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

204 Star Maker than the road of blood. It was a great, a stirring, an important idea. It would be seventy-two reels long and would run for eight hours; audiences would have to go for three evenings to see it all. But they would go willingly— even eagerly— for it would deal with their souls and why they, themselves, were on this planet. From the tremendous profits he would have money enough to produce The Treadmill. He threw himself into the scenario, writing till dawn, as he had done so many times before. Now that he had the story, who would produce it? He did not have enough money; the studios looked on him as a ghostly figure out of the past. He felt sensitive about this, and took umbrage easily. Men who had claimed him as friend found him hard to get along with. He kept more and more to himself. His tall, erect figure, with a big flopping hat, walked along the street— the street where once he had attracted so much attention. A new generation, however, had come along. He was out of the minds of the old stars and they paid little attention to him, and he was too proud to make advances. He became the Forgotten Man of Hollywood. He let his letters accumulate without opening them, nor did he open telegrams or answer telephone calls. Once he had liked to go into the dining room of a hotel, for there had always been a flutter that the great director had come and could be seen by anyone who wished, but now he had his meals served in his room and ate alone and in embittered silence. Reporters tried to interview him, but he would not see them. Finally, however, Ezra Goodman, representing P.M., a New York paper, did get to see him. Griffith talked of how wide his reading was and how much he had read during his lifetime and how well he had remembered it. He spoke of the great new film he was going to direct and of The Treadmill. He