What Kind of a Fellow Is — Griffith? (1918) 🇺🇸

Being a glance at the real human side of the big men of the picture game caught in action

by William A. Johnston

David W. Griffith isn’t going to be exactly satisfied when he reads this article.

But that is a feeling he must share with us. Mr. Griffith’s dissatisfaction won’t be any greater than our own is certain to measure when the last word is written.

For Mr. David W. Griffith has an advantage over us — he knows, perhaps better than any one else does, just what kind of a fellow Griffith is.

While we, after many close-up personal observations and considerable investigation among his intimates, have to confess that we either don’t know or we can’t tell within the narrow confines of this page — what kind of a fellow Griffith is.

It can’t be done. He’s too many-sided — there are too many kinds of Griffith fellow. Contrast, for example:

The Griffith whose favorite poet is Browning, and favorite poem The Ring and the Book, with the Griffith whose “show sense” and acumen have made his productions the record money-earners of the business.

Or, contrast the Griffith with mentality tremendous enough to dream the big dreams that made The Birth of a Nation, Intolerance, and Hearts of the World, with the Griffith whose personality when in conversation with you shouts forth in every manner and word — light-hearted, unreserved, ingenuous boyishness.

Once more we say — it can’t be done.

Were we to write of the Griffith of achievement this would become a page of tribute, packed with six-cylinder adjectives and ninety horsepower sentences.

On the other hand, it we tell you of the genial open-hearted, “great big grown-up kid” that his associates know — you won’t believe it is the same Griffith.

But, no matter how much you have liked and admired the Griffith productions, you would admire and like the real Griffith a great deal more. You warm up to him — because he warms up to you.

He just bubbles enthusiasm, an effervescing enthusiasm that seems divided equally between the joy of living and the pleasures of your conversation.

No matter how little real value there may be in your opinion on the particular topic, you get the opinion that he values it.

There’s a knack to that — but it isn’t a knack that can be acquired. It has to be born in you.

Another point. When David Griffith comes to New York it may be taken for granted that he has considerable business to attend to, but does he therefore hie himself to imposing and dignified seclusion, with “Not Welcome” signs in the office? He does not. He locates himself in a Times Square office that is easily located, and in which, after you have located it, you find him easily accessible.

Yes, accessible even to advertising solicitors — which, according to Fred Beecroft, is the height of accessibility.

He likes to have you tell him that you liked his picture — not with the air of one seeking flattery, but with a manner which seems to say, “Well, why did you like it, what phase impressed you?”

Which makes you weigh your words carefully — you experience a mixed sensation, a feeling that, on the one hand, he is aiming to profit by your “spectator’s viewpoint,” and on the other that he is seeking to learn if you appreciated some subtle point in the picture that he doesn’t expect every one to recognize.

He was born in Kentucky — but he doesn’t use that fact as excuse for a pose, he isn’t a professional Southerner.

Some years ago there were several ways of irritating him. One was to print his name, David W. (Larry) Griffith; another was to suggest that the screen’s future lay solely as a second-hand purveyor of stage adaptations, and a third was to ask him if he considered the “close-up” and “flashback” mere passing crazes or permanent institutions.

To-day there’s one way of arousing him. Ask him if he considers Hearts of the World better than The Birth of a Nation.

An hour later your ears will ring with his words, “There’s no basis of comparison. They are different —”

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Fay Tincher Joins World Film

Her First Picture on the Program Called “Some Job,” Released May 1 — Returns to Coast This Week

Fay Tincher, comedienne, and for a year and a half the head of her own company, is the latest addition to the World Film Corporation staff, according to official announcement from World Film offices this week.

This definite announcement puts to rest a number of rumors that have originated in various sources since the arrival of Miss Tincher in New York, from the coast, this week. She came East, it is said, on twenty minutes’ notice, from Hollywood, where, in the Willis–Inglis Studios, she has been making her own comedies, under Al Santell’s direction. Her first picture on the World program will be Some Job. It is scheduled for release May 1.

