D. W. Griffith success; Biograph co-founder Harry Marvin gave Griffith the position, and he made the short "The Adventures of Dollie". He directed a total of 48 shorts for the company that year. His short "In Old California" (1910) was the first film shot in Hollywood, California. Four years later, he produced and directed his first feature film "Judith of Bethulia" (1914), one of the earliest to be produced in the US. Biograph believed that longer features were not viable at that point. According to Lillian Gish, the company thought that "a movie that long would hurt [the audience's] eyes". Griffith left Biograph
Henry W. Griffith Henry W. Griffith Henry Watson Griffith (January 11, 1897 – July 21, 1956) was an American businessman, newspaper publisher and politician from New York. He was born on January 11, 1897, in Palmyra, Wayne County, New York, the son of State Senator Frederick W. Griffith (1858–1928) and Mary (Adams) Griffith. He graduated from Palmyra High School in 1914, and "in absentia" from Hamilton College in 1918. During World War I he was a second lieutenant of field artillery of the U.S. Army. In 1925, he married Agnes McLouth, and they had four daughters. He published the "Palmyra Courier–Journal", a weekly