D.W. GriffithFilmography

The Struggle

Crew: Composer (Music Score), Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Hal Skelly, Zita Johann, Charlotte Wynters, Evelyn Baldwin, Jackson Halliday

Synopsis: The directorial career of D.W. Griffith, "the father of the American cinema," ended on a discordant note with The Struggle, his second and last talking picture. Self-produced by Griffith and filmed on a $300,000 budget at a Bronx rental studio, the story is based on Emile Zola's cautionary tale The Drunkard Read More

Abraham Lincoln

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Walter Huston, Kay Hammond, Una Merkel, Jason Robards, Sr., Ian Keith

Synopsis: To date, this D.W. Griffith epic is the only talking-picture effort to encapsulate the entire life of Abraham Lincoln, from cradle to grave. The script, credited to Stephen Vincent Benet, manages to include all the familiar high points, including Lincoln's tragic romance with Ann Rutledge (Una Merkel Read More

Lady of the Pavements

Crew: Director

Actors: Lupe Velez, Jetta Goudal, Albert Conti, George Fawcett

Synopsis: D.W. Griffith's last silent film, The Lady of the Pavements was based on La Paiva, a story by Karl Gustav Vollmoeller. Set in 19th-century Paris, the story concerns the romantic travails of Prussian aristocrat Count Karl von Arnim (played by future "Hopalong Cassidy" star William Boyd). Feeling Read More

The Battle of the Sexes

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Jean Hersholt, Phyllis Haver, Belle Bennett, Don Alvarado, Sally O'Neil

Synopsis: A remake of a 1914 D.W. Griffith potboiler, The Battle of the Sexes is a highly entertaining, if cautionary, tale of a middle-aged family man, J.C. Judson (Jean Hersholt), who despite his devotion to wife and offspring falls for what is obviously a gold digger, Marie Skinner (Phyllis Haver). When Read More

Drums of Love

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Mary Philbin, Lionel Barrymore, Don Alvarado, Tully Marshall

Synopsis: Pioneering filmmaker D.W. Griffith's days of glory were well behind him when he agreed to direct Drums of Love. Indicative of his diminishing status in Hollywood was the fact that he was now merely a hired hand at United Artists, the company he'd helped to form in 1919. The film was based on the Read More

The Sorrows of Satan

Crew: Director

Actors: Adolphe Menjou, Ricardo Cortez, Carol Dempster, Lya de Putti, Ivan Lebedeff

Synopsis: Though D.W. Griffith had given up his independent-filmmaker status by joining Paramount Pictures in 1926, he had lost none of his artistry, if this film is any indication. Based on a mystical novel by Marie Correlli, Adolphe Menjou stars as the elegant, sartorially splendid Prince Lucio de Read More

Sally of the Sawdust

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Carol Dempster, W.C. Fields, Alfred Lunt, Erville Alderson, Effie Shannon

Synopsis: Pioneering filmmaker D.W. Griffith directed W.C. Fields in his first starring role in this silent comedy. When Mary Foster runs away from home to marry her sweetheart, a circus performer, she does so against the wishes of her socially prominent parents (Erville Alderson and Effie Shannon), who Read More

That Royale Girl

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Carol Dempster, W.C. Fields, James Kirkwood, Harrison Ford, Paul Everton

Synopsis: The stars and director of Sally of the Sawdust, namely Carol Dempster, W. C. Fields and D. W. Griffith, were reunited in That Royle Girl. Dempster heads the cast as Daisy Royle, the daughter of a small-time crook (Fields, of course). When Daisy's jazz-musician boyfriend Fred Ketlar (Harrison Ford) Read More

Isn't Life Wonderful

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Carol Dempster, Neil Hamilton, Erville Alderson, Helen Lowell, Frank Puglia

Synopsis: Producer/director D.W. Griffith's feature is a fairly realistic study of the deprivations visited on the German people after their defeat in World War I. In her best-ever performance, Griffith protégée Carol Dempster plays Inga, who does her best to hold her family together and keep food on the Read More

America

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Neil Hamilton, Erville Alderson, Carol Dempster, Arthur Dewey

Synopsis: This epic tale about the American Revolution broke the bank for filmmaker D.W. Griffith. Robert W. Chambers loosely adapted his novel, The Reckoning, which focuses on the battles in New York state. Griffith however, found it necessary to add a romance, so Chambers obligingly added one for him. Read More

The White Rose

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Mae Marsh, Carol Dempster, Ivor Novello, Neil Hamilton, Lucille La Verne

Synopsis: Too long by at least 3 reels, D. W. Griffith's The White Rose is nonetheless one of the best and most accomplished of the director's "pastoral" films. Mae Marsh plays a virginal young lass of modest means who pretends to be more worldly than she actually is. Aristocratic divinity student Ivor Read More

Orphans of the Storm

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Lillian Gish, Dorothy Gish, Joseph Schildkraut, Frank Losee, Katherine Emmett

Synopsis: Having turned the creaky old stage melodrama Way Down East into a money-spinning film, director D.W. Griffith set about to perform the same magic with the barnstorming theatrical piece The Two Orphans. Adolphe Philippe Dennery's play told the story of two orphaned girls, one blind, who are Read More

One Exciting Night

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Carol Dempster, Henry Hull, Morgan Wallace, Porter Strong

Synopsis: At the time he made this confusing blend of melodrama, mystery, and comedy, D.W. Griffith was in financial trouble. This picture, written by Griffith under the pseudonym of Irene Sinclair, was originally meant to be a small, relatively low-budget (by Griffith standards) production which would Read More

Dream Street

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Carol Dempster, W.J. Ferguson, Ralph Graves, Charles Emmett Mack, Tyrone Power, Sr.

Synopsis: D.W. Griffith garnishes this romantic fable with a dreamy gauze of Victorian melodramatic sensibility. As an intertitle of the film states: "Sometimes dreams do come true. Not by accident their dark path emerges into the light, for dreams are our inner selves and perhaps all would come true if we Read More

The Idol Dancer

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Even though this is a lesser D.W. Griffith film, the casting is intriguing. Richard Barthelmess, who usually played a "good boy," portrays Dan McGuire, a lazy beachcomber who likes his gin. The girl is Clarine Seymour, whose spirit was far earthier than Lillian Gish's, and whose talent was far Read More

The Greatest Question

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: George Nichols

Synopsis: As a child, Nellie Jarvis (Lillian Gish) witnessed a murder, but it only remains a shadowy memory. After the death of her parents, she is taken in by a poor but honest couple, the Hiltons (George Fawcett and (Eugenie Besserer). To help pay for her keep, she goes to work for a very nasty pair of Read More

Romance

Crew: Producer

Synopsis: United Artists had only been in existence for a few months when D.W. Griffith decided to bring this Edward Sheldon play to the screen, and he showed bad judgment, both financially and artistically, in doing so. The play had been a success in England, running for six years with Doris Keane and her Read More

Way Down East

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess, Lowell Sherman, Burr McIntosh, Creighton Hale

Synopsis: "I'm not a bad businessman", filmmaker D.W. Griffith once protested, "Honestly I'm not!" Yet industryites were certain that Griffith had taken leave of his financial senses when he paid $175,000 for the screen rights to the old Lottie Blair Parker stage play Way Down East. Considered out of date Read More

The Love Flower

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Synopsis: A more exotic story than 1920s audiences had come to expect from D.W. Griffith, The Love Flower nonetheless adheres to Griffith's usual Dickensian approach to storytelling. There's an early outrage (the murder of a man), a child with a clouded past (the murderer's daughter), a decades-long Read More

The Girl Who Stayed at Home

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: Out of all of Griffith's films about the Great War, this one impressed the least. Perhaps Carol Dempster should share part of the blame for this -- it was her first starring vehicle and her hyperactive performance was soundly upstaged by her charismatic co-star Clarine Seymour. In brief, the plot Read More

A Romance of Happy Valley

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: Since much of this film takes place in rural Kentucky, where director D.W. Griffith grew up, it no doubt has many autobiographical touches. Since the setting was so close to his heart, that may be why this simple and winsome picture is one of Griffith's most charming creations. With complete lack Read More

