But one night, after a day of hard rehearsal, he picked up a copy of Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass,” and his eye caught:
... endlessly rocks the cradle,
Uniter of Here and Hereafter.
He saw a picture: a girl—Lillian—endlessly rocking the cradle of humanity, binding the ages together—ages of human intolerance.
Feverishly, he mapped out a new scenario, far-reaching, comprehensive, covering the great episodes of intolerance: back through the religious wars, with the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, through the Crucifixion, back to the days of Belshazzar, tyrant of Babylon. Beginning with the modern story, he would lead it through episodes of tyranny and bloodshed, down to the blind cruelty and intolerance of today. And always, between, that young mother, endlessly rocking the cradle of the child who, in every age, must pay the price.
The preparations for “Intolerance,” as the new production was now called, were architecturally far more pretentious and costly than those for “The Birth of a Nation,” or for any spectacle play up to that time. Gigantic plaster elephants rose a hundred feet above the street level; the towering buildings of Babylon stretched, a profile of ancient Asia, across the sky. Nubian lions roared; a motley assemblage of Persians, Egyptians, Babylonians, priests, dancing-girls, charioteers, and fifty-seven other varieties, gathered for rehearsal. Says Griffith’s biographer:
The luncheon hour “on location” composed one of the most picturesque sights ever witnessed by human eyes. At times there were as many as fifteen thousand men, women and children scattered about the various lots during the noon hour. Thousands of horses and sheep grazed along the green enclosures, their shaking heads mingling with the flashing swords and helmets of the fighting-men.
When the great mob scenes were being photographed, it seemed as though the entire population of Los Angeles had come out to Griffith’s place, to take part in the various pageants and mighty rushing armies. Actors from other studios—many of them prominent stars—joined in the scenes.
The writer assures us that in spite of the fierce conflicts waged on the parapets and walls and towers, only sixty-seven players were injured, and these but slightly; also that a modern field hospital, with surgeons, nurses and ambulances, was maintained.
Actors whose names were well known, or have since become so, first appeared on the screen in “Intolerance”: Count Erich von Stroheim, Frank Bennett, Tully Marshall, Constance Talmadge. Constance was an extra, used at first for rehearsal, but presently—in the “Mountain Girl who worshipped Belshazzar from afar”—Griffith could see only Constance, so gave her the part.