Star maker : the story of D. W. Griffith (1959)

112 Star Maker Every possible angle to exploit the picture was used— all except one. And this was the "personal appearance." No star had yet gone forth to shout for a movie. The picture brought millions to the box office who never before had gone to a picture house. Until now they had thought of motion pictures in terms of the nickelodeon and the cheap side-street halls where people were requested not to spit on the floor. They came flocking to motion-picture houses, ready to hand over two dollars. It was something new and novel to the American public. The term "the flickers" was completely gone now. The effect of the players on the public was startling. Until now people had paid little or no attention to the names of the actors— except Little Mary and the Biograph Girl; now the public wanted to know all about the people taking these parts. Nothing like it before had ever been known. Requests for pictures of the players and their autographs poured in; how long it seemed since Little Mary had got twenty-two letters in the ancient days at Biograph. The public wanted to know about "the Little Colonel"— Henry B. Walthall— and the men of America tried to adopt his fine patrician air; their success was not notable. They imitated his haircut and they wanted his style of collar and necktie. Rough-and-ready men who had once let a lady look after herself as best she could now hopped up and led her across the street as if rescuing her from a burning building. When a man got her across and she thanked him, he took off his hat and laid it reverently across his breast. It was a stirring and ennobling sight. The effect on the women also was startling. Once plumpness had been queen, but the heroine of The Birth of a Nation was slender and petite, and now the women of America wanted