Landmark Films.
Six Biograph pictures that changed the grammar of cinema. Each one invented something that every film made since has taken for granted. All six survive. All six are still worth watching.
- Griffith's first picture.
The Adventures of Dollie
Directed by D. W. Griffith · Starring Arthur V. Johnson, Linda Arvidson
Griffith's directorial debut. A baby is kidnapped by a Gypsy, sealed in a barrel, floated down a river and rescued by chance. The plot is nothing — the achievement is the shot list: a complete story told in shots that move the plot rather than record a stage. The short film as we know it begins here.
- The birth of cross-cutting.
The Lonely Villa
Directed by D. W. Griffith · Scenario by Mack Sennett
Three locations, one rising tension: burglars at the door, a wife at the telephone, a husband racing home. Griffith cuts between them at accelerating speed. Parallel editing — the engine of every thriller since — codified in fourteen minutes on the Fourteenth Street stage.
- The first film with a thesis.
A Corner in Wheat
Directed by D. W. Griffith · From the Frank Norris story
A commodities baron corners the wheat market. Farmers ruined; bakeries emptied; families who cannot afford bread. Griffith intercuts the three worlds without a title card connecting them — and cinema discovers it can argue. The first American film with a political point of view.
- The close-up becomes a weapon.
The Lonedale Operator
Directed by D. W. Griffith · Starring Blanche Sweet
A young telegraph operator, alone in a station, is besieged by robbers. Blanche Sweet fools them at gunpoint — with a wrench. Griffith holds on her face; holds on the wrench; holds on the clock. The first time an American audience was asked to read an actor's expression as suspense.
- The first gangster picture.
The Musketeers of Pig Alley
Directed by D. W. Griffith · Starring Lillian Gish, Elmer Booth
Shot on the real streets of the Lower East Side, with real Bowery toughs standing in the frame. A story of a young couple and the gangster who preys on them. Every American crime picture — from Scarface to The Godfather to Goodfellas — traces its DNA back to this one reel.
- The first American feature.
Judith of Bethulia
Directed by D. W. Griffith · Starring Blanche Sweet, Henry Walthall
Biograph's first four-reel feature — and the first American feature-length drama. Griffith shot it in secret; the studio had forbidden pictures longer than two reels. The result broke the short-film ceiling and made the feature-length picture the industry standard. Every American movie since has been shaped by what Judith proved was possible.
Every one of these pictures is being restored, one at a time, in the Biograph Lab.