A Short History of the American Silent Screen

The year 2003 marks the 100th birthday of one of the most influential films ever made. This film changed not only the way films were made, but, more importantly, the way they were received. It is most unusual, therefore, that neither the name of this film nor the director are household names, yet without The Great Train Robbery directed by dwin !. "orter, there would be no #ruce $illis, no %uentin Tarantino, and no multi&billion dollar film industry. #ut "orter is not alone in his greatness, nor his obscurity. 'or he is (ust one of the fathers of modern film, one of those who helped to transform film from a mere curiosity into a money making art form, all before movies learned to talk) The First Moving Pictures #efore the days of photography, man had already perfected ways of viewing pictures that moved. Though these were drawings rather than photographs, they entertained the well&to&do on long winter nights while the peasants shivered in their huts. *fter the advent of photography in the 1+20,s, inventors began looking for ways to make photographs move. #y the late 1-th century there were many different devices which could make still photographs appear to move, from Magic Lanterns to the Fantascope. *ll these machines worked on the same principle. the use of a series of single still photographs /or drawings in the days before photography0 viewed in se1uence to simulate movement. *lthough these forms of entertainment were popular, man was not content with a simulation of movement2 he wanted the real thing. Edison Gets in the Picture 3ot surprisingly, one of the first *mericans to become interested in making pictures move was Tomas *lva dison. dison, whose earlier invention in 1+4- of the first efficient incandescent light bulb would be later used for film pro(ectors, tried to tie in moving pictures with another of his inventions, the phonograph. This invention, called the Kinetophonograph, used normal, rapidly moving photographs, hooked up to an dison phonograph to give it sound. *lthough the apparatus was not efficient enough for commercial use, dison was able to make the first moving pictures with sound in 1+++, a full 3- years before 5ollywood made The Jazz !inger, the 6first7 talkie, in 1-24. #ut, due to its unreliability, dison thought of the 8inetophonograph as a failure, and soon lost interest in making pictures move, preferring instead to concentrate on making a practical 6electrical chair7, with which criminals could be e9ecuted more 1uickly and efficiently. #ut though dison lost interest, he had other assistants working for him who did not. :ne of them, $illiam ;ickson, invented in 1+-0 the Kinetograph, the first real motion picture camera. <sing film 3=mm in width, and with sprocket holes on the sides, ;ickson was able to record movement as it actually happened. #ut, like many men living in the shadow of more famous colleagues, the credit for the kinetograph didn,t go to ;ickson, but rather to dison. ;ickson didn,t let the lack of credit deter him,

and he continued with his e9periments, inventing a year later the Kinetoscope, a device which allowed a single patron, after inserting a coin of course, to view a film from the kinetograph. It was decided that in order to make the device more reliable, sound would not be included, and thus, motion pictures remained virtually silent for the ne9t 3> years. ;ickson used the kinetograph to make the world,s first film, Monkeyshines, which was about thirty seconds of 'red :tt, ;ickson,s colleague, moving around in front of the camera. *lthough the film was not e9actly a masterpiece by today,s standards, it did mark the birth of the film industry, and every film that has come after owes it a debt of gratitude. The First Films In 1+-3 dison opened the #lack ?aria, the world,s first movie studio, located in $est :range, 3ew @ersey. The #lack ?aria was so named because, according to dison,s employees, the s1uare&shaped building covered in tar paper resembled a police paddy wagon. The studio also had a retractable roof to allow sun to come in, thus providing light for the camera, and was mounted on rollers so it could turn to follow the sun as it moved across the sky. These were the days before strong artificial lights, therefore direct sunlight was an important ingredient when making a film. The first film made at the new studio,The Edison Kinetoscopic Record o a !neeze, showed (ust that, a sneeAe. The film started as 'red :tt /the star of Monkeyshines0 began a sneeAe, and ended a few seconds later when he finished it. :nce again, not very e9citing stuff, but movie audiences at the time were amaAed by anything that was put onto film, regardless of what it was. The Edison Kinetoscopic Record o a !neeze, which is also known as Fred "tt#s !neeze , is the oldest copyrighted film in e9istence, with a copyright date of @anuary, 1+-B. The films of the 1+-0,s were not very sophisticated, and were not intended for intellectual audiences. * single, stationary camera was used, with little imagination going into its placement. ?ost films were simply a demonstration of the new medium, and were used for novelty purposes to make money as 1uickly as possible before the public grew tired of them. !ome films were partially in color, which re1uired an artist to paint by hand each frame of the negative, a particularly time consuming process. * typical film was merely a documentary, uncut and unedited, showing scenes from ordinary life. Trains, ships, and balloons, all in motion, were shown in films 30 to >0 seconds long, to single viewers who put coins into the slots of the viewing machines, the kinetoscopes, which stood in long rows in specialty shops and arcades. !treet scenes were popular, as well as scenes from magic shows, vaudeville, sporting events, and, of course, strip teases. !cenes from #uffalo #ill,s $ild $est !how were one of the most popular of these early films, and audiences happily inserted coin after coin into the kinetoscopes to view the legendary hero of the $ild $est.

