The exhibitors said they would accept “Enoch Arden” in the two reels, show the first on Monday, and the second reel Thursday. And so it was first shown. And those who saw the first reel came back in all eagerness to see the second half. And that was that.
The picture was so great a success, however, that it was soon being shown as a unit in picture houses; also in high schools and clubs, accompanied by a lecturer. And so “Enoch Arden” wrote another chapter of screen history.
Sustained by its success Mr. Griffith listened to the call of the desert. With two thousand feet of celluloid to record a story, he felt he now could do something with prairie schooners, pioneers, and redskins, and so he answered the desert call with a big epic of pioneer romance, “The Last Drop of Water.”
We set up camp in the San Fernando desert—two huge tents, one for mess, with a cook and assistants who served chow to the cowboys and extra men. Two rows of tables, planks set on wooden horses, ran the length of the tent—there must have been at least fifty cowboys and riders to be fed hearty meals three times a day. The other tent contained trunks and wardrobe baskets, and here the boys slept and made up.
The hotel in the village of San Fernando, three miles or so from the camp, accommodated the regular members of the company and all the extra women, to whom the director, as he dashed off for his camp in the morning, gave this parting advice, “Girls, stay together when you’re not busy, for you’re likely to hear some pretty rough stuff if you don’t.”
Prairie schooners to the number of eight made up our desert caravan, and there were the horses for the covered wagons, the United States soldiers, and the Indians; dogs, chickens, and a cow; for this restless element from a Mississippi town, making the trek across the land of the buffalo and the Indian to gather gold nuggets in the hills of California, brought with them as many familiar touches from their deserted homes as they reckoned would survive the trip.
Of course, conflicts with Indians, and the elements, resulted in a gradual elimination of the home touches and disintegration of the caravan, but there was a final triumphant arrival at their destination for the few survivors.
The picture was expensive, but quite worth it; we were at least headed the right way, in those crude days of our beginnings. We were dealing in things vital in our American life, and not one bit interested in close-ups of empty-headed little ingénues with adenoids, bedroom windows, manhandling of young girls, fast sets, perfumed bathrooms, or nude youths heaving their muscles. Sex, as portrayed in the commercial film of to-day, was noticeable by its absence. But if, to-day, the production of clean and artistic pictures does not induce the dear public to part with the necessary spondulics so that the producer can pay his rent, buy an occasional meal and a new lining for the old winter overcoat, then even Mr. Griffith must give the dear public what it wants. And for the past year or two it has apparently wanted picturizations daring as near as possible the most intimate intimacy of the bedroom.
The season closed with another “Covered Wagon” masterpiece called “Crossing the American Prairies in the Early Fifties.” The picture was taken at Topango Canyon. There were hundreds of men and women and cowboys and a hundred horses from ranches near by, as well as eleven prairie schooners.