Beside being a new departure in announcing her type comedy for almost immediate release on the World program, the signing of Fay Tincher, by World, is considered of unusual interest.

Miss Tincher received her training for the legitimate stage under the tutelage of Arthur Hopkins and appeared in vaudeville in New York and on tour. Returning to New York three and a half years ago, after a brief tour, a director for David Griffith [D. W Griffith] approached her in the sitting room of a New York hotel and asked her if she would not like to go into pictures. “I don’t mind,” Miss Tincher is quoted with having replied. The director, who did not know her identity, then took Miss Tincher to see David Griffith, and Miss Tincher, who did not know who Mr. Griffith was, decided that she might as well play a part in The Battle of the Sexes. Such artists as Donald Crisp, Lillian Gish, Owen Moore, Robert Harron and Mary Alden were already at work on the feature.

Her activities were then transferred to the coast where the Reliance–Majestic, releasing on the Mutual program offered the Bill, the Office Boy series, with Fay Tincher as the Stenographer, a character which created for her a following. When Mr. Griffith left Reliance-Majestic, Miss Tincher was co-starred with De Wolf Hopper on the Triangle–Fine Arts program and her work in Don Quixote, Mr. Good, Samaritan and Sunshine Dad, with Mr. Hopper, made for her a following in every part of the country. Following her work with De Wolf Hopper, she was featured as a star in her own comedies on the Triangle–Fine Arts program.

Some Job and Main 1-2-3 will be her first World releases.

She will return to California this week and in the Inglis-Willis Studios, will begin work on a new feature for World program release. A rumor that she would return East, following this, to do a five-reeler in World’s Fort Lee studio, has not been verified.

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Fay Tincher has been engaged to star in World Pictures

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Lytell Finishes Exteriors for Metro Play

Bert Lytell, who will make his first appearance as a Metro star in The Trail to Yesterday, a screen version of Charles Alden Seltzer’s popular novel, is getting settled for a long stay in Hollywood, the home of Metro’s West Coast studios. Lytell and his supporting company arrived in Los Angeles last Monday from the East after a stopover of about a fortnight in Arizona, on location, where exteriors were photographed on some of the great ranches of the cattle country near the Mexican border.

With the arrival of Lytell there are now three stars at work at the Metro Hollywood studios, the others being Edith Storey and Viola Dana, Anna Q. Nilsson, Lytell’s leading woman; Robert Kurrle, cameraman; Harry S. Northrup, Ernest Maupain and John A. Smiley, of the supporting cast, and Finis Fox; Director Carew’s [Edwin Carewe] brother and assistant also went.

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Fox Explains Reason for Changing Feature

“Exhibitors who wish to know whom they have to thank for our unusual action in placing a Standard picture such as American Buds with the Special Feature schedule,” said William Fox this week, “may learn now that they themselves are responsible for the boon.”

American Buds stars Jane [Jane Lee] and Katherine Lee, and was made under the direction of Kenean Buel in Georgia for the most part. It was intended for a Standard picture. It was during the finishing period when the film was being cut and made ready for release, Mr. Fox says, that pressure brought to bear by the organization’s branch managers throughout the country forced the change.

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General Orders More Paper for Jaxon Serial

Confirmation of the success anticipated for A Daughter of Uncle Sam, the patriotic serial produced by the Jaxon Film Corporation, has made it necessary to order large quantities of new paper for each of the twelve episodes, General Film Company reports. An unusually large order for paper and other supplies was placed several months ago for the serial. Nevertheless this has proved to be inadequate, practically all of the thirty General exchanges in the United States and Canada reporting that their supplies of posters and other advertising material have been exhausted.

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Arbuckle and Company Are Marooned on Location

Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle and company are still at San Gabriel Canyon, Cal., where for four weeks they have been marooned much of the time and flooded by the heavy rains while attempting to make exteriors for the new Paramount-Arbuckle comedy, Moonshine.

Illustration by: Harry Palmer (Harry Samuel Palmer) (1882–1955)

Collection: Motion Picture News, April 1918