Scott Lord Silent Film: Mary Pickford in Lonely Villa (D.W. Griffith, Biograph, 1909)

Linda Arvidson wife of D.W. Griffith, in her autobiography "When the Movies Were Young" claims that "The Lonely Villa" was the second film in which Mary Pickford had appeared, her having made her motion picture debut in the earlier "The Violin Maker of Cerona". Mack Sennett had gleaned the plot to "The Lonely Villa" from a newspaper.

G.W. Bitzer, in his autobiography explains, "James Kirkwood and Mary Pickford made their debut at Biograph records they appeared in 'Her First Biscuits' become we made 'The Loney Villa', in which Mary played the child Marion Leonard and Kirkwood played a robber....She was a marvelous photographer subject and an untiring worker...Mary had a flexible, imaginative mind. A story idea sent her scurring for a scrap of paper to make notes, which she would later turn into scenarios and to the extra paycheck. Among the early successes I knew Mary contributed to were 'The Awakening', 'Caught in the Act', 'Getting Even', 'The Girl of Yesterday', 'The Alien', 'Granny', 'Fates Decree' and the never-to-be-forgotten 'Lena and the Geese'."

In her autobiography, actress Lillian Gish discusses D.W. Griffith's use of shot-length in "The Lonely Villa", describing a sucession of short shots. "As the film nears the climax, each shot becomes shorter. The tempo is thus increased and the suspense heighted. The device, which became known as cross-cutting, became a staple of his directorial repetoire."

Author Stanley J. Solomon, in his volume The Film Idea sees "The Lonely Villa" as only the beginning of the development of new film techniques by D.W. Griffith, almost intimating that there would be a synthesis of Griffith as an autuer and new developments in filmmaking would combine. "Although Griffith was working now with materials that could not be effectively duplicated onstage, 'The Lonely Villa' was not really totally cinematic. Griffith's understanding of spatial relationships was still limited; to get a person from one point to another, Griffith shows him moving there in stages." The passage is particularly refreshing because through it Solomon imparts to us where the title of his volume The Film Idea comes from and how it is his point of departure. He writes,"But Griffith learned quickly that a meaningful narrative must be embedded in a total film idea. Otherwise, when the surface movement is the whole film idea, the camera functions simply as a recording device and most of its expressive possiblilities are relegated to either unimportance or mere technique."

In her volume her volume D.W. Griffith, American film master, Iris Barry sees the film technique used by D. W. Griffith developed quickly during a short period of time, "In The Lonely Villa many scenes begin quietly with the entrance of the characters into the set, significant action follows this slow-paced start only belatedly. In The Lonedale Operator there is no leisurely entrance, the characters are already in mid-action when each shot begins and there is no waste footage- no deliberation in getting on with the story when haste and excitement are what is needed." Barry adds, "At no time did he use a scenario. But there was considerable protest when, quite early in his directorial career, he insisted on retaking unsatisfactory scenes and succedded in gaining permission to do so in The Lonely Villa. Bitzer and others were aghast at his extravagence with film."

Film historian Arthur Knight explains in his volume The Liveliest Art, "the legnth of time a shot remained on the screen could create very real psychological tensions in the audience: the shorter the shot, the greater the excitement. As early as 1909, he introduced this principle to build a climax of suspense in 'The Lonely Villa'....By cutting back and forth, from one to the other, making each shot shorter than the last, Griffith heightened the excitement of the situation."

Robert M. Henderson, in his volume D.W. Griffith, the years at Biograph importantly points out that when D.W. Griffith cuts back during the film it is to reveal different characters, or groups of characters.

Author Tom Gunning, in his volume D.W. Griffith and the Origins of Ammerican Narrative Film points out that D.W. Griffith had brought another innovation to film while at the Biograph Film Company, "The Lonely Villa" was comprised of a total of 52 seperate shots, compared to European film d'art that may have contained under 10. "The suspenseful parallel editing of 'The Lonely Villa' yeilded fifty-two shots from the twelve camera set-ups". The film was photographed by G.W. Bitzer

Adventures of Dollie: D.W. Griffith for the Biograph Film Company D. W. Griffith Biograph Film Company Biograph Film Company

Scott Lord Silent Film: Mary Pickford in The Broken Locket (D.W. Griffit...

Both Mary Pickford and Lottie Pickford appear in the one reel film "The Broken Locket", directed by D.W. Griffith and photographed by G.W. Bitzer. Silent Film D.W. Griffith Biograph Film Company

Scott Lord Silent Film: 1776 or The Hessian Renegades

D.W. Griffith directed the Revolutionary War film "1776 or the Hessian Renedgades" during 1909. Director D.W. Griffith appears on screen in the film with wife, Linda Arvidson, Kate Bruce, Florence Lawrence, Marion Keonard, Lottie Pickford and Mary Pickford. The film was photographed by cinematographers G.W. Bitzer and Arthur Marvin. America directed by D.W. Griffith

Scott Lord Silent Film: Mary Pickford in A Strange Meeting (D.W. Griffith, Biograph, 1909)

"A Strange Meeting", directed by D. W. Griffith for the Biograph Company during 1909 starred actress Stephanie Longfellow, Kate Bruce, Mary Pickford and Lottie Pickford. The cameraman to "A Strange Meeting" was G.W. Bitzer. Silent Film D.W. Griffith Biograph Film Company

Scott Lord Silent Film: The Politician's Love Story (D.W. Griffith, Biograph Film Company, 1909)

The Politicians Love Story is a brialliant, early example of reverse screen direction, using diagnol framing to depict perspective.

