D.W. Griffith
Also Known As: David Llewelyn Wark Griffith, David Wark Griffith, David W. Griffith, Lawrence Griffith, Captain Victor Marier, Capt. Victor Marier, Victor Marier, Granville Hicks, Irene Sinclair, Roy Sinclair, Granville Warwick, M. Gaston de Tolignac, Gaston de Tolignac, 데이비드 와크 그리피스, D.W. Griffith, D.W. 그리피스, 데이비드 그리피스
Biography: David Llewelyn Wark Griffith was a premier pioneering American film director. He is best known as the director of the controversial and groundbreaking 1915 film The Birth of a Nation and the subsequent film Intolerance (1916). Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation made pioneering use of advanced camera and narrative techniques, and its immense popularity set the stage for the dominance of the feature-length film. It also proved extremely controversial at the time and ever since for its negative depiction of Black Americans and their supporters, and its positive portrayal of slavery and the Ku Klux Klan. Griffith responded to his critics with his next film, Intolerance, intended to show the dangers of prejudiced thought and behavior. The film was not the financial success that its predecessor had been, but was received warmly by critics. Several of his later films were also successful, but high production, promotional, and roadshow costs often made his ventures commercial failures. Even so, he is generally considered one of the most important figures of early cinema.
Department: Directing
Place of Birth: LaGrange, Kentucky, USA
Birthday: January 22, 1875
Deathday: July 23, 1948
Adult: No
Gender: Male
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Known For:
The Legend of Rudolph Valentino
Overview: A documentary of Hollywood's first great Latin Lover, the contradictions in his personal life, and his premature death.
Genres: Documentary TV Movie
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1961-05-24
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Two Daughters of Eve
Overview: Calumny is one of the most despicable crimes against our neighbor, and while the wife in this story acted conventionally, she nevertheless maligned the other woman simply because of her profession, an actress. While out on a shopping tour, the wife and her husband enter a store, leaving their little child in the auto in the care of the chauffeur. This gentleman pays but scant attention to the child, so the little one wanders off and strolls into the stage door of a theater during the matinee. The parents upon their return to the auto discover the child's absence and trace him to the theater stage, where they find him in the arms of one of the show girls. The mother matches the child from the girl's arms, scornfully exclaiming, "How dare you contaminate my child with your touch?" For this remark, together with the derisive laughter it occasions, the girl vows to be avenged.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1912-09-19
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At the Crossroads of Life
Overview: At the Crossroads of Life is a typically Victorian-style melodrama in which a girl's wishes to be an actress are condemned by her stern father, a man of the cloth who has no time for those in the acting profession.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1908-07-02
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At the French Ball
Overview: A husband finishes packing a suitcase, and then says good-bye to his wife. As soon as he is gone, the wife has her maid help her to dress for a costume ball...
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1908-06-29
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The Black Viper
Overview: A thug accosts a girl as she leaves her workplace but a man rescues her. The thug vows revenge and, with the help of two friends, attacks the girl and her rescuer again as they're going for a walk. This time they succeed in kidnapping the rescuer. The girl runs home and gets help from several neighbors. They track the ruffians down to a cabin in the mountains where the gang has trapped their victim and set the cabin on fire.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1908-07-21
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The Fatal Hour
Overview: This one-reeler has been regarded as a classic example of a Griffith thriller. It engages with the Chinese White slave traffic from the perspective of a female detective, played by Marion Leonard, whose assignment is to expose and break the traffic ring. A fragment is widely available.
Genres: Crime Thriller Adventure
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1908-08-18
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The Sculptor's Nightmare
Overview: At a political club, the members debate whose bust will replace that of Theodore Roosevelt. Unable to agree, each goes to a sculptor's studio and bribes him to sculpt a bust of the individual favorite. Instead, the sculptor spends their fees on a dinner with his model during which he becomes so inebriated that he is taken to jail. There he has a nightmare, wherein three busts are created and animated from clay (through stop-motion photography) in the likenesses of Democrat William Jennings Bryan and Republicans Charles W. Fairbanks and William Howard Taft. Finally an animated bust of Roosevelt appears.
