“Pippa Passes,” which was to make or unmake us, was all this time hanging fire. Mr. Griffith was getting an all star cast intact. The newly recruited James Kirkwood and Henry Walthall gave us two good men who, with Owen Moore and Arthur Johnson, were all the actors needed. For the women, there were Marion Leonard, Gertrude Robinson, and myself. And little Mary Pickford whom our director had engaged with Pippa in mind (?). When the day came to shoot Browning for the first time, it was winsome Gertrude Robinson with black curls and dark blue eyes who was chosen for the rôle of the spiritual Pippa. David thought Mary had grown a bit plump; she no longer filled his mental image of the type. When at last we started on “Pippa Passes,” things went off with a bang. Each of the four themes--Morn, Noon, Evening, Night--would be followed by a flash of Pippa singing her little song. It was “Morn” that intrigued. To show “daybreak” in Pippa’s little room would mean trying out a new light effect. The only light effect so far experimented with had been the “fireside glow.” The opportunity to try a different kind so interested Mr. Griffith that before he began to “shoot” Pippa, he had a scheme all worked out. He figured on cutting a little rectangular place in the back wall of Pippa’s room, about three feet by one, and arranging a sliding board to fit the aperture much like the cover of a box sliding in and out of grooves. The board was to be gradually lowered and beams of light from a powerful Kleig shining through would thus appear as the first rays of the rising sun striking the wall of the room. Other lights stationed outside Pippa’s window would give the effect of soft morning light. Then the lights full up, the mercury tubes a-sizzling, the room fully lighted, the back wall would have become a regular back wall again, with no little hole in it. All this was explained to the camera men Billy Bitzer and Arthur Marvin, for the whole technical staff was in attendance on the production of this one thousand foot feature--one thousand feet being the length of our features at this time. Bitzer didn’t think much of the idea, but Arthur Marvin, who had seen his chief’s radical ideas worked out successfully before, was less inclined to skepticism. But response, on the whole, was rather snippy. While David would have preferred a heartier appreciation, he would not be deterred, and he spoke in rather plain words: “Well, come on, let’s do it anyhow; I don’t give a damn what anybody thinks about it.” Pippa is asleep in her little bed. The dawn is coming--a tense moment--for Pippa must wake, sit up in her little bed, rise, cross to the window, and greet the dawn in perfect harmony with the mechanical force operating the sliding board and the Kleigs. All was manipulated in perfect tempo.