Biograph Productions (Without D.W. Griffith): Volume 1 (1898-1905)

Formed in 1898, the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company produced hundreds of short films in its Manhattan studio before hiring a young D.W. Griffith as actor, then director, in 1908. Ten of the outfit's early works─"McKinley at Home" (1898), "Grandpa's Reading Glass" (1902), "A Search for the Evidence" (1903), "The Moonshiner" (1904), "The Hero of Liao Yang" (1904), "The Suburbanite" (1904), "Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son" (1905), "The Nihilist" (1905), "The Great Jewel Mystery" (1905), and "A Kentucky Feud" (1905)─are featured in this collection. 88 min. total. Standard; Soundtrack: music score. Silent with music score.