Background
As mentioned, The Two Orphans, the play upon which the movie is based, had been filmed before in the silent era, at least twice by 1920. The play had been a staple of the actress Kate Claxton, who owned the rights to the play and had performed it hundreds of times since the 1870s.
Griffith in securing the film rights to make his movie had to wrangle with Miss Claxton, who for unknown reasons seems to have been reluctant to allow the story to be filmed a third time. When Griffith completed his film for release, a rival German version of the story had been made (Claxton owned foreign film rights as well) and was being prepared for release in the US at the same time as Griffith's version. Griffith bought out the US distribution rights to the German version so that it could not conflict with the earning potential of his own film.
Read more about this topic: Orphans Of The Storm
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