Competition Comes to Edison dison held the patent rights to ;ickson,s kinetograph, which included the use of sprockets to hold and move the film, and also the kinetoscope, which was the mechanism used for viewing films from the kinetograph. The sprocket system was the key to both devices, and as no other way had yet been invented to make moving pictures, this meant that dison,s was the only company in the first half of the 1+-0,s that could legally make films. This brought in an enormous sum of money to dison, and he was an9ious to keep his patent rights. 5owever in 1+-=, ;ickson, who had finally grown tired of living in dison,s immense shadow, left to form his own company, the *merican ?utoscope and #iograph Company, more commonly known as #iograph. ;ickson, who was restricted by dison,s patents from using the sprocket&driven movie camera and viewer that he himself had actually invented, was able to make films by inventing a new type of camera and viewer that didn,t use sprockets. $hile this was a breakthrough for ;ickson, a simple look at the film we use today will tell you that the sprocket system was, and still is, much more efficient. !till, the days of dison,s monopoly on *merican films were over, and would never again return. 'aced with this new competition, in 1+-> dison bought the patent for the first machine produced in *merica which could pro(ect a film onto a screen, allowing one film to be viewed by mass audiences, rather than by single viewers as was before. The first movie pro(ector had been made in 'rance earlier that same year, and proved a commercial and technical success. The results in *merica were the same, and thereafter the single&viewer kinetoscope began to fade from fashion. 5owever, dison,s victory over #iograph was only short lived, as it was not long before ;ickson,s Company had their own pro(ector, and, to make matters worse for both ;ickson and dison, a third company, the *merican Ditagraph Company, began making films a year later, in 1+-4. #y 1+-+ these three companies were competing against themselves and smaller entities. That same year the dison Company filed a patent infringement lawsuit against ;ickson and his #iograph Company. It was the first of many such lawsuits against many such companies, and would drag on for over ten years, providing a large amount of lawyers with a large amount of money, while leaving dison unsatisfied and poorer. Edwin S Porter and The !ew "ave *s the e1uipment for making films became more sophisticated, so too, did the films. The first motion pictures created using the kinetograph had to be short ,or the tension inside the camera would become too strong, causing the film to break. 5owever, advances in technology in the late 1+-0,s allowed for the production of longer and longer films. *t the same time, audiences began to grow bored with seeing things they could see by looking out their windows, and longed for something more, or, at the very least, something longer for their money. 'ilm companies could not now

