The Filming of "Way Down East"

For six months D. W. Grifffith has been at work on what promises to be another of his rnonumental productions. The following is an impression of the immensity of the undertaking, and of the peculiar method bv which the dean of directors works.

By Charles Gatchell

D.W. Griffith and cameraman Billy Bitzer with cast & crew 1920

On the north shore of Long Island Sound, not far from New York City, there is an estate of sloping lawns shaded by giant elms, on which Henry M. Flagler, the former Florida railroad magnate, once planned to have erected what he hoped would be the most beautiful country home in America.

It was to have been a monument to the success of a multimillionaire, as distinctively the last word in dwellings of its kind as the Woolworth Building and tower was the last word in its type of city architecture.

The Flagler estate Mammaroneck, New York

On this same estate, D. W. Griffith is now completing a film production which I believe will be, in its way, a monumental work.

The last word in a certain phase through which motion pictures are passing, a phase which is marked by the purchase, at fabulous prices, of the great stage successes of former days, and of their transformation, by amazing expenditures of time and care and money into plays for the screen.

The play in question is "Way Down East," a vehicle well chosen for such an endeavor, for the record of its phenomenal run still stands unbeaten by any similar stage production, and the purchase price of one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars for the screen rights stands, at this writing, as the top figure for such a transaction.

The Griffith studio from above

Impressive as this figure is, the story of its filming is, to me, even more impressive. I shall not attempt to tell the entire story of this undertaking, but I am going to endeavor to show something of the infinite pains with which the work is being done by the impressions of a single day spent at the Griffith studio.

It was a day set apart for work on interior scenes, which were to be filmed on the set representing the dining room and kitchen in the old New England home of the Bartlett family.

The set, which stood in the center of the spacious studio, was, to all appearances, complete to the last finishing touch. The fire-stained pots and kettles hung above the charred logs that lay across the andirons. All the rustic properties from the Seth Thomas clock to the fanner's almanac had been carefully put in place as indicated on the detailed sketch.

Twelve of these sketches had been made, from which but one was to be chosen, twelve finished pieces of work, each a different design, combining, together, all of the most characteristic bits of home atmosphere which Mr. Griffith's art director; an Oxford-trained authority on architecture and design, had found in a trip through New England. I was later to learn that before this set finally had been decided upon as satisfactory, four other sets previously had been built and torn down.