Lady of the Pavements (United Artists) (1929)

Griffith Risks All to Live Up to Ideals PIONEERING PUT DIRECTOR AT TOP Romantic Career of the World’s Most Conspicuous Motion Picture Genius By DONALD MASTERS You could no more write a his- tory of the motion picture industry without narrating the story of D. W. Griffith, whose “Lady of the Pave¬ ments" is playing to capacity audi¬ ences at the . theatre, than you could describe the development of the automobile with¬ out mentioning Henry Ford. Griffith is to the movies what such men as Ford, Gary, Morgan and Wright are to the motor, steel, finance and avi¬ ation worlds. As a matter of cast- iron fact, he represents even more to the film industry than the others do to their respective fields, for the movies of today are largely depen¬ dent on their existence to the vision and creative ability of the famous director. Consider that Griffith has made a total of 42 7 pictures during his twenty years of dominance in mo¬ tion pictures at a cost of approxi¬ mately $1 1,409,000; remember that these pictures have earned — and ' still are earning profits, to date having brought in a total of $54,603,000. Perhaps, after all, his may be a more lasting glory than that which will fall to the lot of many of the others. When he was a very young man and earned the princely sum of five dollars a day while acting for Biograph, he may have had the knowledge that the truly great are those that survive in the hearts of future generations. He began to worry the executives of the Biograph to give him a chance to direct and make pictures He didn’t want to act. He didn't Jfcve a tinker’s or a plumber’s dam about acting. What he wanted to do from the very beginning was to make pictures. Screen stories were quite elemental—a negro mammy washing a little black boy was a headline feature at Hammerstein’s New York Theatre \yhen D. W. completed his first film. “The Adventures of Dollie.” a story of the kidnapping of Dollie by a gypsy, and of her subsequent escape in a barrel through a rushing torrent. To create suspense he created the “flash-back.’’ “Dollie” was the first definite movie hit. It was a success and there was a certain unusual some¬ thing about it which the officials considered terrible, but the public heartily approved of. That some¬ thing was the first introduction on the screen of the “suspense" note. This was in 1908, and ever since then the chief keynote of the screen masterpieces produced by D. W. Griffith has been motivated from VDollie." Griffith began to create his pic¬ tures with the idea of making the very best of the new medium. First of all, they must be developed away from the crude, jerky, ugly condi¬ tion in which they were shown. They must be beautiful. Next, they must be, above everything else, human in story and appeal. Lastly, they must be commercial sucesses. In the twenty years that he has been creating screen entertainment, D. W. has never deviated from the set rules he coined for himself back in the dark days of Biograph. As a result he has travelled the high road of success, only to find himself at the end of ten years untiring, constant, relentless, but with his ideals practically thrust in the back¬ ground. He is a visionary and like most visionaries, a very poor busi¬ ness man, with the result that some of his artistic triumphs have been created to no avail. D. W. Griffith is and always has been the most artistic man in the mo¬ tion picture game. He has created more stars than most of the other directors put together. With his arrival on the horizon as a notable screen figure, there came in his company such impressive names as Mary Pickford, the Gishes. Dick Barthelmess, Mae Marsh, Blanche Sweet, Douglas Fairbanks, Colleen Moore, Mack Sennett, Eric von Stroheim, Donald Crisp, Norma Shearer, Constance Talmadge and others too numerous to mention. Even in the very first days of his career he cut across the sky-line like a comet. Such pictures as “When Pippa Passes," "The Taming of the Shrew," “Edgar Allen Poe,' ‘Judith of Bethulia" were startling innovations in the still obscure in¬ dustry. The last named made film history, as it was the first of the four-reel pictures, and every official predicted dire failure. It demon¬ strated that Griffith was on his way to become a producer of spectacular productions. Film history was made again when Griffith produced “The Birth of a Nation," Just recently “Intol¬ erance was shown in a revival of earlier triumphs, and, after ten- years, it was unanimously declared by the press in New York “to be the greatest epic the screen has ever produced." Every fan recalls “Way Down East," “Hearts of the World" (the war historical screen record, which was first conceived at No. 10 Downing Street, the home of Lloyd George in London), and the poig¬ nant “Broken Blossoms.” Soon after “Broken Blossoms," GAVE START TO MANY BIG STARS His Triumphs a Mixture of Idealism and Realism and Wistfulness Griffith produced a war picture called “The Greatest Thing in Life." It was a simple story, told with the deft, skillful hands of a master, but it wa* a failure. In an effort to re¬ gain his fortune, he produced other stories which invariably cost twice as much as the preceding one. But to his artistic triumphs he may calmly lay his present status. He can never visualize the common¬ place. He must have in his mind life; the hidden depths of all of the absolute romance of every-day emotions of humanity. These must be portrayed by his characters so that his audience will feel the mirror held up to nature. Without this delving into the emotional pools of the soul, Griffith is utterly lost. He has no desire to create cute little pictures or neat little patterns. He is responsible for such impor¬ tant essentials of the film as the “close-up" the “flash-back," the “fade-out" the “long shot” “mist photography,” which (if he had not been so busy inventing, and groping for ideals) would have made him one of the richest men in the world today. Griffith has always followed an idea for weeks until it has become concrete in his mind. Then he puts it into actual rehearsal and from then on, his story is evolved. His manner of direction is unique. The real Griffith is of a singular sim¬ plicity but like all true geniuses he has wasted several efforts in so far as the public is concerned. Griffith is deserving of the highest praise; for at the risk of fame and fortune, he has through his pion¬ eering done more than any other to raise the moving picture to its pre¬ sent high standing among the fine arts. Pink Page Feature