Broken Blossoms

Crew: Composer (Music Score), Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess, Donald Crisp, Edward Peil Sr., Arthur Howard

Synopsis: Based on "The Chink and the Child", a story by Thomas Burke, Broken Blossoms is one of D.W. Griffith's most poetic films. Richard Barthelmess plays a young Chinese aristocrat who hopes to spread the gospel of his Eastern religion to the grimy corners of London's Limehouse district. Rapidly Read More

Scarlet Days

Crew: Director

Synopsis: This D.W. Griffith picture has the distinction of being, arguably, the worst film that the director ever made. For starters, it's a western -- not one of Griffith's best subjects. And most of the characters are two-dimensional clichés. Rosy Nell (Eugenie Besserer) is a dance-hall woman of the Old Read More

True Heart Susie

Crew: Director

Actors: Lillian Gish, Loyola O'Connor, Robert Harron, Wilbur Higby, Clarine Seymour

Synopsis: True Heart Susie is one of D.W. Griffith's "pastoral" films, wherein plot takes second place to characterization and romance. Lillian Gish plays Susie May Trueheart, who so loves local boy William Jenkins (Robert Harron) that she secretly finances his education. Returning to his home town as a Read More

The Fall of Babylon

Crew: Director

Actors: Tully Marshall, Constance Talmadge, Elmer Clifton, Alfred Paget, Carl Stockdale

Synopsis: Intolerance, D.W. Griffith's towering achievement interlocking four stories of intolerance throughout the ages, has been bowdlerized by the Master himself in this 1919 re-tread utilizing the Babylon sections of that mammoth film. In an effort to recoup some of his disastrous personal losses Read More

The Great Love

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: This war-time D.W. Griffith film was literally filler -- some of the footage was left over from around the time he shot Hearts of the World. According to reports of the day (the film apparently no longer exists), its modest story and simple approach was a comedown from the director's other, far Read More

The Greatest Thing in Life

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Synopsis: In the sentimental world of filmmaker D.W. Griffith, the greatest thing in life is love. Obtaining it and understanding it, however, isn't so easy, as Jeanette Peret (Lillian Gish) learns. While working in her father's Greenwich Village cigar store, she meets an attractive but arrogant Southern Read More

Hearts of the World

Crew: Cinematographer, Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Lillian Gish, Robert Harron, Dorothy Gish, George Fawcett, Erich Von Stroheim

Synopsis: On the heels of his masterpiece, Intolerance, which dramatized the futility of war born out of prejudice, director D.W. Griffith shifted gears for this film. Intolerance had proven a financial disaster for Griffith, so he signed with producer Adolph Zukor to release his next film. He came upon the Read More

Manhattan Madness

Crew: Producer

Actors: Douglas Fairbanks

Synopsis: Douglas Fairbanks headlines this fast-paced and funny adventure set in contemporary Manhattan playing a New Yorker who exchanges city life for the excitement of raising horses and cattle in the wild West. One day he returns to the Big Apple to brag about his exciting new life. He gets his friends Read More

Intolerance

Crew: Composer (Music Score), Costume Designer, Director, Editor, Producer, Production Designer, Screenwriter

Actors: Lillian Gish, Mae Marsh, Robert Harron, Miriam Cooper, Walter Long, Tully Marshall, Alfred Paget

Synopsis: Sometime during the shooting of the landmark The Birth of a Nation, filmmaker D.W. Griffith probably wondered how he could top himself. In 1916, he showed how, with the awesome Intolerance. The film began humbly enough as a medium-budget feature entitled The Mother and the Law, wherein the lives Read More

The Good Bad Man

Crew: Producer

Actors: Douglas Fairbanks

Synopsis: The Good Bad Man is at once a straight western and a gentle spoof of the genre. Douglas Fairbanks plays a fellow who calls himself "Passin' Through." Orphaned at birth, Our Hero grows up to be a Robin-Hood-like bandit, robbing the rich so that he can finance a home for unwanted children. In this Read More

The Habit of Happiness

Crew: Producer

Actors: Douglas Fairbanks

Synopsis: Douglas Fairbanks stars as "Sunny" Wiggins, who believes in eternal optimism and good spirits. This places Wiggins at odds with his staid, wealthy family, who decide to get even when he blithely invites a group of derelicts to his sister's coming-out party. Wiggins is ordered to go to Skid Row Read More

Susan Rocks the Boat

Crew: Producer

Synopsis: Dorothy Gish was seen at her light-comedy best in the Fine Arts production Susan Rocks the Boat. Gish plays the title character, a wealthy young woman with no discernible purpose in life and a propensity for getting into trouble. Inspired by the exploits of her role model, Joan of Arc, Susan Read More

Pillars of Society

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: With Pillars of Society, director Raoul Walsh fulfilled his three-picture commitment for the year 1916. Adapted from the 1877 play by Henrik Ibsen, the film starred Henry B. Walthall in the principal role of Karsten Bernick. Like most of Ibsen's "problem" dramas, the story was predicated on the Read More

An Innocent Magdalene

Crew: Producer

Synopsis: One might be inclined to dismiss the title of this film as a contradiction in terms -- but with Lillian Gish in the lead, how could the heroine be anything else but innocent? Based on a story by D.W. Griffith, writing pseudonymously as "Granville Warwick," the story concerns a Kentucky belle named Read More

Half Breed

Crew: Producer

Actors: Douglas Fairbanks

Synopsis: Douglas Fairbanks Sr.'s splendid physique was seen in all its pristine glory in the 1916 western The Half-Breed. In what might have been a movie first, the title character is sympathetically portrayed, despite the "onus" of having Indian blood. Living as an outcast, young Lo Dorman (Fairbanks) is Read More

Hoodoo Ann

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: Though officially directed by Lloyd Ingraham, the delightful Hoodoo Ann was for all intents and purposes a D.W. Griffith film. Griffith not only served as producer, but also wrote the screenplay under the pseudonym "Granville Warwick." Mae Marsh plays the title character, an orphan girl who is Read More

The Mystery of the Leaping Fish

Crew: Screen Story

Actors: Douglas Fairbanks

Synopsis: Silent superstar Douglas Fairbanks lampoons both his dashing onscreen persona and the detective mystery genre in this curious little two-reeler. Detective Coke Ennyday (Fairbanks) wears a drooping mustache, odd clothes, and starts his day with some hootch and a few hypodermics. The police call and Read More

Daphne and the Pirate

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: Lillian Gish shows almost as much spunk in this picture as her hoydenish sister Dorothy Gish usually did. Daphne La Tour (Gish), is the daughter of a destitute French nobleman in the early 18th century. Because he is the favorite at the king's court, Philip de Mornay (Elliot Dexter) can probably Read More

Fifty-Fifty

Crew: Producer

Synopsis: The charm of Norma Talmadge and the directorial savvy of Allan Dwan were combined to make Fifty-Fifty an odds-on winner. Talmadge plays Naomi, a young aspiring artist known to her Bohemian friends as "The Nut." Naomi's alleged nuttiness does not in any way impede the efforts by wealthy Frederick Read More

Don Quixote

Crew: Producer

The Martyrs of the Alamo

Crew: Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Alfred Paget

Synopsis: Supervised by D.W. Griffith, Martyrs of the Alamo was directed by Griffith's loyal but considerably less inspired assistant William "Christy" Cabanne. The film never lags in its action sequences, notably the climactic siege of the Alamo. Only in the dramatic scenes does the film cry out for Read More

The Birth of a Nation

Crew: Composer (Music Score), Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Henry B. Walthall, Miriam Cooper, Mae Marsh, Lillian Gish, Robert Harron, Ralph Lewis

Synopsis: The most successful and artistically advanced film of its time, The Birth of a Nation has also sparked protests, riots, and divisiveness since its first release. The film tells the story of the Civil War and its aftermath, as seen through the eyes of two families. The Stonemans hail from the Read More

Jordan Is a Hard Road

Crew: Producer, Supervisor/Manager

Synopsis: Allan Dwan was the producer-screenwriter and D.W. Griffith the supervising director of the Northwoods melodrama Jordan is a Hard Road. Based on a novel by Sir Gilbert Parker, the film cast Dorothy Gish as the daughter of reformed bandit Ralph Lewis. Without ever tipping her off to his true Read More

