Scenarios that reached the Biograph offices, due to lack of organization, were sometimes weeks in reaching the proper department, but Mr. Griffith got first chance at “After Many Years.” Both he and Mr. Dougherty thought it pretty good stuff, but the obvious emotional acting that had prevailed somewhere in every picture so far, was here entirely lacking. Quiet suppressed emotion only, this one had. But Doc said he’d eat the positive if it wouldn’t make a good picture. So it was purchased. But “After Many Years,” although it had no “action,” and some of us sat in the projection room at its first showing with heavy hearts, proved to write more history than any picture ever filmed and it brought an entirely new technique to the making of films. It was the first movie without a chase. That was something, for those days, a movie without a chase was not a movie. How could a movie be made without a chase? How could there be suspense? How action? “After Many Years” was also the first picture to have a _dramatic_ close-up--the first picture to have a cut-back. When Mr. Griffith suggested a scene showing Annie Lee waiting for her husband’s return to be followed by a scene of Enoch cast away on a desert island, it was altogether too distracting. “How can you tell a story jumping about like that? The people won’t know what it’s about.” “Well,” said Mr. Griffith, “doesn’t Dickens write that way?” “Yes, but that’s Dickens; that’s novel writing; that’s different.” “Oh, not so much, these are picture stories: not so different.” So he went his lonely way and did it; did “After Many Years” contrary to all the old established rules of the game. The Biograph Company was very much worried--the picture was so unusual--how could it succeed? It was the first picture to be recognized by foreign markets. When one recalls the high class of moving pictures that Pathé and Gaumont were then putting out, such as “The Assassination of the Duc de Guise,” this foreign recognition meant something. “After Many Years” made a change in the studio. All “suggestions” now came directly to Mr. Dougherty’s office. He selected the doubtful ones and the sure bets and with Mr. Griffith read them over the second time. They threshed out their differences in friendly argument. So Lee Dougherty became the first scenario editor. And of the sad letters and grateful ones his editing jobs brought him, this letter from a newspaper man on a Dayton, Ohio, paper, now dead, he prizes most highly: L. E. DOUGHERTY, EDITOR, KINEMACOLOR COMPANY, LOS ANGELES, CALIF. DEAR SIR: Excuse me, but I can’t help it. When I cashed the $25 check for “Too Much Susette,” the scenario of mine which you accepted, I took $5 of the money and put it on “Just Red” who won at Louisville at the juicy price of 30 to 1. I hope the film will bring your company as much luck as the script has brought me.