In Old Kentucky (1909) User Reviews

The Biograph Company tell this fine story with dramatic simplicity

[deickemeyer · 1 January 2015]

This film of "In Old Kentucky'' treats of the always fertile theme of the attempt to destroy the fabric of the Union and the successful defeat of that attempt. Though nearly half a century has elapsed since the end of the war, neither the novelist, the story writer, nor the historian, seems to tire of the subject, nor, presumably, does the public, and it is natural, therefore, such a demand existing, that film makers should play their part of supplying it. The story which the Biograph Company unfolds in this film is of an impressive nature. The Biograph Company tell this fine story with such dramatic simplicity of effect that during the past week wherever the picture has been shown it has not failed to elicit loud applause. The acting of the principal characters is strong and convincing to a degree. Indeed, as we sat and watched the picture we were impressed by the zeal and earnestness with which the various characters seemed to enter into the spirit of their parts. But this is a characteristic of the famous Fourteenth Street players. As we have said many times before, they act their parts and, above all things, they think their parts, and the result is that moving picture audiences have grown so accustomed to the thorough manner in which the acting end of matters is looked after at Fourteenth street that they expect, as a matter of course, something good in the way of dramatic production whenever a Biograph film commences to unfold itself on the screen. The photography of the picture is, of course, of a high-class order, and altogether the film breathes a spirit of patriotism which will find an echo in every American mind at this great juncture in the history of the United States. – The Moving Picture World, October 2, 1909

Taken Seriously by the Critics

[Single-Black-Male · 31 December 2003]

It was at this point when D.W. Griffith's films were being reviewed by the New York Times that the West Coast began to take him seriously. His work was no longer underground but becoming mainstream. Eventually, he could produce something that the public would want so that he could buy his own apartment.