DW Griffith, A Tale of Two Cities & Jill Santoriello Part 1 of 2 in the series by Ira H. Gallen It's rare to find anyone in the Theatre world who's aware that the father of American film was a failed playwright and struggling actor when he began directing moving pictures in 1908 in New York City at the age of 33. It was DW Griffith's reading of Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities that had only been published 16 years earlier that gave him the idea of incorporating techniques of ...