Eventually Lasky was convinced that my idea presented at least a good betting proposition, and he agreed to add ten thousand dollars to the equal amount which I put up, provided he be relieved of any active management. Considering that in those days many of the two-reelers were made for less than a thousand dollars, our original capital seemed not only adequate to the immediate cost of production, but to a handsome margin for recovery from a possible first failure. With this assumption of strength we took our next logical step. We hunted for somebody who would make our pictures for us. It was natural that the first person of whom we should think in this connection was Mr. D. W. Griffith. He was then directing for the Biograph Company, one of the units of the motion-picture trust, and he had already experimented with the longer picture in “Judith of Bethulia.” Indeed, I wish to say right here that I lay no claim to pioneer thought in realising that the screen was susceptible of longer and more varied treatment, for, in addition to our American “Judith of Bethulia,” one or two foreign pictures had heralded the new era. Any possible credit to me, therefore, must be accorded to my conception of the new sort of photoplay as a systematic performance rather than as a sporadic spectacle. Indeed, I was to find out later that even this idea was not an exclusive visitation. Lasky and I had supposed that we were the only ones in the field, but it was not long before we discovered that even previous to us another man had acted on the same idea. But to go back to my interview with Mr. Griffith. I met him for lunch, and I was impressed immediately by the personality which has since lifted him into his place as the greatest of screen directors. Tall and spare and quite stooped, Mr. Griffith’s figure suggests by its very lack of erectness that reserve of energy which transforms him in the studio to the tireless, almost demoniacal worker. His features are clear-cut, and to the suggestion of the eagle in his profile the clear blue eyes--eyes which you could never possibly mistake for gray even across a room--contribute a final authority. These eyes while he is at work, so people tell me, glow with enthusiasm, but during the chance interview they join with the mouth in a look of amused observation. With this expression he heard me make my proposition that day. When he finally spoke it was to quench any hope that Mr. Griffith might ever become associated with Lasky and me. “A very interesting project,” he commented, “and if you can show me a bank deposit of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars I think we might talk.”