For $25 a week, Biograph Studios hired Florence Lawrence, the future "First Movie Star," in September 1908. The high pay was $5 a week more than she was getting at Vitagraph Studios--and she didn't have to sew dresses like she did at Vitagraph. D. W. Griffith, new director at Biograph, spotted her on the screen and wanted her to act in his next film. She starred in many of the Biograph films for the next two years, with "Betrayed By A Handprint" being the first extant film of her employment at the studio. Eventually, audiences wanted to know the name of the actress who was seen repeatedly on the screen. Biograph refused to reveal her name so she wouldn't demand higher wages. Fans began calling her the "Biograph Girl."
For Griffith, "Betrayal" marked a baby step in his evolution to shape cinema's aesthetics. (Before viewing the movie, read the synopsis. Films had no explanatory or dialogue title cards back then, so watching "Betrayal" is confusing without knowing the plot.) In the film, Griffith used a couple of close-ups, a rarely-used shot back then, which explained crucial details in the plot. He also made edit cuts in the middle of the rapid action, showing the advantage of masking slight discontinuities of Lawrence's movements between interior and exterior sequences.