Early American Cinema

by Anthony Slide

A completely revised and rewritten new edition of the pioneering film book first published in 1970, Early American Cinema, New and Revised Edition provides a concise history of the American motion picture industry before 1920, documenting the work of the early production companies, releasing organizations, filmmakers, and performers, and will serve both as a textbook and a reference source. Chapters cover pre-cinema, the Motion Picture Patents Company, independent filmmaking, the birth of the feature film, Thomas H. Ince, D.W. Griffith, sound and music, the star system, the role of women, new technologies, genres, and the languge, business, and art of the film. The book includes suggestions for further reading, together wiht a general bibliography, and lengthy bibliographies on Ince and Griffith.

Genres: Nonfiction, Film

308 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1970

Reviews

[Diane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hard to believe Anthony Slide wrote this book when he was 26 (1970) - his knowledge of early cinema is astounding. Starting with Edison and finishing up around 1916, this book is all about the early personalities and studios - many of whom didn't make it to 1920. There is Colonel Selig who in 1908 bought a zoo because he was interested in re-creating some of Theodore Roosevelt's African safaris, he found the zoo useful when he decided to make a series of films based on the OZ books and eventually produced the first feature length Western, "The Spoilers"(1913). Lubin Studio ceased production in 1916. Vitagraph was also called the MGM of the early days and among the many stars the studio helped up the ladder were Agnes Ayres, Norma Talmadge, Alice Terry, Anita Stewart, Corinne Griffith and Rudolph Valentino.
The Kalem Pictures were supposedly the most naturalistic and pictorial - this was because the company had no studio and had to shoot most of their films on location. Travelling even wider afield they made several films in Ireland in a little village where people had never seen moving pictures. At one point the studio was dubbed "the O'Kalems" even though they made films in Britain and Germany as well.
"Bronco Billy" Anderson was one of the early Western stars and he founded Essanay so he could make the type of Westerns he wanted. He felt the only way to make authentic Westerns was to shoot them out West in places like Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming and they built a special train for the purpose. They also came up with the word "photoplay" to describe motion pictures. They ran a competition in 1910 - not only did the word win but it really caught on!! Essanay became a by word for good Westerns and comedies. Chaplin made some of his best comedies there.
All these studios were part of the patent's company of which Edison controlled - the small independents (Universal, Paramount, Fox etc) settled as far from New York and Chicago and the detectives who often staged raids (like prohibition)as they could get and California was the answer to their prayers. The independents were also adventurously turning out feature films, really the future of films whereas the patent company studios were bogged down in 2 and 3 reel films. In the last chapter Slide details the collapse of the American Biograph who were completely fed up with D.W. Griffith because he wanted to expand the running time. Slide tells of his fight to film "Judith of Bethulia" as a 4 reeler (about 50 minutes) - the bosses let him finish and then he was sacked. He took most of the company players with him.
There is a quote between two executives of the now forgotten Kalem company about the frustration of feature films - "they tie up a lot of money, then you have to take a chance. Once the short feature goes then we will break up the company" - famous last words maybe.