The screen writer (Apr-Oct 1948)

white man. He had been raised by the colored people and loved and understood them. The story of that film concerned individuals, not a race. In that hour of critical attack, the idea for his favorite film, Intolerance, was born. As I look again at this picture, I wonder how its four intricate stories with all their details could have been kept so clearly in the head of one man who worked without the help of a single note. This film was his answer to the critics of The Birth of a Nation. Little poems or stirring dramas — The Romance of Happy Valley, Broken Blossoms, Hearts of the World, Way Down East and Orphans of the Storm — were all monuments that he left to point the way for others who might care enough to fight to make their dreams articulate on film. May their gratitude to a loving, patient mentor reach him. I know how deeply David Griffith believed in the goodness of the human family — how sincere was his desire to bring peace to a confused and tortured world. Lilliam Gish ivas brought to stardom by Griffith in The Birth of a Nation and later appeared in most of his successes. F. Hugh Herbert 'HERE is a phrase you often hear in Hollywood, generally in reference to an old-timer who may have fallen upon evil days. It is a grim, rather graphic phrase, cruel and even wise. This oft repeated phrase is this "The parade has passed him by." You hear it mostly upon the lips of brash youngsters, heady with some recent commercial success; rarely do you hear it from older, kinder, more pensive people. They are too sensitive to the analogy of passing parades. They know, too well, how soon the triumphant blare of trumpets can recede and fade away, until even the memory of the fanfare is gone with the wind. In the last decade of his life, while D. W. Griffith was living here in retirement, I heard the phrase repeated many times in reference to him "The parade has passed him by." Young, arrogant producers have said it to me, producers who have never contributed to the screen one innovation, one creative impulse. "The parade has passed him by." Young directors have said it to me, directors who are so infatuated by the techniques which permit them to keep their cameras moving that they are blind to the fact that their stories remain static. "The parade has passed him by." Young writers have said it to me — writers who consistently ignore the simple fact that a motion picture is primarily a series of images which assault the emotions, and not the reproduction on a sound track of countless words. "The parade has passed him by." To my great shame I have -always remained silent during these discussions. When I came into this industry twenty-eight years ago, D. W. Griffith was the first director I ever saw shooting a picture. The awe with which I watched him in action, and the great respect and admiration which I felt for him then, and feel for him now, might have impelled me to break my silence during these last years, when they were saying that the parade had passed him by. It is more becoming to defend the living than to eulogize the dead. I could, and should have pointed out that the carade o^ "duch they spoke had formed around D. W. Griffith, the pioneer and innovator; that for years he led the parade, not in new technique, but in a philosophical understanding of his medium, in his instinctive recognition that the screen must be a mighty instrument of mass propaganda; that the parade, in passing him by, may well be out of step today, because his imagination and artistry set a pace that only a few can maintain. The years take their toll, and sooner or later the parade will pass all of us by. Few of us, in this industry, When the time comes, will have contributed a fraction of what D. W. Griffith devised ; none of us will have contributed more. F. Hugh Herbert, a vice president of SWG, is a ivriter-director at Twentieth Century-Fox. Julian Johnson I KNEW D. W. Griffith from the first days of The Birth of a Nation— I met him for the first time, a few months after the New York opening — but I think my most interesting talk wih him, at least the one that is most significant in my memory, occurred just after he had finished Intolerance. This was in Chicago, where I was editing Photoplay Magazine with all the zest a young reporter could bring to a new industry which, in the enthusiasm of youth, he almost believed he had discovered. Intolerance had not yet been publicly shown. He had it run for me, privately, and I was spellbound, as I am to this day, by the breadth of its conception, the splendor of its great scenes and the poetic beauty and truth of its smaller ones. I did the best I could with compliments, trying hard not to make them sound fulsome. But D. W. was not especially happy about the picture, and certainly not optimistic about its success. "I had to make this picture," he said, "because I have found so much bitterness, so much useless contention, so much jealousy, all my life. I suppose it is a general human failing. People just won't put up with each other — that's the curse of the world. It has been that way down the ages, it caused us this trouble (we were then in the midst of World War I) and mark my words it will cause more trouble. People will tell you that the love of money is the root of all evil or that ambition is the root of all evil, but that isn't so. People just won't put up with each other. My political beliefs, my religious beliefs, my socialsystem are better than yours and accordingly, it's my duty to make you accept them whether you want to or not. That was my theme . . . people won't put up with each other . . . I tried a long time for a title. I think Intolerance hits it, but I'm not too certain that the general public will like to be shown their faults, even in an allegory; they'd much rather have a story about good people and bad people, in which the bad people get {Continued on Page 18) The Screen Writer, August, 194