So the meeting was arranged; the hour of the appointment approached; and as Mr. Woods was leaving on his important mission Mr. Griffith gave final parting instructions, “Now remember, don’t mention I’m the actor that once worked for him, for he would not have confidence in me.”
So while Tom Dixon nibbled his lunch of crackers, nuts, and milk, Mr. Woods, without revealing his little secret, unfolded the mighty plan, “We are going to sell Wall Street and get the biggest man in the business.”
“Who?”
“D. W. Griffith.”
“Oh, yes, I’ve heard a lot about him—he used to work for me.”
Mr. Dixon was greatly interested and evinced no hesitation whatever in entrusting his sensational story of the South to his one-time seventy-five dollars a week actor. He’d already taken one sporting chance on it, why not another? Yes, Mr. Griffith could have his “Clansman” for his big picture.
H. E. Aitken, who had formed the Mutual Film Company, had had on his Executive Committee Felix Kahn, brother of Otto Kahn, and Crawford Livingston. They had built the Rialto and Rivoli Theatres. The Herculean task of financing the “big picture,” Mr. Aitken presented to Mr. Kahn, and he genially had agreed to provide the necessary cash—the monetary end was all beautifully settled—when the World War entered the arena and Mr. Kahn felt he could not go on. So Mr. Aitken had to finance the picture himself. He financed it to the extent of sixty thousand dollars, which was what “The Birth of A Nation” cost to produce. With legal fees and exploitation, it came to all of one hundred and ten thousand dollars. Mr. Felix Kahn and Mr. Crawford Livingston afterwards offered to help out with fifteen thousand dollars but there were fifteen directors on the executive committee of the Mutual Film, and they over-ruled the fifteen thousand dollars tender, leaving Mr. Aitken as sole financier.
Mr. Dixon received two thousand five hundred dollars cash and twenty-five per cent of the profits. He wanted more cash—wasn’t so interested in the profits just then. But afterwards he had no regrets. For it happened sometimes in later days, when the picture had started out to gather in its millions, that Mr. Dixon casually opening a drawer in his desk, would be greeted by a whopping big check—his interest in “The Birth of A Nation,” and one of these times, happening unexpectedly on one such check, he said, “I’m ashamed to take it”—a sentiment that should have done his soul good.
Well, Mr. Dixon is one who should have got rich on “The Birth of A Nation,” but the one whose genius was responsible for the unparalleled success of the epoch-making picture says he fared like most inventors and didn’t get so rich. However, it probably didn’t make Mr. Griffith so very unhappy, for so far he has seemingly got more satisfaction out of the art of picture making than out of the dollars the pictures bring.
Had the Epoch Company not sold State Rights on the picture when they did, Tom Dixon’s interest would have been fabulous. But as the State Rights’ privilege was not for life, only for a term of years, now soon expiring, or perhaps expired now, and as up to date the picture has brought in fifteen million dollars, it seems as though there’s nothing much to be unhappy about for any of those concerned.