The Lamb

Crew: Director, Supervisor/Manager

Actors: Douglas Fairbanks

Synopsis: Though its script is credited to D.W. Griffith, The Lamb is actually a film adaptation of Winchell Smith's Broadway play The New Henrietta. In his screen debut, Douglas Fairbanks plays a wealthy wastrel who is framed in a stock swindle. To prove his innocence, Fairbanks is plunked into several Read More

The Lily and the Rose

Crew: Supervisor/Manager

Synopsis: In one of her autobiographies, Lillian Gish reprinted in toto the studio synopsis of the D.W. Griffith production The Lily and the Rose, then commented wryly "Now that's what I call a plot!" Wilfred Lucas plays a virile man-about-town who weds "The Lily" (Gish), only to cast her Read More

The Sable Lorcha

Crew: Producer

Synopsis: The Sable Lorcha was inspired by a story by Horace Hazeltine (a pseudonym for Charles Stokes Wayne). Saturnine character actor Tully Marshall is cast as Soy, leader of a Chinese Tong faction known as the Seven Skulls. While attempting to smuggle his family out of China, Soy is found out, and his Read More

Enoch Arden

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Alfred Paget

Synopsis: This adaptation of the Tennyson poem is graced with the presence of silent luminary Lillian Gish as Annie Lee. Three children -- Philip Ray, Annie Lee and an orphan, Enoch Arden, grow up together, and when they reach adulthood (with handsome Wallace Reid as Philip and a miscast Alfred Paget as Read More

The Avenging Conscience

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Synopsis: This innovative psychological drama represents one of D.W. Griffith's early full-length feature films and contains innovations that influenced international filmmakers, particularly German ones, for decades to come. It tells the tale of a young man with a fondness for reading Edgar Allen Poe, who Read More

Classmates

Crew: Supervisor/Manager

Synopsis: Forced by the dictates of his Biograph contract to give up directing in favor of "supervising," D.W. Griffith left the studio as soon as possible. Thus, though Griffith is credited as supervisor of the 4-reel Classmates, he actually had very little to do with the production. The story concerns Read More

The Mother and the Law

Crew: Director

Actors: Mae Marsh, Robert Harron, Miriam Cooper

Synopsis: While busy with The Birth of a Nation, director D.W. Griffith began a small-scale contemporary drama called The Mother and the Law. The film was designed as an indictment against professional do-gooders who take it upon themselves to "reform" the poor. One victim of this misguided treatment is Read More

Home, Sweet Home

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Lillian Gish, Dorothy Gish, Mae Marsh, Donald Crisp

Synopsis: Home Sweet Home has been referred to by its leading lady Lillian Gish as "the first all-star film." Indeed, virtually every member of director D.W.Griffith's celebrated stock company appears in this three-part, five-reel biographical drama. Based on the life of John Howard Payne, composer of the Read More

The Dishonored Medal

Crew: Supervisor/Manager

Synopsis: This tragedy is set in the Algerian desert and begins as a selfish French Foreign Legion officer abandons the native girl he impregnated. Now all she has left of him is the Legion of Honor medal, he gave her. She dies during childbirth and her son is raised by a gentle old Algerian. He too has a Read More

The Escape

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Donald Crisp, Robert Harron, Blanche Sweet, Mae Marsh

Synopsis: Paul Armstrong's venerable stage melodrama The Escape was first brought to the screen by D.W. Griffith in 1914. In true "blood will tell" fashion, the unfortunate children of a criminal family are doomed to live outside the law themselves. Petty crook Jim Joyce (Fred A. Turner) is the father of Read More

The Gangsters of New York

Crew: Director

Synopsis: The 4-reel Gangsters of New York was an acceptable imitation D.W. Griffith picture, directed by Griffith associate William "Christy" Cabanne. Burly Ralph Lewis plays Spike Golden, a tough-talking gangster who intimidates everyone within a radius of ten miles. Among those within Golden's orbit are Read More

The Battle of the Sexes

Crew: Director

Actors: Donald Crisp, Robert Harron, Lillian Gish, Mary Alden, Owen Moore

Synopsis: Filmed in a fast five days, The Battle of the Sexes was D. W. Griffith's first production after breaking loose from his Biograph contract. Adapted from Daniel Carson Goodman's play The Single Standard, the film stars Lillian Gish as a proper young lady who is shocked by her father's infidelities. Read More

Judith of Bethulia

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Blanche Sweet, Henry B. Walthall, Robert Harron, Mae Marsh, Lillian Gish

Synopsis: Conservative Biograph Studios, having galloped to prominence on the coattails of their star director D.W. Griffith, refused to allow Griffith to make any film longer than two reels. Ignoring this edict, Griffith permitted his Biblical epic Judith of Bethulia to stretch to four reels; Biograph's Read More

His Last Dollar

Crew: Director

Synopsis: The direction of 1914's His Last Dollar has often been attributed to D.W. Griffith. However, since Griffith was preoccupied with such trivialities as The Birth of a Nation at the time, it is likely that he merely supervised the film, handing the directorial reins to Frank Powell. Venerable stage Read More

The Left-Handed Man

Crew: Director

Just Gold

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

An Adventure in the Autumn Woods

Crew: Director

The Lady and the Mouse

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Madonna of the Storm

Crew: Director

A Misunderstood Boy

Crew: Director

A Misappropriated Turkey

Crew: Director

The Mistake

Crew: Director

Love in an Apartment Hotel

Crew: Director

The Little Tease

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Mothering Heart

Crew: Director

Mirror

Crew: Director

A Modest Hero

Crew: Director

Death's Marathon

Crew: Director

The Conscience of Hassan Bey

Crew: Director

During the Round-Up

Crew: Director

Drink's Lure

Crew: Director

Brute Force

Crew: Director

Broken Ways

Crew: Director

The Coming of Angelo

Crew: Director

A Chance Deception

Crew: Director

The House of Darkness

Crew: Director

His Mother's Son

Crew: Director

An Indian's Loyalty

Crew: Director

If We Only Knew

Crew: Director

A Girl's Stratagem

Crew: Director

The Enemy's Baby

Crew: Director

The Hero of Little Italy

Crew: Director

Her Mother's Oath

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Near to Earth

Crew: Director

Two Men of the Desert

Crew: Director

The Unwelcome Guest

Crew: Director

A Timely Interception

Crew: Director

The Tender Hearted Boy

Crew: Director

Three Friends

Crew: Director

Synopsis: The "three friends" in this sentimental Gaumont effort are an elderly cab driver, his faithful horse and his pet dog. Early on, it is established that both horse and dog have suffered unspeakable cruelties at the hands of their previous owners. The kindhearted cabbie rescues the two animals Read More

A Welcome Intruder

Crew: Director

The Wanderer

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Battle at Elderbush Gulch

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: A besieged blockhouse containing a frightened Lillian Gish, marauding Indians, and a Mexican who heroically brings the cavalry to the rescue, are the none-too-original components of D.W. Griffith's endurable 2-reeler The Battle at Elderbush Gulch, made during the director's final year with Read More

Fate

Crew: Director

A Woman in the Ultimate

Crew: Director

The Yaqui Cur

Crew: Director

The Telephone Girl and the Lady

Crew: Director

Pirate Gold

Crew: Director

The Ranchero's Revenge

Crew: Director

Oil and Water

Crew: Director

Olaf-An Atom

Crew: Director

The Perfidy of Mary

Crew: Director

The Reformers

Crew: Director

The Stolen Loaf

Crew: Director

The Sorrowful Shore

Crew: Director

The Stolen Bride

Crew: Director

The Sheriff's Baby

Crew: Director

So Runs the Way

Crew: Director

An Indian Summer

Crew: Director

The Inner Circle

Crew: Director

The Informer

Crew: Director

Home Folks

Crew: Director

His Lesson

Crew: Director

In the Aisles of the Wild

Crew: Director

In the North Woods

Crew: Director

In the Elemental World

Crew: Director

Man's Lust for Gold

Crew: Director

Man's Genesis

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Mender of Nets

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Mary Pickford plays a fisherman's daughter who mends her father's fishing nets. A young man (Charles H. West) falls in love and proposes marriage to her. However, this man has done something to "dishonor" another woman (Mabel Normand). Mabel's brother finds out that the man will not marry his Read More