Genres: Comedy Animation
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1908-05-06
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Balked at the Altar
Overview: A woman who is filled with romantic ideas is making no secret of her eagerness to find a husband. Her father decides to help her by pressuring and threatening an eligible bachelor, who reluctantly allows wedding plans to be made.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1908-08-25
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King of the Cannibal Islands
Overview: Believed to be the first film to feature cannibals.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1908-04-14
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Her First Adventure
Overview: A father arrives home, greets his wife and daughter, and then goes inside with his wife. Though they are only inside for a brief time, their daughter wanders off, attracted by the music from a pair of gypsies performing in the street. When the gypsies move on, they take the young girl with her. As soon as the parents realize that their daughter is gone, they begin a frantic search, assisted by the family's loyal dog.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1908-03-18
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At the Altar
Overview: At the Italian boarding house the male boarders were all smitten with the charms of Minnie, the landlady's pretty daughter, but she was of a poetic turn of mind and her soul soared above plebeianism and her aspirations were romantic. Most persistent among her suitors was Grigo, a coarse Sicilian, whose advances were odiously repulsive. The arrival at the boarding house from the old country of Giuseppe Cassella, the violinist, filled the void in her yearning heart. Romantic, poetic and a talented musician, Giuseppe was indeed a desirable husband for Minnie.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1909-02-25
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Rescued from an Eagle's Nest
Overview: A woodsman leaves a hut followed by a woman with their baby. Nearby some men chop down a tree. The baby is left outside the hut, but an eagle flies away with it.
Genres: Drama Action Thriller
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1908-01-16
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Cupid’s Pranks
Overview: After receiving a scolding for falling asleep on the job, Cupid is sent out in search of potential lovers to unite. While flying over a city, he finds a ballroom dance and identifies a likely couple. He is successful in getting them to meet, but many obstacles still stand in the way of Cupid achieving his goal for them.
Genres: Fantasy Romance Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1908-02-19
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Flashback: The First World War
Overview: A collection of 2 minute documentaries that tell not only the historical facts of WW1, but also the stories of those most involved and others greatly affected by the day to day events. The deadly serious to more light-hearted, this has it all compiled from the vast resources of the Imperial War Museum.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2014-01-01
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Old Isaacs, the Pawnbroker
Overview: Mack Sennett appears as a charity worker in this film produced by the Biograph Company.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1908-03-28
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The King's Messenger
Overview: Mack Sennett appears as a soldier in this film produced by the Biograph Company.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1908-04-29
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The Invisible Fluid
Overview: Had the poor melancholy Dane, Hamlet, lived in this, the twentieth century, he would never have given voice to the remark, "Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt, thaw and resolve itself into a dew!" No indeed! He would have procured some of the mysterious fluid compounded by an erudite scientist by which things animate and inanimate were rendered non est, for ten minutes at least, by simply spraying them with it. In an atomizer, he sends a quantity, accompanied by a letter, to his brother. In the hope of his putting it on the market. The brother regards it as a joke, and, while toying with the atomizer, accidentally sprays himself. Presto! he is gone, to the amazement of the messenger boy who has carried the package thither. The boy reads the letter, and at once sees the amount of fun he can get out of it, so he nips it.
Genres: Science Fiction Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1908-06-16
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The Man in the Box
Overview: A poorly compensated bank clerk is, we may say, to that trying position of "Tantalus" in sight of tons of money but not a dollar of his own. This became more torturing as time went on, until at last, when the bank was arranging to ship a large quantity of cash to the West to relieve the recent money stringency, he made up his mind to heed the solicitude of that specter which had haunted him. Listening to the instructions given to the bank's messenger as to the shipment of the funds, he hustles off to a gang of crooks in whose company he had fallen.
Genres: Drama Crime
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1908-06-19
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The Kentuckian
Overview: Mack Sennett appears in this film produced by the Biograph Company.
Genres: Western
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1908-07-07
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The Stage Rustler
Overview: Mack Sennett appears as a man in a bar in this film produced by the Biograph Company.
