What Drink Did announces itself as "a thoughtful moral lesson". The trouble is, for all his skill with film form (which is undeveloped here in any case) DW Griffith was a pretty mediocre moralist, especially this early in his career. This daft little anti-alcohol parable is one of many oddities he created in 1909.
Let's look first though at Griffith's fledgling technique. The story begins with a series of long takes, as was the custom with these early Biograph shorts, introducing the various characters and locations. But Griffith was also just beginning to experiment with crosscutting, and halfway through the film he begins switching back and forth between two settings. It's a very early example of parallel editing, and to be honest rather basic, but it serves its purpose in the narrative.
The above is however the only redeeming feature. Griffith and his collaborators were apparently still under the delusion that acting was about grimacing and waving your arms all over the place. And of course there is that illogical narrative. This film might have had some impact had it highlighted some more realistic perils of drinking showing David Miles sprawling in a gutter while his family go hungry, for instance. Instead, the message appears to be "Drink too much, and through a series of highly unlikely twists you could end up shooting your daughter in the head". At the end, Miles clutches his head and gesticulates wildly, just in case you hadn't yet grasped he was a bit upset.
Griffith may be starting to probe a little in new directions, but What Drink Did is in itself simply dire.