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

194 Star Maker to see his poem, but, on the other hand, it was rewarding to have something in print in a magazine. It was not long before letters began to come in to him as a director— mostly wanting jobs. Ordinarily he did not pay any attention to letters that came to the studio, but this was different. As an author, he answered every one. He became discontented with Miami; it did not have the right atmosphere for a writer, he said, and left. The country became excited over a great super-picture— Gone with the Wind. Especially was Griffith intrigued, for it, too, was a story of the South and the War Between the States. But picture making had changed. To make Gone with the Wind had taken three years, instead of the seven months he had spent on The Birth of a Nation, and it had taken thirteen scenario writers, three directors, and had cost $4,000,000. At last, in December 1939, came the opening date in Atlanta, Georgia, for Gone with the Wind. The mayor declared a three-day holiday and asked the men to raise sideburns, or imperials, and the women to appear in hoopskirts and the things that go with them. This they did; and again people marched down Peachtree Street, but this time no fiery crosses, no regalia, no pistols, no Ku Klux Klan. The world had changed, indeed. One of the impressive scenes in the picture was the one in which the railroad depot was turned into a mighty hospital for the care of the wounded and dying. Griffith looked at it sourly. "I got the same effect with a close-up of a few dead bodies." He was eager to get news of his old associates. The Reverend Thomas Dixon was in Raleigh, North Carolina, in real estate, but was not doing well, the word was. The money he had