Genres: Western
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1908-07-10
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Deceived Slumming Party
Overview: Mack Sennett appears as a policeman and waiter in this film produced by the Biograph Company.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1908-07-31
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The Red Girl
Overview: Mack Sennett appears as a man in the bar in this film produced by the Biograph Company.
Genres: Action
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1908-09-15
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The Heart of O Yama
Overview: Pretty Miss Chrysanthemum has but little to say as to the disposal of her heart, at least, such is the custom in Japan. Her parents attend to that for her. However, pretty little O Yama Sum had a will of her own, and casting tradition to the winds, insisted upon making her own choice. The Grand Daimio has long loved the pretty O Yama and presents himself before her mother in quest of her hand. His offer is scorned by O Yama, for she loves another, a low-born but worthy warrior.
Genres: Romance Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1908-09-18
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Mary Pickford a Blessing and a Curse
Overview: Mary Pickford's name remains inseparable from the legend of American cinema. She invented the star system at the beginning of the 20th century, and was the biggest star ever known, not just in Hollywood, but worldwide, at a time when actors didn't even have their names on movie posters. She was more than a pioneer, she was a jack-of-all-trades: world-famous star, producer and formidable businesswoman, screenwriter and director in the shadows, studio boss, Mary Pickford alone embodied the entire legend of cinema and the advent of women in that particular era.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2023-11-19
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Mary Pickford: The Muse of the Movies
Overview: This documentary traces the life and work of the legendary "America's Sweetheart" Mary Pickford, silent film star, movie pioneer and keen businesswoman. Pickford's life also parallels an even larger story, telling of the birth of the cinema itself.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2008-08-29
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1930 Prelude to "The Birth of a Nation"
Overview: The prelude to our picture is the record of an intimate conversation between Mr. D. W. Griffith and his friend Mr. Walter Huston, which occured on an evening in the Spring of 1930. Here for the first time, Mr. Griffith relates the colorful childhood experiences which led him to the making of "The Birth of a Nation."
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1930-10-24
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The Music Master
Overview: What is more miserable than love-blighted life? For the heart that truly loves can never forget. Such is the sad fate of the hero of this Biograph story.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1908-05-05
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Classmates
Overview: Two students at college were friends until a girl appeared and by the workings of fate was beloved by both. The girl has given her heart to one of the classmates, unknown to the other. The youth confesses his love, and is plunged into despair when told that her heart is another's. Coldly the classmates part, when the next day they start on their divergent paths of life. Years later, they meet again and while the trio enjoy a pleasant chat, a message calls the husband away, leaving his wife to entertain. The chum takes advantage of his absence to renew his protestations of love, which are spurned by the wife, who attempts to avoid him. He follows, whereupon the wife sends him reeling down the stairs, just as the husband reenters. The woman's denunciation of the friend brings about a terrific combat.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1908-02-01
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San Francisco
Overview: A beautiful singer and a battling priest try to reform a Barbary Coast saloon owner in the days before the great earthquake and subsequent fires in 1906.
Genres: Drama Romance Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1936-06-26
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Screen Snapshots (Series 1, No. 20)
Overview: Intimate views of the movie stars of the Silent Era, at work and play; featuring Sessue Hayakawa, Lillian Gish and others.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1921-02-22
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1776, or The Hessian Renegades
Overview: During the American Revolution, a young soldier carrying a crucial message to General Washington is spotted and pursued by a group of enemy soldiers. He takes refuge with a civilian family, but is soon detected. The family and their neighbors must then make plans to see that the important message gets through after all.
Genres: History War Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1909-09-06
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The Adventures of Billy
Overview: Billy witnesses two tramps accidentally kill someone during a robbery. The tramps lock him up and decide that he must be killed, too.