make money simply by showing a film of 'red :tt sneeAing, or the same acts audiences could see on the vaudeville stage. *t this time, strange new films were coming from urope, filled with what would later be called special e ects, some lasting as long as five minutes. <nable to ingnore the desires of their paying customers, *merican film companies began making longer, and at times, more interesting films, and once again, the dison Company took the lead. dwin !. "orter began working for the dison Company in the 1+-0,s, making documentary films, and, what he en(oyed most, working with cameras and pro(ectors, trying to improve what he thought was good, and invent what he thought was needed. In 1-03 "orter directed a documentary film, The Li e o an $merican Fireman. There was nothing e9ceptional about a documentary at that time, but this one combined staged scenes with real action, and was edited to make a more cohesive film. *udiences loved it, and, with a length of si9 minutes, it was one of the longer films of the day. "orter followed up on this success with the film that was to make him a legend. The Great Train Robbery /1-030. This film, though 1uite primitive to modern audiences, was a landmark in the art of the motion picture. Easting (ust under ten minutes, The Great Train Robbery was the first film to use inter&cutting, the way in which directors show two events happening at the same time by cutting back and forth to each event. This method is so common today that modern movie&goers think nothing of it, but in 1-03 it caused a sensation, and The Great Train Robbery became the first movie 6blockbuster7. #efore its release, "orter was worried that the audience might not understand that by cutting rapidly from one event to the other, and then back again, the actions depicted were meant to be taking place at the same time. #ut the audience, or at least most of them, did understand, and they loved it. The film began /or ended, depending on the desire of the pro(ectionist0 with a cowboy bandit firing a pistol directly at the audience. 'rom there, the action moved 1uickly, with bandits (umping on board a train in order to rob it, fist and gun fights, and, of course, a happy ending. "orter,s use of editing was very modern, along with his innovative camera use, which included filming from a moving train. Though the forests of 3ew @ersey had to substitute for the $ild $est, audiences of the day didn,t seem to notice or care, The Great Train Robbery was a sensation. The Great Train Robbery was also the first film to have a plot. 3on&documentary films before were only single scenes from plays or musical performances without any type of storyline. "orter,s was the first film to tell a story from beginning to end, setting the stage for all the films that came after it. $ith this film "orter also created a new film genre. the western. The Great Train Robbery was indeed something special. "orter went on to direct other films using the same techni1ues, but none were as popular as The Great Train Robbery. 'or "orter though, directing films was only a secondary occupation2 his true love was always tinkering with machines and inventing new ones, and this he continued to do even after his directing career had ended.

*fter the release of The Great Train Robbery, audiences would never again be happy with the mundane. ?otion pictures had finally moved from curiosity to real entertainment, and all the film companies began making films to supply this demand. The greatest audience for films in *merica at the turn of the century was the vast number of immigrants, most with only limited knowledge of nglish, who were pouring daily into the country. <sually poor, and from unsophisticated backgrounds, they thronged to the small cinemas, called %ickelodeons /admission was usually five cents, a nickel, hence the name0, which were springing up around the country. 'ilm companies, catering to their audience,s simple tastes, produced films that were uncomplicated and without any underlying messages. They were perfect for immigrants because there were as yet no dialogue titles for the illiterate or non& nglish speakers to worry about reading. $hat also appealed to film goers at the time was that these films were black and white, both literally and figuratively. The hero was the hero, the villain was the villain, and there was nothing in between. The audiences loved them, and nickels flowed from the pockets of immigrants into the coffers of the film producers in ever increasing amounts.

#mmoral and $ase Though the working classes en(oyed the cinema, the upper classes mostly ignored the new medium. $hen notice was given to the lickers, as they were then called, it was usually to condemn them as harmful to society. The simple plots, often with themes of violence or se9, were criticiAed in newspapers across the <nited !tates. :ne newspaper editor went so far as to call the films of the day 6immoral and base entertainment which will tear down our society.7 :thers wrote of film as the work of !atan, and complained that going to the cinema was morally similar to a trip to the brothel. $riting of this kind probably increased film attendance, rather than lower it. Fegardless of the criticism of the film industry from outside sources, the industry itself was booming. Though attending the cinema was looked down upon as something for the great unwashed masses, employment in the film industry was even more disdained. The casts of these early films were usually a mi9ture of amateur and professional actors. The professionals were mostly out of work stage actors trying to make e9tra money between roles on the 6legitimate stage7, as the theatre was then beginning to be called. *s in those days the names of the actors were not listed /there were no credits0, it was possible for stage actors to appear in films without tainting their reputations in the theatre world. The film actor was thought of in the same light as a prostitute, but not as useful. It would take many years for this attitude to disappear, and even in the early days of 5ollywood many landlords refused to rent flats to what they called mo&ies' the people who worked in the film industry.

