| IN THE BEGINNING . . .
Stories by Stephen Schochet ©
______________________________________________ Early movies had no real story, no stars, and no sound. A popular movie in the 1890's was about two girls getting undressed by the lake. Right before their last garment came off, a train came by to block your view. In the next scene the girls were already swimmimg in the lake. That film was a hit throuhgout the country. |
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One old farmer went and saw this same movie for weeks and weeks. One day the theater manager came down and said: "Say old timer, every day we show the same film with the girls, the trains, and the lake and every day you keep coming back." "Well Sonny" answered the farmer, "one of these days I'm hoping the train will be late." ______________________________________________ | |
Many of the early film actors were quite content to stay anonymous, reasoning that the new flickers were a novelty and would damage their reputation on the 'legitimate' stage. They were often expected to work all day long. Their duties included hammering nails, painting the set, picking up trash, and lifting heavy equipment. There were no trailers or perks, no glamour nor big houses. A casting director might meet a newspaper boy on the street and hire him as an actor for five dollars a day. Ladies of the evening were often hired simply because they provided their own wardrobes. |
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Not knowing their real names, the moviemakers going public would give their favorite actors' nicknames, such as 'The Waif' or 'The Cowboy'. The growing curiousity surrounding their identities led to the birth of movie fan magazines such as 'Photoplay 1909'. But fearing that the players would demand huge salaries, the moviemakers refused to release their names. ______________________________________________ |
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One of the most prominent movie theater owners was a former clothing store manager from Oshkosh Winsconsin named Carl Laemmle, the eventual founder of Universal Studios. By 1909 decided he was sick of buying movies from Thomas Edison and had to make his own. Laemmle would listen each night, as his patrons would leave; They would excitedly discuss the actors on the screen. Laemmle decided that if he was going to produce his own pictures, he would sell them by creating a star. |
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He wasted no time in hiring a twenty-year-old actress named Florence Lawrence known as the 'Biograph Girl' after the studio she had worked for. One tale had the four-foot Laemmle conducting a midnight raid of Biograph, where he carried his new star away over his shoulder. He then announced her real name and the 250 dollar per week salary to the new fan magazines. He then arranged for her to mysteriously disappear. "My competitors will stop at nothing to ruin me. They've kidnapped poor Florence, perhaps even killed her!" he told the press. For the next few weeks, americans followed the saga in the newspapers, there were several false reports of foul play. One account had Florence killed by a streetcar. Then, as pre- arranged by Carl Laemmle, Florence "miracously" resurfaced in St.Louis where she was mobbed, her clothes ripped off by hired fans. And so Florence Lawrence gained a huge following. Movies with her name on the marquee started selling like hotcakes. A few years later she was working on a film when a fire broke out on the set. Young Florence courageously risked her life to save her fellow actors and the incident left her temporarily paralyzed. By the time she recovered no one would hire her. But although she ended up in obscurity, Florence was the first Movie Star. ______________________________________________ | |
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In the early days of Hollywood, for studios like Universal, Westerns were the easiest films to make. They required very few props and made use of the wide-open spaces available in Hollywood. Even the smallest studio, sometimes an empty space between two buildings, known as a lot, could easily be the stage for filming. It was a cheap and effective way to involve the audience in wild chase scenes involving pure heros like the white clad Tom Mix going after dastardly villains. One time a theater was showing a western, when the film suddenly broke right at the climactic scene, an emotional audience member yelled out, "Hurry up and fix it before they get away!" |
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The master of the Westerns was John Ford, who felt that the genre was the purest form of movie making. In 1959 he and John Wayne went to their regular spot at the monument valley in Utah to make the powerful chase movie 'The Searchers'. Location shooting allowed the two old friends to relax by camping out, playing cards and generally staying away from the studio executives that Ford despised. The only problem was the unpredictable weather which could delay the filming. Ford turned to a local medicine man: "Sir, I will pay one hundred dollars if you can accurately predict the weather." The Shaman shut his eyes, went into a trance, and said, "rain!" Sure enough it did rain. The grateful director asked him to repeat his efforts the next day. "Mmm, cloudy!" Again success. But on the third day when asked, the medicine man shook his head sadly and said, "Can not tell weather today." Ford's pipe fell out of his mouth. "Really, why is that?" "..Transistor radio broke!" | |
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Ford's relationship with the Navajo in Utah was usually cooperative. He would offer them parts in films and generally provided a welcome boon to a depressed economy. In 1948 he hired some of the locals to create smoke signals for another Wayne western called Fort Apache. ______________________________________________ | |
Hollywood was an attractive place for the filmmakers to settle, full of good weather, orange trees, and pepper trees. Producers who owed money on borrowed camera equipment could hide behind a tree when a creditor came for payment. It was a harsh and rough business and required a pirate's mentality to survive. Most of the studio heads came from poor communities or backgrounds with limited English skills. Among the more famous were the four Warner Brothers from Youngstown, Ohio. Jack, Harry, Albert and Sam. They begun with showing movies off the side of a tent in Youngstown, borrowing all the chairs from the local undertaker. Every time there was a funeral in Youngstown, they had to give all the chairs back and everyone had to watch the movie standing up. |
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Jack Warner wished to become a singer and a comedian. His brothers, recognizing his lack of talent would have him sing in the tent whenever they wanted the patrons to leave. He was later advised that the money was not in performing, but in paying the performers. Among the stars that would later work for him were Bette Davis, James Cagney, Humphery Bogart, and Errol Flynn. The silent days were a struggle for Warner Bros. Rin Tin Tin, a German Shepherd, that supposedly was born in a foxhole during World War II, was their biggest star. Heroic as he might have been on the screen, he proved, like many stars, very uneasy in person. Jack Warner took the dog on a publicity tour. As he introduced him to the crowd, the 'ungrateful employee' had bit his boss on the behind. This had proved to be a prelude to Warner's numerous future battles with the stars. Trying to make a name for themselves, without their dog star, the four brothers achieved great publicity by announcing that the great opera tenor Caruso would be arriving from Italy to make a film for them. They paid him 25,000 dollars and then gave him a silent movie role. | |
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______________________________________________ THE INTRODUCTION OF SOUND . . . ______________________________________________ The movie studios had the technology to make 'talking films' years before they actually made them. One of the reasons why they did not make use of it right away was that they didn't risk losing their overseas market. Stars like Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford rarely had flopped as their films were shown around the world and knew no language barriers. But in 1926 the silent films faced their biggest competition with a new device called the radio. As the movie attendance dwindled, the studio heads shut their eyes and pretended the radio was not there. But the Warners, lead by the eldest, Sam, decided to push the envelope and try to save their sinking studio by experimenting with movie-sound. ______________________________________________ |
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Sam purchased an experimental sound system 'Vita-phone'. They then acquired the rights to a Broadway play, 'The Jazz Singer', about a young man who had a beautiful voice and was offered a Broadway career against the wishes of his Old World Jewish father. In the play, the son would follow his father's wishes; But the Warners, wishing to reach a wider audience, Americanized the story by having the young man reject his father's wishes and follow his own dreams. Star Al Jolson (Aysa Yolson), in order to give his character authenticity, covered his face with shoe-polish to appear as the black performers & musicians of that era. Al Jolson improvised and used the phrase 'You ain't heard nothing yet!' The Warners intended to allow only singing; But at the last minute they decided to keep the line in the film. (To become the first spoken sentence) The Jazz Singer received a standing ovation when it premiered in New York; It went on to make three and a half million dollars and revolutionized the film business. (to be continued...) ______________________________________________ |
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