The Massacre

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: A wagon train is attacked by marauding Indians in this typically grisly Biograph one-reel western melodrama preserved in the print collection of the Library of Congress. After the massacre of the title, a soldier searches for his wife and child. He finds them -- under a pile of dead soldiers. Read More

Lena and the Geese

Crew: Director, Producer

Iola's Promise

Crew: Director

Actors: Alfred Paget

Synopsis: Filmed during the Biograph Company's yearly winter excursion to sunny California, this one-reel Western melodrama features Mary Pickford in the title role, as an Indian maiden rescued from her cruel captors by prospector Alfred Paget. The Indians retaliate by capturing the young man's sweetheart, Dorothy Bernard Read More

A Lodging for the Night

Crew: Director

The Lesser Evil

Crew: Director

Heaven Avenges

Crew: Director

A Change of Spirit

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Burglar's Dilemma

Crew: Director

A Child's Remorse

Crew: Director

The Chief's Blanket

Crew: Director

A Beast at Bay

Crew: Director

The Baby and the Stork

Crew: Director

Brutality

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Billy's Stratagem

Crew: Director

The God Within

Crew: Director

The Girl and Her Trust

Crew: Director

Synopsis: This exciting drama from D.W. Griffith was a remake of his earlier The Lonedale Operator. Grace (Dorothy Bernard) is a telegraph operator for the train line. She is attracted to her co-worker Jack. When a bank sends $2000 on the train that is to be picked up at the telegraph office, a couple of Read More

Gold and Glitter

Crew: Director

The Goddess of Sagebrush Gulch

Crew: Director

Fate's Interception

Crew: Director

A Cry for Help

Crew: Director

For His Son

Crew: Director

A Feud in the Kentucky Hills

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Two Daughters of Eve

Crew: Director

The Transformation of Mike

Crew: Director

An Unseen Enemy

Crew: Director

Under Burning Skies

Crew: Director

The Switch Tower

Crew: Director

A String of Pearls

Crew: Director

A Temporary Truce

Crew: Director

Synopsis: A prospector's (Charles Gorman) wife (Blanche Sweet) is kidnapped by a Mexican bandit (Charles Hill Mailes), but the two men call a temporary truce in order to defeat the common enemy -- the Indians. This typical Biograph Western melodrama was filmed on location in Southern California during the Read More

A Tale of the Wilderness

Crew: Director

Friends

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Just Like a Woman

Crew: Director

The Eternal Mother

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Female of the Species

Crew: Director

Synopsis: D.W. Griffith -- The Female of the Species and Selected Biograph Shorts, Vol. 3 is an intriguing collection of socially conscious short films from celebrated director D.W. Griffith's Biograph Studio days. The Red Man's View tells the story of a peaceful Native American family driven to starvation Read More

With the Enemy's Help

Crew: Director

When Kings Were the Law

Crew: Director

The Painted Lady

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Punishment

Crew: Director

The Spirit Awakened

Crew: Director

The Old Bookkeeper

Crew: Director

The Old Actor

Crew: Director

Synopsis: The Old Actor was produced by the Eclipse Company, one of the lesser film firms of the pre-1910 years. Unable to find work or to provide for his family, an elderly thespian decides to end it all. He heads to the river, where he is prevented from jumping in by the superimposed image of his wife and Read More

The One She Loved

Crew: Director

One is Business, the Other Crime

Crew: Director

My Hero

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

My Baby

Crew: Director

The New York Hat

Crew: Director

Synopsis: The last film Mary Pickford did for director D.W. Griffith was made from the first scenario Anita Loos ever submitted to a movie studio. The young writer's story showed her to be clever beyond her years and experience. In a small Vermont town, a dying mother hands over her small savings to a Read More

The Narrow Road

Crew: Director

Actors: Elmer Booth

Synopsis: Elmer Booth is an ex-convict, and Mary Pickford is his devoted wife. Booth and his buddy are miserable in prison, but Mary waits patiently for her husband. When they get out, Booth initially takes a job at a lumberyard. His partner goes back to counterfeiting. Booth is tempted several times, but Read More

A Siren of Impulse

Crew: Director

The Schoolteacher and the Waif

Crew: Director

So Near, Yet So Far

Crew: Director

A Sister's Love

Crew: Director

A Pueblo Legend

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

An Outcast Among Outcasts

Crew: Director

The Sands of Dee

Crew: Director

A Sailor's Heart

Crew: Director

Black Sheep

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Cherubic character actor Otis Harlan stars as Goodrich Mudd, the "black sheep" of the film's title. The bane of his prominent family's existence, Goodrich brings even more embarrassment upon his loved ones when he gets mixed up with a seedy burlesque troupe. Before the inevitable "redemption" Read More

Root of Evil

Crew: Director

Heredity

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Nine-year-old Nedda (Madge Evans) is a direct descendant of the Trevors, a family that can trace its roots back to the reign of King Charles I. Alas, the Trevors suffer severe financial reverses, and Nedda is yanked from the luxury of her ancestral home in Britain to be raised on New York's Lower Read More

Blind Love

Crew: Director

Sunbeam

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Old Stephen Rutherford (Gerald Griffin) is a wealthy curmudgeon who disowned his son when he married a poor girl. The son is now dead and he still refuses to acknowledge the wife, Prue (Mabel Taliaferro), or his grandson Bobby (Warner Anderson). Prue works at Rutherford's candy factory and is the Read More

The Musketeers of Pig Alley

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Two Sides

Crew: Director

The Voice of the Child

Crew: Director

The Unveiling

Crew: Director

Was He a Coward?

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Wintering in Southern California 1910-1911, D. W. Griffith and the Biograph stock company filmed this western melodrama, which has been preserved by the Library of Congress. Recovering from nervous exhaustion, a noted novelist (Wilfred Lucas) takes a job as a ranch hand. When the pacifist writer Read More

A Woman Scorned

Crew: Director

The White Rose of the Wilds

Crew: Director

What Shall We Do with Our Old?

Crew: Director

A Wreath of Orange Blossoms

Crew: Director

The Two Paths

Crew: Director

Synopsis: D.W. Griffith's The Two Paths is frequently written off as a "potboiler," but, in 1911 at least, any one of Griffith's potboilers was worth three of anyone else's films. This cautionary drama charts the lives of two sisters, one frivolous, the other sensible. The frivolous one heads off to the Big Read More

Teaching Dad to Like Her

Crew: Director

A Terrible Discovery

Crew: Director

Sunshine Through the Dark

Crew: Director

Swords and Hearts

Crew: Director

Through Darkened Vales

Crew: Director

The Trail of Books

Crew: Director

The Thief and the Girl

Crew: Director

Three Sisters

Crew: Director

Her Sacrifice

Crew: Director

Failure

Crew: Director

The Adventures of Billy

Crew: Director

As in a Looking Glass

Crew: Director

When a Man Loves

Crew: Director

Enoch Arden

Crew: Director

Conscience

Crew: Director

Ruling Passion

Crew: Director

The Battle

Crew: Director

The Crooked Road

Crew: Director

A Country Cupid

Crew: Director

A Decree of Destiny

Crew: Director

Dan the Dandy

Crew: Director

Bobby, the Coward

Crew: Director

The Blind Princess and the Poet

Crew: Director

The Chief's Daughter

Crew: Director

Actors: Stephanie Longfellow

Synopsis: This one-reel Indian melodrama was directed by D.W. Griffith on locations at San Fernando and in the San Gabriel Mountains during the Biograph Company's yearly winter sojourn to California. A triangle-drama, the film tells the story of a prospector (Frank J. Grandon who cruelly discards his Indian Read More

The Broken Cross

Crew: Director

The Stuff Heroes Are Made Of

Crew: Director

The Indian Brothers

Crew: Director

The Italian Barber

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Mary Pickford was popular enough in early 1911 to be identified by name in the trade magazine Variety's review of D.W. Griffith's The Italian Barber. Filmed partly on location in Fort Lee, New Jersey, this pleasant little comedy finds the title character falling in love with a cute little Read More

