D. W. Griffith, the most revered and influential movie creator of his day, is now universally acknowledged as the most significant figure in the history of American film. A one-time stage actor and playwright, and before that a Kentucky farmboy and high school dropout, David Wark Griffith became a movie director in 1908. By 1915, the year he released his monumental film The Birth of a Nation, he had completely revolutionized the motion picture industry. Appropriately, it was this innovative pioneer of the cinema who first brought the work of Robert Browning to the screen. In 1909 Griffith made a version of Pippa Passes and, apparently encouraged by the favorable response it received, made a version of A Blot in the 'Scutcheon in 1912.