Filmed in Hollywood at the Fine Arts Studio on Sunset Boulevard in 1916,D.W. Griffith underscored the theme of the film's title by telling not one but four stories from different periods: a Modern story of a young man in the United States sentenced to die for a murder he did not commit, a French story of the St.Bartholomew's Day massacre of Huguernots by Catholics in 1572, a Judean story of the crucifixion of Jesus set, in the first century, and a Babylonian story of the fall of the city of Babylon to Cyrus and the Persians in 539 BCE. Griffith daringly tells these stories cinematically by using the technique of crosscutting with the film shifting back and forth form one story to another. Intolerance opened in New York City in 1916 with the musical score played by the orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera House. Both the critical and the popular response to the film have been carefully documented. This excerpt was taken from Jesus at the Movies: A Guide to the First Hundered Years by W. Barnes Tatum; 1997; Polebridge Press.