D.W. Griffith's Biograph Short Films

In 1908, Kentucky-born actor David Wark Griffith starting directing movies for the Biograph Company of New York, NY. Though D.W. at first worried that directing would jeopardize his career as an actor for Biograph, he quickly found much greater success behind the camera than in front of it. Over the next few years, he would make over four hundred one- and two-reeler shorts for the studio. In 1913, Biograph took out an ad in the New York Dramatic Mirror praising the innovations pioneered by Griffith: "the use of large close-up figures, distant views, the "switchback", sustained suspense, the "fade-out", and restraint in expression, raising motion picture acting which has won for it recognition as a genuine art." This collection features four of his best films from this era, tracing the developing style that would one day result in The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916).

HIS TRUST (1911): Before he is killed in battle, a Confederate soldier entrusts the care of his daughter to "old negro servant" George (played by Wilfred Lucas in blackface.) Griffith followed this with a sequel released three days later, His Trust Fulfilled.

HIS TRUST FULFILLED (1911): Griffith's sequel to His Trust shows kindly George sacrificing everything to make sure his former master's daughter goes to a good school and finds a husband. Despite the insensitive use of blackface, His Trust Fulfilled is a touching story that finds Griffith more empathetic to African-American characters than in The Birth of a Nation (1915).

THE GIRL AND HER TRUST (1912): The tale of a faithful telegraph girl who risks her life to stop a pair of railroad thieves. Future Poverty Row workhorse Christy Cabanne can been seen in the role of a baggage handler.

A TEMPORARY TRUCE (1912): An Indian brave, grief-stricken over the death of his kinsmen, declares a temporary truce with the white settlers to help find the missing wife of a prospector. Film historian William K. Everson praised A Temporary Truce's "fine camerawork, last-minute rescue, and...rather surprising way of punishing the villain."

BONUS: Motion Pictures Produced by the Lubin Mfg. Co. of Philadelphia: The Lubin Manufacturing Company of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was founded in 1902 by Sigmund Lubin, a Jewish immigrant from Poland. For a decade and a half, they made hundreds of split-reel shorts (taking up half a standard reel and lasting approximately five to six minutes) for the burgeoning motion picture audience. A massive film vault explosion that destroyed most of their negatives, the outbreak of World War I, and the dissolution of the Motion Picture Patents Company combined to bring an inglorious end to Lubin's business in 1917. Seen next to Griffith's, these simplistic (yet charming) films show just how innovative he was for his time.

• The Bold Bank Robbery (1904)
• She Would Be An Actress (1909)
• Drunkard's Child (1909)
• An Unexpected Guest (1909)