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Actually filmed in Cuddebackville, New York, D. W. Griffith's In Old Kentucky was one of the director's many "dry runs" for his 1915 Civil War epic The Birth of a Nation. The story concerns the war-engendered rivalry between two Kentucky-born brothers: One is loyal to the Union, the other to the Confederacy. At war's end, however, the defeated Southern sympathizer is welcomed back with open arms by his entire family -- including his brother. This emotional finale had much in common with the famous "homecoming" scene in Birth of a Nation. In fact, the same actor, Henry B. Walthall, played the returning soldier in both films.