Happy Birthday David Llewelyn Wark Griffith!

Coming attraction slide for True Heart Susie (1919)

David Llewelyn Wark Griffith was born in LeGrange, Kentucky on January 22, 1875.

In the years that transpired between 1875 and his death in 1948 D.W. Griffith created many of the greatest, a couple of the worst, and one of the most hailed (and reviled) films of the silent era, and pioneered much in defining and refining the craft of motion picture story telling.  His filmography includes Intolerance (1916), Way Down East (1920), Orphans of the Storm (1921), Broken Blossoms (1919), Hearts of the World (1918), The Birth of a Nation (1915), and over 500 other titles.

As far as legacies are concerned, he certainly could have done worse.

Happy Birthday D.W.!