In the Days of '49

Crew: Director

His Trust Fulfilled

Crew: Director

How She Triumphed

Crew: Director

The Last Drop of Water

Crew: Director

Lily of the Tenements

Crew: Director

A Knight of the Road

Crew: Director

Italian Blood

Crew: Director

The Jealous Husband

Crew: Director

Fisher Folks

Crew: Director

Heart Beats of Long Ago

Crew: Director

Fighting Blood

Crew: Director

The Diamond Star

Crew: Director

Fate's Turning

Crew: Director

His Mother's Scarf

Crew: Director

His Trust

Crew: Director

His Daughter

Crew: Director

The Heart of a Savage

Crew: Director

Her Awakening

Crew: Director

The Poor Sick Men

Crew: Director

The Primal Call

Crew: Director

The Revenue Man and the Girl

Crew: Director

The Old Confectioner's Mistake

Crew: Director

Out from the Shadow

Crew: Director

Paradise Lost

Crew: Director

A Romany Tragedy

Crew: Director

The Sorrowful Example

Crew: Director

The Spanish Gypsy

Crew: Director

The Squaw's Love

Crew: Director

The Rose of Kentucky

Crew: Director

Saved from Himself

Crew: Director

The Smile of a Child

Crew: Director

The Lonedale Operator

Crew: Director

Synopsis: This simple and very effective melodramatic short film was a landmark in its day; in fact, today it is still a fine example of intercutting from one scene to another to build up to an exciting climax. In 1911, director D.W. Griffith was changing the face of filmmaking by his skilled use of this Read More

The New Dress

Crew: Director

Madame Rex

Crew: Director

Love in the Hills

Crew: Director

The Miser's Heart

Crew: Director

The Long Road

Crew: Director

The Making of a Man

Crew: Director

The Course of True Love

Crew: Director

The Dancing Girl of Butte

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Florence Barker

Synopsis: Described by its parent studio Biograph as a "western comedy," The Dancing Girl of Butte was filmed in the wide open spaces of Edgewater, New Jersey. Florence Barker plays the title character, a dancer in a cheap Montana honky-tonk. An ethereal young artist Owen Moore falls in love with the girl Read More

Examination Day at School

Crew: Director

Synopsis: The New Jersey communities of Paterson and Westfield were used as exterior "backdrops" in this Biograph comedy. W. Christie Miller plays a kindly schoolmaster who finds himself the butt of innumerable practical jokes. Apparently unable to control his charges, the old man is dismissed by the school Read More

The Converts

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Having moved to the California facilities of Biograph studios in late January of 1910, D.W.Griffith wasted no time getting to work. Filmed February 8 and 9, the one-reel "temperance melodrama" The Converts was shot on location at San Gabriel Mission. Henry B. Walthall tops the cast in this story Read More

Effecting a Cure

Crew: Director

The Englishman and the Girl

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: D.W. Griffith's last 1909 production, The Englishman and the Girl starred Griffith regulars Charles Craig and Mary Pickford. A foppish Englishman arrives in a small town where the locals are about to stage an amateur "Wild West" play. Spotting the actors in their Indian costumes, the Englishman Read More

The Duke's Plan

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Frank Grandin

Synopsis: This Biograph costume drama was set in France during the era of King Louis XIII. Upon learning that her father intends to marry her off to a doddering old Duke, the heroine declares her eternal devotion to a handsome young squire. The Duke decides to eliminate the competition by framing the squire Read More

Faithful

Crew: Director

The Face at the Window

Crew: Director

A Flash of Light

Crew: Director

His New Lid

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Not altogether interested in comedy, Biograph's director-general D.W.Griffith usually assigned the direction of the studio's lighter fare to his trusted assistant Frank Powell. In the Biograph half-reeler His New Lid, the hero shows off his new hat to his friends at the seashore. The hat is blown Read More

His Last Burglary

Crew: Director

Synopsis: His Last Burglary was also director D. W. Griffith's last location jaunt to Coytesville, New Jersey. Unhinged by grief after the death of his baby, a young husband Henry B. Walthall becomes a burglar. When his wife finds out, the husband promises to end his life of crime. He does, however, commit Read More

Her Terrible Ordeal

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: George Nichols, Florence Barker

Synopsis: An excellent early D.W.Griffith effort, Her Terrible Ordeal was completed the first week of December, 1909, and released six weeks later. Florence Barker heads the cast as the secretary of businessman George Nichols. While depositing the week's profits, the heroine is inadvertently locked in the Read More

The House with Closed Shutters

Crew: Director

The Honor of His Family

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Like most of the director's Biograph Civil War dramas, D.W. Griffith's The Honor of His Family can be regarded today as precursor to his more celebrated Birth of a Nation. James Kirkwood heads the cast in this story of an old Southern aristocrat who swells with pride as his young son marches off Read More

His Sister-In-Law

Crew: Director

Gold is Not All

Crew: Director

The Final Settlement

Crew: Director

The Iconoclast

Crew: Director

Synopsis: No relation to the 1910 D.W.Griffith production of the same name, the 1913 release The Iconoclast was a three-reeler from the Thomas H. Ince film factory. The title character is a Mexican aristocrat who fancies himself an atheist. In addition to his constant tiltings with the Church, the Read More

Her Father's Pride

Crew: Director

The Golden Supper

Crew: Director

A Gold Necklace

Crew: Director

Synopsis: By 1910, D.W. Griffith was far too busy to personally direct all of Biograph's films, thus he legislated authority to such assistants as Frank Powell, Dell Henderson and Mack Sennett. One of the studio's Griffith-less efforts of 1910 was the one-reel comedy A Gold Necklace. It all starts when two Read More

An Affair of Hearts

Crew: Director

The Broken Doll

Crew: Director

Actors: Gladys Egan

Synopsis: When an Indian is found cruelly murdered, the tribe begins to plan for a revenge attack against the nearby white settlement in this typical one-reel Biograph melodrama directed by D. W. Griffith in the wilds of Coytesville, New Jersey. A little Indian girl Gladys Egan who had earlier been given a Read More

After Many Years

Crew: Director

A Summer Idyll

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Back on the East Coast after several months in California, D.W. Griffith filmed the one-reel A Summer Idyll at Biograph's Upstate New York headquarters in Cuddebackville. Advertised as a romantic drama, the film starred Griffith regulars Henry B. Walthall and Gertrude Robinson. A city-bred artist Read More

Child of the Ghetto

Crew: Director

The Call to Arms

Crew: Director

Ramona

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Thou Shalt Not

Crew: Director

The Lesson

Crew: Director

Fugitive

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Long before his epic Birth of a Nation, D.W.Griffith was turning out such one-reel Biograph Civil War melodramas as The Fugitive. The story focuses on two soldiers, one a Yankee, the other a Confederate. When the Yank shoots down the Southerner, he is targeted for arrest and execution. Ironically Read More

The Gold Seekers

Crew: Director

A Child's Faith

Crew: Director

Call

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Florence Barker

Synopsis: Described by the Biograph publicity department as a "circus romance," D.W. Griffith's The Call was partially filmed on location at Fort Lee, New Jersey. Florence Barker is cast as a sideshow hootchy-kootchy dancer who catches the eye of a virtuous young farmer. He is so impressed by her beauty Read More

A Child's Impulse

Crew: Director

The Cloister's Touch

Crew: Director

Actors: Arthur V. Johnson

Synopsis: This Biograph "monastic drama" was set during Feudal Times. Kidnapping the wife of one of his vassals, a despotic Duke forces the girl to join his euphemistically-named "ladies in waiting." Forced to leave her tiny baby at home, the girl weeps uncontrollably, until finally the Duke relents and Read More

A Child's Stratagem

Crew: Director

The Banker's Daughters

Crew: Director

Synopsis: This 989-foot D.W. Griffith production was advertised by its home studio of Biograph as a "contemporary melodrama." Most of the story takes place at night, as three bold burglars attempt to rob the home of a wealthy banker. The crooks are foiled by the resourcefulness of the banker's courageous Read More

Way of the World

Crew: Director

The Girl from Mellons

Crew: Director

Synopsis: This Biograph one-reeler was copyrighted under the title The Girl From Mellon's. Stalwart D.W. Griffith stock-company actor George Nichols was prominently featured in this "contemporary" romantic comedy. Having lost his money in the stock market, a young man is denied the right to marry the girl Read More

An Arcadian Maid

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Mary Pickford is a young woman who convinces a farmer's wife to hire her as a maid. When a travelling salesman comes by the farm and sells the wife some cloth, he flirts with the maid and gives her an engagement ring. The salesman runs up some gambling debts, so he visits the maid again and tells Read More

As the Bells Rang Out!

