The Griffith Biographs (1910)

Synopsis: This collection of director D.W. Griffith's Biograph work features four short films, all starring Mary Pickford. AS IT IS IN LIFE portrays a hardworking widower and his wayward daughter (Pickford)... This collection of director D.W. Griffith's Biograph work features four short films, all starring Mary Pickford. AS IT IS IN LIFE portrays a hardworking widower and his wayward daughter (Pickford) on a pigeon farm. In THE MENDER OF NETS, Pickford plays a fisherman's daughter who is proposed to by a dishonorable man (Charles West) and later must plead for his life. AN ARCADIAN MAID finds Pickford an impressionable serving girl convinced by a sweet-talking salesman into robbing her employers, and in WILLFULL PEGGY, she plays a strong-willed 18th century lass who rejects all suitors until a patient English lord is finally able to win her grudging respect. Film scholars and fans will find this a worthy edition for examination. Contrasting the difference in effect between a lesser work like AS IT IS IN LIFE, which is filmed in the static style of the time, and the much more effective THE MENDER OF NETS, which utilizes Griffith's innovative "cross-cutting" technique, these films are a window into the birth of modern cinema. The shorts are also excellent opportunities to see the celebrated Miss Pickford overacting in the traditional manner of the time, before she found the style that would make her a legend. [More]

Starring: Mary Pickford, Mabel Normand, Mack Sennett, Charles West

Starring: Mary Pickford, Mabel Normand, Mack Sennett, Charles West

Director: D.W. Griffith

Director: D.W. Griffith

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