GRIFFITH AT THE FRONT [Main Title]

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  • Title: GRIFFITH AT THE FRONT [Main Title]
  • Film Number: IWM 122
  • Other titles: HEARTS OF THE WORLD (production scenes) [Alternative Title]
  • Summary: A visit by D W Griffith to the Western Front during the filming of HEARTS OF THE WORLD, September 1917.
  • Description: The film starts with Griffith talking to the abbot and another monk outside the Cistercian abbey at Mont des Cats, used as a casualty clearing station. Griffith is then shown with two British officers entering and leaving a Red Cross station on Kemmel Ridge. The main part of the film shows Griffith's tour over the Ypres ridges. This begins in a trench with British soldiers "sixty yards from the Germans, four miles from Ypres", probably on Wytschaete Ridge south of Hill 60. Griffith goes to the top of the observation post and comes down to set up his camera. There is a test scene of two British soldiers rushing down the trench and slamming a barbed wire screen behind them. Griffith is taken by an escort through Polygon Wood. He watches 6-inch Mk VII guns firing in the Elverdinghe area. With his production crew he surveys the ruins of Ypres Cloth Hall. He talks to Belgian soldiers in a reserve trench in Houlthulst Wood. Finally he inspects a German pillbox, probably at Shrewsbury Forest. He and his escorts try on their gasmasks for the camera. The last scene is of Griffith meeting with British official war correspondents in Cassel, Porte de Bergue area. One of these may be Philip Gibbs of the 'Daily Telegraph' and 'Daily Chronicle'.
  • Access Conditions: IWM Attribution: © IWM
  • Featured Period: 1914-1918
  • Production Date: 1917
  • Production Country: GB
  • Production Details: War Office Cinema Committee (Production company) Griffith, D W18801948 (Production individual) Bassill, F A (Production individual)
  • Personalities, Units and Organisations: Griffith, D W (person) Gibbs, Philip Armand Hamilton (person) British Army (regiment/service) Belgian Army (regiment/service) Belgian Catholic Church (regiment/service)
  • Keywords: buildings, Belgian - religious: monastery (object name) buildings, Belgian - residential (object name) delegations, United States international - goodwill (object name) journalism and record, United States - press (object name) equipment, British - personal: gasmask (small box respirator) (object name) weapons, British - gun: 6-inch Mark VII (object name) 01/3(4-15).7 (event) Cloth Hall, Ypres, West Flanders, Belgium (geography) Mont des Cats, Kemmel, West Flanders, Belgium (geography) Kemmel Ridge, West Flanders, Belgium (geography) Wytschaete, West Flanders, Belgium (geography) Elverdinge, West Flanders, Belgium (geography) Houthulst Forest, West Flanders, Belgium (geography) Shrewsbury Forest, West Flanders, Belgium (geography) Cassel, Nord, France (geography) camera (concept)
  • Physical Characteristics: Colour format: B&W Sound format: Silent Soundtrack language: None Title language: None Subtitle language: None
  • Technical Details: Format: 35mm Number of items/reels/tapes: 1 Footage: 685 ft; Running time: 11 mins
  • HD Media:Yes
  • Notes: Title: this is taken from the shotsheet. Production: previous catalogue entries have assumed that this film recorded an exploratory trip to the front by Griffith at the start of the 'Hearts' project in May 1917. However, correspondence in the Beaverbrook Papers establishes that the film was actually made in mid- or late September 1917, shortly before Griffith returned to America, and was set up as 'a short strip of film showing Griffiths [sic] filming the film' which would be useful to 'boom the long film later'. Griffith was reported 'very pleased with the idea' and footage from this visit was later included in a prologue to HEARTS OF THE WORLD. Credits: the credit of Griffith as "producer" acknowledges his role in the visit, rather than his specific responsibility for this film. Griffith originally intended to have his own cameraman Billy Bitzer cover the story, but Bitzer had trouble getting permission to visit the front (allegedly because of his very Germanic full name - Johann Gottlob Wilhelm Bitzer) and the story was instead covered by British official cameraman Frank Bassill. This credit is confirmed in the Beaverbrook Papers, which also include a transcript of 'Operator's suggested titles', undated but attributed to F A Bassill, which record the shooting of two 300-foot rolls on topics which exactly match this film. Technical: the middle sections of this film were lost until 1981 when they were rediscovered in IWM 344 and transferred from there.
  • Link to IWM Collections page:

    IWM 122

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