Crew: Director

As It is in Life

Crew: Director

Actors: Marion Leonard

Synopsis: A widower (George O. Nicholls) must raise his young daughter by himself. He gets a job at a pigeon farm. He falls in love with another woman (Marion Leonard), but decides not to marry her because he cannot support a family of three. Years later, his daughter (Mary Pickford) who was away at school Read More

The Impalement

Crew: Director

Taming a Husband

Crew: Director

Actors: Arthur V. Johnson

Synopsis: The Bronx studios of Biograph pictures were transformed to the drawing rooms of 18th-century Europe in this rare comedy from D.W.Griffith. Feeling neglected by her husband, a young wife enlists her best girlfriend in a scheme to rekindle hubby's passion. Dressing up in male drag, the girlfriend Read More

Sunshine Sue

Crew: Director

Actors: Marion Sunshine

Synopsis: Biograph stock-company player Marion Sunshine was an ideal choice for the leading role in D.W. Griffith's Sunshine Sue. A country gal, Sunshine Sue makes a big-time mistake when she runs off to the big city in the company of a glib young slicker. They set up housekeeping without benefit of clergy Read More

A Summer Tragedy

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Despite its title, this Biograph half-reeler is a comedy. The plot is the old one about two poverty-stricken souls pretending to be wealthy to attract rich spouses. The hero, a humble clerk, poses as a millionaire; the heroine, a waitress, assumes the guise of an heiress. Unfortunately, they are Read More

The Tenderfoot's Triumph

Crew: Director

The Twisted Trail

Crew: Director

The Thread of Destiny

Crew: Director

That Chink at Golden Gulch

Crew: Director

Synopsis: The unfortunate title is the only truly "racist" aspect of this Biograph one-reeler. Set in the Old West (actually the Upstate New York community of Cuddebackville), the story concentrates on a young Chinaman who smuggles himself into America. Upon his arrival, our hero quickly grasps the English Read More

Serious Sixteen

Crew: Director

A Salutary Lesson

Crew: Director

Rose O' Salem Town

Crew: Director

Synopsis: In his characteristic fashion, D.W.Griffith attacked modern-day hypocrisy and bigotry by using a historical example in Rose o' Salem Town. The story takes place in Salem, Massachusetts, during the era of the Witch Trials. When his romantic advances are rebuffed by the heroine, a lecherous Puritan Read More

Simple Charity

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Among the many villains in D.W.Griffith's 1916 epic Intolerance were those self-styled "social uplifters" who presumptuously impose their moral values on others. Six years before Intolerance, Griffith gave these uplifters a good going over in his Biograph one-reeler A Simple Charity. In this Read More

The Sorrows of the Unfaithful

Crew: Director

Smoker

Crew: Director

The Song of the Wildwood Flute

Crew: Director

Synopsis: The undeveloped terrain of Fishkill, New York and Westfield, New Jersey stood in for the "Wild West" in the Biograph one-reeler Song of the Wildwood Flute. Her trademarked curls hidden under a black wig, Mary Pickford stars as a wide-eyed Indian maiden. Two braves vie for the heroine's affections Read More

When We Were in Our Teens

Crew: Director

What the Daisy Said

Crew: Director

Waiter No. 5

Crew: Director

Synopsis: This D.W.Griffith-directed Biograph melodrama is set during the Russian Revolution. No, not the successful 1917 coup, but one of the many failed 19th-century uprisings. After conducting a raid on a Rebel camp, a Czarist officer discovers that his wife has joined the revolutionaries. Out of loyalty Read More

White Roses

Crew: Director

Winning Back His Love

Crew: Director

The Woman from Mellon's

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Wilful Peggy

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Peggy (Mary Pickford) is a strong-willed young woman who lives during the 18th century. She is not attracted to any of her suitors, but an English Lord becomes intrigued with her and convinces Peggy to marry him. However, Peggy's earthy manner doesn't blend well with the cultured nobility, and she Read More

The Unchanging Sea

Crew: Director

Two Little Waifs

Crew: Director

Synopsis: The Biograph melodrama Two Little Waifs was partially filmed on location in Greenwich, Connecticut. Placed in an orphanage, the two title characters pine away for their recently deceased mother. Meanwhile, a wealthy woman mourns over the loss of her only daughter. It is only a matter of time Read More

The Two Brothers

Crew: Director

Unexpected Help

Crew: Director

A Victim of Jealousy

Crew: Director

Usurer

Crew: Director

Up a Tree

Crew: Director

A Romance of the Western Hills

Crew: Director

The Message of the Violin

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Thanks to constant television exposure in the early 1950s, The Message of the Violin is one of the best-known of D.W. Griffith's Biograph films. Popular Griffith ingenue Stefanie Longfellow headed the cast of this one-reel romantic drama. The hero, a sensitive violinist, is constantly browbeaten Read More

A Midnight Cupid

Crew: Director

The Marked Time-Table

Crew: Director

May and December

Crew: Director

The Modern Prodigal

Crew: Director

Muggsy's First Sweetheart

Crew: Director

Never Again

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

A Mohawk's Way

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Always fascinated with Native American mythology and folklore, director D.W. Griffith turned out no fewer than six "Indian" pictures in 1910. A bigoted white medicine man refuses to come to the assistance of an ailing Indian child. But the man's wife is a bit more humanitarian; unbeknownst to her Read More

Muggsy Becomes a Hero

Crew: Director

In the Border States

Crew: Director

In the Season of Buds

Crew: Director

In Life's Cycle

Crew: Director

Actors: Stephanie Longfellow

Synopsis: This Biograph "temperance melodrama" was filmed at the company's Bronx Studios, with location work completed in Cuddebackville, New York and Fort Lee, New Jersey. Charles West and Stephanie Longfellow head the cast in this story of a poor farm girl who hopes to escape her shabby environs by Read More

In Old California

Crew: Director

A Knot in the Plot

Crew: Director

Love Among the Roses

Crew: Director

Man

Crew: Director

The Last Deal

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Florence Barker

Synopsis: This Biograph gambling melodrama was completed by D.W. Griffith in a fast two days. The hero, a chronic gambler, embezzles funds from his employer to feed his "habit." Discovering the discrepancy in the books, the employer figures out what has happened but compassionately gives the embezzler two Read More

Little Angels of Luck

Crew: Director

Synopsis: D.W. Griffith dashed off the one-reel Little Angels of Luck entirely within the confines of the Bronx Biograph studios. Since the film apparently no longer exists, it is difficult to synopsize the storyline. The studio described it as "a contemporary child melodrama," which wasn't much help. Read More

The Newlyweds

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Over Silent Paths

Crew: Director

An Old Story with a New Ending

Crew: Director

One Night, and Then

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: Running just shy of a full 1000-foot reel, Biograph's One Night -- and Then was what was known at the time as a "bohemian" melodrama. "Daddy" Butler heads the cast as a rakish old millionaire who has never done a kind thing for anyone else in his life. Upon finding that he has a potentially fatal Read More

The Rocky Road

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: George Nichols, Stephanie Longfellow

Synopsis: This 990-foot Biograph "temperance melodrama" was filmed in late November of 1909. Charles Craig plays the leading character, an alcoholic husband and father. When his wife objects to his constant drinking, he walks out on her, whereupon she briefly goes insane. With her little child in tow, the Read More