Genres: Drama Crime
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1911-10-18
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Caught by Wireless
Overview: Crime drama involving an Irish couple immigrating to America
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1908-03-21
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Yellow Peril
Overview: With the family of Mr. Phlipp there is employed that wrecker of domestic serenity, a pretty French maid, whose trim figure and cherry lips are simply irresistible. This is all very fine for Phlipp, who is wont to bask in the radiance of her smiles and to sip the honey from her rose-leaved lips. But, alas! his bliss is short-lived, for, the perspicacious Mrs. Phlipp grows suspicious and surprises the erring couple in an osculatory diversion. The meretricious maiden is put to right, and the sinful Phlipp is assailed with most vociferous vituperative verbosity.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1908-03-07
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Enoch Arden
Overview: Seamen Enoch Arden returns home after a long absence marooned on a desert island. At home he finds his wife married to another, and though he loves her, he cannot bear to disrupt her current happiness.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1915-04-08
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Star Power: The Creation Of United Artists
Overview: The careers of D.W. Griffith, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and Charlie Chaplin are chronicled culminating in the formation of United Artists and 1919.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1998-01-01
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The Tramp and the Dictator
Overview: A look at the parallel lives of Charlie Chaplin and Adolf Hitler and how they crossed with the creation of the film “The Great Dictator,” released in 1940.
Genres: Documentary TV Movie
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2002-02-14
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Hulda's Lovers
Overview: Hulda is a maiden fair to look upon. Her artless rustic simplicity, rivaling Hebe's gorgeous radiance, phlogisticates the susceptible hearts of the village swains. But alas, Hulda was a fickle maid, and seemed to have as many phases as the moon, with a smile for all and a frown for none. Her capriciousness was the cause of much unrest, both for herself and her lovers, for when her parents had departed for a visit, leaving her in charge of the kitchen, she received most effusively Jocular Jake, the village cut-up, only to hide him above stairs at the entrance of Previous-Hearted Pat, the hostler, who in turn is hidden in the Dutch oven at the approach of Handy Hank, the chore boy.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1908-04-22
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Why Be Good?: Sexuality & Censorship in Early Cinema
Overview: Before the G, PG and R ratings system there was the Production Code, and before that there was, well, nothing. This eye-opening documentary examines the rampant sexuality of early Hollywood through movie clips and reminiscences by stars of the era. Gloria Swanson, Mary Pickford, Marlene Dietrich and others relate tales of the artistic freedom that led to the draconian Production Code, which governed content from 1934 to 1968. Diane Lane narrates.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2007-05-23
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Falsely Accused!
Overview: A wealthy old alchemist and inventor has just perfected a motion picture camera with which he hopes to revolutionize the art of animated photography, and our story opens with the old man in his library studying out the plans of his invention. A telegram calls him hurriedly away. He replaces the papers in his safe, but, in his haste, neglects to lock it, which oversight is pardonable, as his wife and daughter are in the room at the time. The daughter's hand is sought in marriage by a worthy young man, whose attentions are looked upon with favor by herself and her parents. But he has a rival in the person of a contemptible villain, whose motives are purely mercenary, reasoning that this new invention will greatly enhance the father's already ample wealth.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1908-01-18
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The Politician's Love Story
Overview: A haughty politician, on seeing a satirical cartoon in a newspaper, rushes to the paper's offices to shoot the cartoonist. On discovering the cartoonist is a pretty woman, he falls instantly in love and wastes no time in trying to woo her.
Genres: Comedy Romance Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1909-02-21
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A Calamitous Elopement
Overview: A young couple are enjoying a romantic interlude in the young woman's home, when her father discovers them and angrily chases the young man out of the house. They thus decide to elope, and they make plans accordingly. But as they are leaving, a thief discovers their plans, and he decides to turn the situation to his own advantage.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1908-08-06
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The Girls and Daddy
Overview: Sisters guarding their house from a burglar set upon stealing their daddy's money.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1909-02-01
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When Knights Were Bold
Overview: Two noblemen fight over a lady.
Genres: Drama History
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1908-05-20
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1930 Intermission and Introduction to "The Birth of a Nation" Part Two
Overview: D.W. Griffith interviewed by Walter Huston. "The Birth of a Nation Part Two: This is an historical presentation of the Reconstruction Period following the Civil War. and is not meant to reflect on any race or people of today."
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1930-10-24
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