The Mother and the Law (1914-1919) 

This film had quite the strange fate. Shot relatively quickly after Birth of a Nation was completed the film was not released immediately following promotional tours for Birth. After that film proved so successful Griffith decided that small films were out and his next film (and all others) must be huge and epic, so The Mother and the Law was quickly absorbed into Intolerance. New scenes were shot, some were cut, and the film was done, or so he thought. Intolerance was too epic so this story again had to be trimmed, so more scenes were redone and re-edited and put in Intolerance. When that film proved unsuccessful the idea to release this story individually was done to help recoup some of the losses. So Griffith again shot some new scenes and re-edited the film restoring some of the cut footage and changing others. This new, new version finally hit theaters in 1919 and surprise it wasn't successful either. Being an immense fan of Intolerance I've always believed that the contemporary story was the best part of the film. However with the entire story here it almost seems too much, not in a really over the top way but the tragedy is heaped on mighty thick here. Parents die, lovers go to jail, babies are taken away, and intolerance precedes everything. There is still an enormous emotional power in the film, but cut with three other stories it is far more compelling than this individual slice. Perhaps Griffith should have left well enough alone. Mae Marsh tries a little too hard at the beginning to seem young and innocent and it comes off a little creepy and condescending. Many of the other performances suffer from that lack of credibility and excess common that so many people criticize silent films for. Worthy on its own merits this probably should have been included with the DVD release of Intolerance to give people the option of comparing.