Linda Arvidson, wife of director D.W. Griffith chronicled having known Mack Sennett in her autobiography "When Movies Were Young", " 'The Curtain Pole' and 'The Politicians Love Story' started the grumbling young Mack Sennett on the road to fame and fortune. Like the grouchy poker player who kicks himself into financial recuperation,Mack Sennett grouched himself into success."
"The Politician's Love Story" was photographed by G.W. Bitzer and Arthur Marvin.

Silent Film D.W. GriffithD Biograph Film Company

Scott Lord Silent Film: Biograph Film Company; The Lure of the Gown (D.W...

Actresses Marion Leonard and Florence Lawrence appeared with Linda Arvidson in "The Lure of the Gown", directed by D.W. Griffith and photographed by G.W. Bitzer for the Biograph Film Company in 1909. Silent Film D.W. Griffith D.W. Griffith

Scott Lord Silent Film: The Cardinal’s Conspiracy (D.W. Griffith, 1909)

Notably, Mary Pickford and James Kirkwood, who would later become her director, appear under the direction of D. W. Griffith in the one reeler "The Cardinal's Conspiracy", along with Mack Sennet as well as Griffith's wife Linda Ardvidson and actress Kate Bruce. The film was photographed by G.W. Bitzer for the Biograph Film Company.

The periodical Moving Picture World reviewed the film with an early description approaching genre theory. "The picture is of the costume kind. In other words, one, when looking at it, has gone to the pages of Stanely Weyman, Henry Harland or Morris Hewitt for his inspiration. We breathe the atmosphere of court life and are taken back, as it were, into a far more romantic period than the present." The periodical continued by regretting that they had viewed the film in "cold monochrome" rather than a more vibrant spectrum of pageant. Biograph Films had advertised the film in the previous issue of Moving Picture World, sharing the full page with Selig, Independent and Kalem studios. Paired with the film "Friend of the Family", Biograph proclaimed that in the film "The Cardinal's Conspiracy", "The subject is elaborately staged, comprising some of the most beautiful exterior scenes ever shown."
In her autobiography When The Movies Were Young, Griffith's wife Linda Arvidson sees the film as the first important screen characterization for actor Frank Powell, adding him to the "remarkable trio" at Biograph of actors Frank Powell, James Kirkwood and Henry B. Walthall. Tom Gunning points to the film belonging to a period when a cinema of narrative integration in fact centered on characterization and accordingly developed film technique with that in mind. To accomadate that narrative integration and its movement to a versimilar acting rather than the florid, histrionic gestures of a filmed theater, Griffith would bring the camera into the story. Gunning writes, "Pickford surpasses any other Biograph actress in the mastery of the new versimilar style...Pickford generally employs a slower pace and her guestures appear intended to reveal psychological traits through behavior."

Silent Film Silent Film

Scott Lord Silent Film: Confidence (D.W. Griffith, 1909)

D.W. Griffith wrote and directed the one reel film "Confidence" for the Biograph Film Company during 1909. Photographed by G.W. Bitzer and Authur Marvin, the film features Florence Lawrence along with D.W. Griffith's wife, Linda Arvidson, and Kate Bruce.

SILENT film D.W. Griffith Biograph Film Company

Scott Lord Silent Film: Corner in Wheat (D.W. Griffith, Biograph, 1909)

"The Miller's Daughter", "The Song of the Shirt"(1908) and "A Corner of Wheat", directed by D.W. Griffith for the Biograph Film Company are early films that depicted the individual within a social context. Kay Sloan, in her copyrighted paper "Silent Cinema as Social Criticism, Front Page Movies", writes, "The comedies, melodramas and occaisional westerns about labor conflict, tenement poverty or political corruption reveal through fantasy an America torn with ideological conflict." Pointing out that film companies looked to the contemporay "muckrackers" for story lines, she includes the films "The Suffragete's Revenge" and "The Reform Candidate" as being timely depictions of audience involved in reception, extending that audience to the readers of Upton Sinclair, but later attributes the decline of social drama to the development of the feature film after World War I. She adds to these the film "The Govenor's Boss" which took its storyline from Tammany Hall while modernizing its theme and message, a technique often attempted by D.W. Griffith. Studio advertisements for "A Corner in Wheat" hailed "The Story of Wheat in Symbolism", writing, "This is possibly the most stirring and artistic subject ever produced by Biograph. It starts with an animated portrayal of Millet's masterpiece 'The Sowers'." "A Corner of Wheat" had been adapted by D.W. Griffith and Frank Woods from the novel "The Pit" and the short story "A Deal in Wheat", both written in 1903 by the sometimes controversial author Frank Norris.

Lillian Gish, in her autobiography The Movies, Mr. Griffith and Me, writes, "He also tackled social problems. Mr. Griffith was deeply sympathetic to the sufferings of the poor, to the injustices inflicted upon them and before he marked his first anniversary as a director he had used social problems as the theme of two fine pictures, 'The Song of the Shirt' and 'A Corner in Wheat".

The steady, weekly competition from other studios during 1909 was typical for the release of the Biograph film "In a Corner of Wheat"; from Selig there was "Pine Ridge Fued", from Lubin there was "Romance of the Rocky Coast", from Essany there was "The Heart of a Cowboy", from Vitagraph there was "Two Christmas-Tides" and from Edison Films there was "Fishing Industry in Gloucester, Mass.". The following week Biograph released "A Trap for Santa Claus" while Vitagraph vied for its audience with "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and Selig with "A Modern Dr. Jeckyll". As the competition was weekly, the month before Kalem had released "Dora", a dramatization of the poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson and Vitagraph had offered "Lancelot and Elaine". Silent Film D.W. Griffith Biograph Film Company

Scott Lord Silent Film: Le Voyage sur Jupiter (Segundo de Chomn, 1909)

Silent Film Silent Film