On the Reef

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Marion Leonard

Synopsis: Filmed between December 12 and 14, 1909, the Biograph "triangle drama" On the Reef was ready for theatrical display within four weeks. Henry B. Walthall plays a grey-haired gentleman, the father of a twenty-year-old girl, who marries Marion Leonard, several years his junior. She in turn falls in Read More

The Oath and the Man

Crew: Director

Synopsis: The outskirts of Paterson, New Jersey proved an interesting substitute for 18th-century Paris in Biograph's French Revolution melodrama The Oath and the Man. A band of Revolutionaries is led by a man with strong religious convictions. Though he does so at great personal risk, the hero resists all Read More

A Plain Song

Crew: Director

The Purgation

Crew: Director

A Rich Revenge

Crew: Director

The Mexican Sweethearts

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Mills of the Gods

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Mamma

Crew: Director

The Lure of the Gown

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Charles Inslee

Synopsis: D.W. Griffith's The Lure of the Gown was advertised by Biograph Films as "An Italian Contemporary Romance" -- with Fort Lee, New Jersey, standing in for Italy. Much of the story takes place in a fancy ballroom, where an impressionable Italian lad is wooed away from his sweetheart by a coquettish Read More

Lucky Jim

Crew: Director

The Maniac Cook

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Message

Crew: Director

The Mended Lute

Crew: Director

The Medicine Bottle

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: Incorrectly reviewed under the title The Wrong Bottle, this D. W. Griffith melodrama was actually copyrighted as The Medicine Bottle. Applying iodine to a cut finger, a young mother absent-mindedly places the iodine bottle in close proximity with a medicine bottle. Inevitably, the woman's Read More

Mr. Jones Has a Card Party

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Oh, Uncle!

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: Running 292 feet (or approximately 4 minutes), D. W. Griffith's Oh Uncle features Billy Quirk, who later enjoyed a brief career as a starring comedian. A newly married husband receives a telegram from his rich uncle, informing the husband that he'll be cut off without a dime if he ever has the Read More

A New Trick

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Nursing a Viper

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: Described by its parent studio Biograph as a "French Revolution melodrama," Nursing a Viper runs a thrill-packed 920 feet (or roughly twelve minutes). Arthur V. Johnson stars as a French aristocrat who is sympathetic to the revolutionary cause. Johnson provides shelter to another aristocrat, who Read More

One Touch of Nature

Crew: Director

One Busy Hour

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Peachbasket Hat

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Mountaineer's Honor

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Mr. Jones' Burglar

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Note in the Shoe

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Necklace

Crew: Director

The Honor of Thieves

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

In a Hempen Bag

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

His Wife's Visitor

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Jilt

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

His Wife's Mother

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Indian Runner's Romance

Crew: Director

Actors: Arthur V. Johnson

Synopsis: D.W. Griffith's Indian Runner's Romance represented one of the director's first forays to Biograph's facilities in Cuddebackville, a village in the Orange Mountain region of New York State. Arthur V. Johnson, James Kirkwood and Mary Pickford were among the Biograph "regulars" featured in this Read More

Jealousy and the Man

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

In the Window Recess

Crew: Director

In Little Italy

Crew: Director

In the Watches of the Night

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Little Darling

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: Running 211 feet (approximately 4 minutes), Little Darling was filmed right after the more ambitious D. W. Griffith production 1776: or, The Hessian Renegades. Appearing in both films as the heroine was 16-year-old Mary Pickford. A country couple receives a letter announcing that their city Read More

Lines of White on a Sullen Sea

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Little Teacher

Crew: Director

Synopsis: This D.W. Griffith-directed "contemporary comedy" was filmed at the Bronx headquarters of Biograph studios, with location scenes shot in Greenwich Connecticut and Leonia New Jersey. Sixteen-year-old Mary Pickford plays the titular novice teacher, who finds herself saddled with a classroom full of Read More

Love Finds a Way

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Lonely Villa

Crew: Director

Jones and the Lady Book Agent

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Jones and His New Neighbors

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Joneses Have Amateur Theatricals

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Light That Came

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Lady Helen's Escapade

Crew: Director

The Open Gate

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Tragic Love

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

To Save Her Soul

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Awakening

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Running 691 feet (approximately eight and a half minutes), D.W. Griffith's The Awakening was advertised as a "Contemporary romance" by its parent studio Biograph. To collect an inheritance, a young soldier (Arthur Johnson) must get married immediately. The hero's lawyer selects a convent-bred girl Read More

In Old Kentucky

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Actually filmed in Cuddebackville, New York, D. W. Griffith's In Old Kentucky was one of the director's many "dry runs" for his 1915 Civil War epic The Birth of a Nation. The story concerns the war-engendered rivalry between two Kentucky-born brothers: One is loyal to the Union, the other to the Read More

A Change of Heart

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Directed by D.W. Griffith, Change of Heart was a standard-issue Biograph subject. The film begins on a sordid note, as a group of rapacious young men draw up a pact to "deflower" an innocent country girl. The boys hoodwink the heroine with a phony marriage, with one of the conspirators posing as Read More

They Would Elope

Crew: Director

Tender Hearts

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Those Awful Hats

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Through the Breakers

Crew: Director

Those Boys!

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

1776, or The Hessian Renegades

Crew: Director

Synopsis: In this D. W. Griffith-directed historical drama boasting an all-star cast, the hero is a dispatch runner for the American Revolutionary army. Assigned to deliver an important message, the boy is hotly pursued by the Hessians. He hides out in his father's home, burying himself in a laundry hamper. Read More

With Her Card

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Evidently a lost film, D. W. Griffith's With Her Card was billed as a "contemporary romance." Running a full 1000-foot reel (approximately 13 minutes), the film is predicated on the romantic rivalry between two stockbrokers over the love of a glamorous actress. When one of the men tires of the Read More

Leather Stocking

Crew: Director

Synopsis: D.W. Griffith and the Biograph stock company tackled James Fenimore Cooper in this 996-foot historical melodrama produced at Cuddebackville, NY, in late August of 1909. Owen Moore played the title role, escorting a group of soldiers through enemy country. James Kirkwood appeared as a brave Read More

Pippa Passes

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Filmed at the Bronx Biograph studios, this adaptation of the Robert Browning poem Pippa Passes was a milestone in the career of its director, D.W. Griffith. The film is constructed in four separate sections, not unlike his later film Intolerance. Each section is named after a phase of the day Read More

Wanted, a Child

Crew: Director

Synopsis: This Biograph human-interest drama ran a spare 296 feet. The story focuses on a poor family with too many children. The parents never cease complaining about their huge and expensive brood; thus, when a wealthy couple offers to adopt some of the kids, it would seem that the poorer couple have Read More

Two Women and a Man

Crew: Director

Synopsis: D.W. Griffith used the Bronx facilities of the Biograph studios, together with a few location shots filmed at Fort Lee, NJ, for his 998-foot "vamp triangle" drama Two Women and a Man. The film begins with a rural marriage ceremony, then jumps ahead to the Big City, where the newly rich husband Read More

A Midnight Adventure

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

A Wreath in Time

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Described in the Biograph Bulletin as a "contemporary show-business farce," D. W. Griffith's A Wreath in Time is all that and more besides. Evidently inspired by "It's Up to You, William", a vaudeville sketch by John C. Rice, the film begins as a husband prepares to go out on the town with his Read More

The Winning Coat

Crew: Director

Synopsis: D. W. Griffith's The Winning Coat was set in France, during the reign of King Louis XIII. The hero, a young courtier, is in love with one of the Queen's ladies-in-waiting. Arrested for an unspecified crime, the hero is paroled in the custody of the King, who warns the young Romeo to stay away from Read More

A Terrible Quarrel

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Reviewed by the trade paper Variety under the title A Terrible Quarrel, this D. W. Griffith comedy was ultimately released by Biograph as I Did It, Mamma. Running approximately 4 minutes, the story focuses on the misbehavior of two children, a brother and a sister. When the girl knocks over the Read More

Resurrection

Crew: Director

The Restoration

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Marion Leonard

Synopsis: This 974-foot Biograph subject was designated by the studio as a "Contemporary Melodrama." The main character, a young husband named Henry, is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Henry's loving wife suggests that he go on a hunting trip to forget his troubles and catch some fresh air. Meanwhile Read More

