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
The Aryan given, but eventually accepted Hart's wishes. Hart wanted Mae Marsh for the role as Mary Jane, but Marsh was working on a D. W. Griffith movie at the time. Griffith recommended a new actress, Bessie Love. The movie was made at the height of Hart's career, but was unusual because he played a ruthless individual described as "hard as flint." As the title suggests, the movie draws on racial ideologies of the era. Hart stated that the central character, Steve Denton, was "a white man, who, foreswearing his race, makes outlaw Mexicans his comrades and allows white women to be