D.W. Griffith at The Biograph Company

-3-

Henry N. Marvin & William Kennedy Laurie Dickson

Kennedy and Marvin will be considered throughout this treatment as the front office of the Biograph Company, from which all decisions concerning film policy originated.

It was these two that made the decision to allow Griffith to try out a production as a director.

They were in need of a director to pick up the slack that had occurred as a result of the present (and only) director, Wallace McCutcheon being in rather bad health.

The founders of the American Mutoscope & Biograph Company in 1895

Henry N. Marvin, William Kennedy Laurie Dickson, Herman Casler & Elias B. Koopman

Additionally, he's getting up in years and his productions were not making money on the order of what was needed to keep Biograph -in a financially healthy condition.

In the days immediately prior to the Biograph decision to ask Griffith to try directing, he had become a familiar face around the Biograph studio and had also shown a marked interest in the production of film.

He spent time examining details relative to the medium and questioned continuously on the varied aspects relating to technical considerations.

Herman Casler & Elias B. Koopman

In addition, he has sold the company a number of good scenarios which had already been utilized by the company. He got along well with the actors, a prerequisite of a good director in the minds of the Biograph front office.

Marvin and Kennedy felt that maybe Griffith wasn't as crazy as they thought actors to be... or is he?

For David and Linda, there were no theatrical jobs in the offing to compete with their months at Biograph; it was too late for the regular winter season and too early for summer stock, so no crisis of choice was presented to them.

Success in selling either his poems or his short stories remained as elusive a commodity as it had always been, but as time passed an offer for some summer stock work came in from a theatre group based in Peakes Island, Maine.

In Griffith's mind, he recalled the all too common fact that summer stock was fortunate if it made it through the summer. And besides, he reasoned, the money from Biograph was much better anyway. Linda and he decide to wait a little longer before leaving the good money that they were getting at the AM&B Co. ... then came the fateful offer to direct. Griffith begins his directorial duties with a production entitled THE ADVENTURES OF DOLLIE, which Biograph is quick to see as being a better effort than they had really expected.

This resulted in Griffith continuing on as director in an equivalent capacity with Wallace McCutcheon. Both directors were to share the two Biograph cameramen, ARTHUR MARVIN (Henry Marvin's brother) and BILLY BITZER. Griffith's first contract with the Biograph Company was signed soon after, providing for a weekly base salary of $50.00 plus a commission of a twentieth of 0.01¢ on each linear foot of film stock sold.

The salary was paid on a weekly basis and the commission on a monthly basis, with the stipulation made that the combined salary-commission figure would not fall below an average figure of $100.00 per week.