When the movies were young (1925)

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250 When the Movies were Young "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 multiplereel 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."