemed to disappear. The change was caused by the prescence of two young girls sitting side by side and on a hall bench...They were Lillian Gish and Dorothy Gish. Of the two, Lillian shone with an extremely fragile, ethereal beauty...As for Dorothy, she was lovely too, but in another manner- pert, saucy, the old mischief popping out of her." Actress Lilian Gish, in her autobiography, The Movies, Mr. Griffith and Me writes,"Mr. Griffith had rehearsed 'The Unseen Enemy' with other actresses, but after meeting us, he decided we would be suitable for the leads and changed the plot just enough to fit us."

The cinematographer to "An Unseen Enemy" was G.W. Bitzer.
Silent Film


Lillian and Dorothy Gish Biograph Film Company The Adventures of Dolly: D.W. Griffith for the Biograph Film Company