The Road to the Heart

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Roue's Heart

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

A Rude Hostess

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Pranks

Crew: Director

The Politician's Love Story

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Prussian Spy

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Renunciation

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Harry Salter

Synopsis: D.W. Griffith's Renunciation is a comedy western, filmed in the wilds of Shadyside, New Jersey. Fascinated by a pair of handsome cowboys, the heroine flirts shamelessly with both men. It isn't long before the two old pals of the saddle are bitter enemies. As they prepare to square off in a knife Read More

The Red Man's View

Crew: Director

The Son's Return

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Slave

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

A Sound Sleeper

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

A Sweet Revenge

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

A Strange Meeting

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Salvation Army Lass

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

A Rural Elopement

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Schneider's Anti-Noise Crusade

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Seventh Day

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Sealed Room

Crew: Director

Actors: Arthur V. Johnson, Marion Leonard

Synopsis: Incorrectly reviewed by the trad magazine Variety under the title The Sealed Door, this Renaissance melodrama is among the best of D.W. Griffith's early Biographs. Clearly based on Edgar Allan Poe's The Cask of Amontillado, the film recounts the tragic romance between a young queen (Marion Read More

Comata, the Sioux

Crew: Director

Actors: Marion Leonard

Synopsis: Indian maiden Clear Eyes (Marion Leonard) makes the mistake of marrying a white man, Bud Watkins (Arthur Johnson), who leaves her for a rich white girl (Linda Arvidson). Happily, an old flame, Indian Brave Comata (James Kirkwood), brings her back home to the Black Hills of Dakota. This early Read More

Confidence

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Choosing a Husband

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: Completed in late 1909, Biograph's Choosing a Husband was a rare comedy effort from D.W.Griffith. The heroine is ardently courted by four suitors, each man declaring his eternal fidelity. She decides to test their sincerity by arranging for her pretty sister to meet all four men. Sure enough, each Read More

The Cardinal's Conspiracy

Crew: Director

The Children's Friend

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: This 386-foot-long D.W. Griffith production was released by Biograph on the same reel as Griffith's 587-foot comedy Getting Even. The film was described by its studio as "a Contemner Child-Centered Comedy," which turned out to be a matter of opinion. A group of six youngsters spend a day at the Read More

A Convict's Sacrifice

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: Biograph's The Convict's Sacrifice was lensed by D. W. Griffith on location at Fort Lee, New Jersey. Released from prison, a convict (Henry B. Walthall, in his first Griffith film) is shunned by society. Unexpectedly, he is befriended by a common laborer, whereupon the convict swears eternal Read More

The Cricket on the Hearth

Crew: Director

The Criminal Hypnotist

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Country Doctor

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Cord of Life

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

A Corner in Wheat

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

A Burglar's Mistake

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Sweet and Twenty

Crew: Director

Test

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Suicide Club

Crew: Director

A Trap for Santa

Crew: Director

Sacrifice

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

And a Little Child Shall Lead Them

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Brahma Diamond

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Broken Locket

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: Advertised by Biograph studios as a "Contemporary Temperance Melodrama," D. W. Griffith's The Broken Locket was filmed in part at Edgewater, New Jersey, near the Hudson Palisades. Not wishing to break his fiancee's heart, a young drunkard vows to go "cold turkey." As good as his word, he leaves Read More

The Better Way

Crew: Director

At the Altar

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

A Baby's Shoe

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Getting Even

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: "A contemporary comedy" was the Biograph Bulletin's description of D.W. Griffith's Getting Even. The scene is a small mining town, where all the local boys are stuck on pretty Mary Pickford. A young stranger arrives in town and is likewise smitten by the girl. In retaliation, the miners subject Read More

The Girls and Daddy

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Gibson Goddess

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The French Duel

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Friend of the Family

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Golden Louis

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

His Lost Love

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

His Ward's Love

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

His Duty

Crew: Director

Her First Biscuits

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: This D. W. Griffith-directed comedy was allegedly filmed in a single day. Florence Lawrence, "The Biograph Girl," plays the new young wife of a middle-aged theatrical manager. Hoping to impress her husband, wifey prevails upon the maid to instruct her in the art of biscuit-making. The results are Read More

The Hindoo Dagger

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Fools of Fate

Crew: Director

Actors: Marion Leonard

Synopsis: D.W. Griffith's Fools of Fate was filmed in Cuddebackville, New York, back to back with the same director's Leather Stocking. Advertised by Biograph as a "Contemporary Melodrama," the film begins as a young trapper bids his wife farewell before heading to the woods. Later on, the trapper is Read More

The Deception

Crew: Director

A Drunkard's Reformation

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Day After

Crew: Director

The Curtain Pole

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Death Disc

Crew: Director

The Eavesdropper

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Expiation

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Faded Lilies

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: The Biograph Bulletin described D.W. Griffith's Faded Lilies as a "Contemporary Unrequited Love Tragedy." That's quite a lot to squeeze into the film's 481 feet (approximately six minutes' screen time), but Griffith managed to pull it off. A successful concert violinist entertains at the home of a Read More

The Fascinating Mrs. Francis

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

A Fair Exchange

Crew: Director

A Fool's Revenge

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Concealing a Burglar

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Clubman and the Tramp

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Cupid's Pranks

The Christmas Burglars

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Call of the Wild

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Charles Inslee

Synopsis: A white girl (Florence Lawrence) rejects a proposal from an Indian brave (Charles Inslee) in this early one-reel Western melodrama directed by D. W. Griffith in Coytesville, New Jersey, in September of 1908. Despite the rejection, the Indian still comes to the girl's defense when she is abducted Read More

A Calamitous Elopement

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Caught by Wireless

For a Wife's Honor

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

For Love of Gold

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Greaser's Gauntlet

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Feud and the Turkey

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Falsely Accused!

A Famous Escape

The Girl and the Outlaw

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Charles Inslee

Synopsis: Beaten by the chief of a band of renegade Indians (Charles Inslee) and left for dead, an Indian princess (Florence Lawrence) is cared for by the daughter (Gene Gauntier) of a local rancher (Harry Salter) in this primitive one-reel western melodrama preserved in the paper print collection of the Read More

Outpost in Malaya

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: According to the trade magazine Variety, the early D. W. Griffith effort The Planter's Wife was inspired by a stage melodrama by Theodore Kremer. Tired of the boredom of plantation life, the title character (played by Florence Lawrence) is lured away from her husband by a handsome stranger. The Read More

'ostler Joe

At the French Ball

The Adventures of Dollie

Crew: Director

Father Gets in the Game

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Edgar Allen Poe

Crew: Director

Woman's Way

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

An Awful Moment

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Old Isaacs, the Pawnbroker

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: This touching story is about a little girls who attempts to pawn her doll for food money for her sick and starving mother. The pawnbroker follows her home and pays for her mother's care after being so moved. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

Romance of a Jewess

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: In this four hanky early silent melodrama, Ruth tries to survive amidst tragedy and toil on New York's Lower East Side. It all begins as Ruth's mother dies. Just before she expires, she hands her daughter a beautiful locket to help her remember that hope exists. Afterward, Ruth returns to working Read More

The Black Viper

Crew: Director

Betrayed by a Handprint

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Balked at the Altar

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Bandit's Waterloo

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Behind the Scenes

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Heart of O'yama

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Sculptor's Nightmare

Rescued from an Eagle's Nest

The Song of the Shirt

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

A Smoked Husband

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Reckoning

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Princess in the Vase

The Red Man and the Child

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Charles Inslee

Synopsis: Biograph's The Redman and the Child was historically important for two reasons; it was the second film directorial effort of D.W. Griffith, and the first of Griffith's films to be reviewed in the pages of the trade magazine Variety. Even at this early stage of his career, Griffith's superiority Read More

The Red Girl

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Stolen Jewels

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Where the Breakers Roar

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Vaquero's Vow

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: Not a wartime drama in itself, this routine story of intrigue and betrayal is set fifteen years after the fact. During the German occupation, the leader of a French resistance group was betrayed by an informer, someone within the group itself. Now after all this time, the nine men and one woman Read More