D. W. Griffith - Later Film Career

Later Film Career

Though United Artists survived as a company, Griffith's association with it was short-lived. While some of his later films did well at the box office, commercial success often eluded him. Griffith features from this period include Broken Blossoms (1919), Way Down East (1920), Orphans of the Storm (1921), Dream Street (1921), One Exciting Night (1922) and America (1924). Of these, the first three were successes at the box office. Griffith was forced to leave United Artists after Isn't Life Wonderful (1924) failed at the box office.

On 29 March 1929, at the bungalow of Mary Pickford at United Artists brought together Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Charles Chaplin, Norma Talmadge, Gloria Swanson, John Barrymore, Dolores del Río and Griffith to speak on the radio show The Dodge Brothers Hour to prove he could meet the challenge of talking movies.

He returned to his job as a director. Griffith made a part-talkie Lady of the Pavements (1929) and only two full-sound films, Abraham Lincoln (1930) and The Struggle (1931). Neither was successful, and he never made another film.

In 1936, director Woody Van Dyke, who had worked as Griffith's apprentice on Intolerance, asked Griffith to help him shoot the famous earthquake sequence for San Francisco, but did not give him any film credit. Starring Clark Gable, Jeanette MacDonald, and Spencer Tracy, it was the top-grossing film of the year.

In 1939, the producer Hal Roach hired Griffith to produce Of Mice and Men (1939) and One Million B.C. (1940). He wrote to Griffith, "I need help from the production side to select the proper writers, cast, etc. and to help me generally in the supervision of these pictures." Although Griffith eventually disagreed with Roach over the production and parted, Roach later insisted that some of the scenes in the completed film were directed by Griffith. This would make the film the final production in which Griffith was actively involved. But, cast members' accounts recall Griffith directing only the screen tests and costume tests. When Roach advertised the film in late 1939 with Griffith listed as producer, Griffith asked that his name be removed.

Mostly forgotten by movie goers of the time, Griffith was held in awe by many in the film industry. In the mid 1930s, he was given a special Oscar by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 1946, he visited the film location of David O. Selznick's epic western, Duel in the Sun, where some of his veteran actors, Lillian Gish, Lionel Barrymore, and Harry Carey, were cast members. The actors found their old mentor's presence so disconcerting that he was asked to cut short his visit in order that filming could resume.