Monopoly #y 1-0+ dison and ;ickson had been suing each other for many years. *long the way other film companies had been named in the lawsuits, and it seemed clear to all involved that all these suits and counter&suits would eventually lead to nowhere, e9cept perhaps bankruptcy. *fter coming to a collective agreement, dison, ;ickson, and seven other companies (oined forces to form the ?otion "icture "atents Company. #eginning operation in 1-0-, the ?""C comprised all of the top film companies on the *merican east coast, and had a monopoly on every aspect of film production. The dison Trust, as it came to be known, controlled the raw material /called ilm stock0, making it illegal and almost impossible for films to be made using anything other than ?""C stock, determined the fees charged to cinema owners to e9hibit the films, and even set the limit of films at two reels /one reel was appro9imately 1= minutes, thus films were a ma9imum of only thirty minutes long0. *nd as films gained in popularity, the ?""C refused to allow the listing of credits, so as to keep actors from becoming famous and demanding higher pay. This monopoly closed the business of making films to all other companies not in the ?""C, and started what came to be known as the "atents $ar. The Patents "ar The ?otion "icture "atents Company was determined to keep a stranglehold on the film industry. 5owever, the smaller, independent film producers were (ust as determined to continue making films. This led to inevitable conflicts, both in and out of court. *s the ?""C could afford much better legal representation, they consistently won lawsuits against their smaller, and poorer adversaries. The independents, however, continued to make films anyway, relying on a series of appeals to draw out the lawsuits against them. The ?""C therefore resorted to stronger tactics to eliminate the independents. :ne of the most effective tactics used by the ?""C was to attack the e9hibitors who showed non&?""C, and therefore illegal, films in their cinemas. If an e9hibitor was found to be showing a non&?""C film, the ?""C would stop distributing their products to the offending cinema, which would lead to certain financial ruin for the e9hibitor. *long with suffering financially, non&complying e9hibitors could also look forward to a certain physical danger, as the ?""C 6inspectors7 were usually hired gunmen who were paid to destroy the independent film being shown in a particular cinema, along with the cinema,s pro(ection e1uipment. The ?""C thugs would use violence against those who got in their way, and were very persuasive in many a cinema owner,s decision to stop running independent films. This personal army of the ?""C was also used against the independent film makers themselves. Groups of gunmen would roam the east coast, looking for the production teams of non&?""C film companies. $hen they came upon the location of an 6illegal7 film maker, they would use the same strong arm tactics which proved so successful against the cinema owners. Cameras, film, and any other e1uipment at hand was destroyed, and often times bodily harm was done to the film crew. In an

effort to defend themselves, the independent companies began hiring their own gunmen, and, more importantly, they began moving west. Go "est% &oung Man' !ince the invention of the medium, film production had centered on the *merican east coast. The first films were made around dison,s laboratory in $est :range, 3ew @ersey, and the east coast continued to dominate film production through the first two decades of the twentieth century. :f the companies who founded the ?""C in 1-0+, Chicago was as far west as they reached. *s the independent producers were also based in the east, this made avoiding the long arms of the ?""C very difficult. Thus, a natural, unpremeditated move to the west occurred, which eventually came to a stop in the sleepy California town that was once known as (olly)oodland. The $est in general, and California in particular, had many benefits for the early twentieth century film maker. The weather was warm, giving directors the sunlight they needed to make their films and the mild winters allowed work to go on year& round, unhampered by snow storms and the cold weather which could freeAe the delicate cameras. The $est also provided cheap labor and e9otic locations, especially in California, which offered a large migrant worker population to do the manual labor the production companies re1uired, combined with ocean, forest, and mountain locales in which to shoot. It was a film maker,s dream, and, after stops in other western states such as *riAona and 3ew ?e9ico, more and more film makers headed to the sunshine of California. The move west provided the independent companies with an opportunity to make films much more securely than the conditions back east. 5owever, the ?""C, not blind to the e9odus west, continued to send armed enforcers in search of the outlaw film makers. ?ost independent directors and cameramen carried pistols strapped to their sides, and old western gunfighters were given a last chance of employment at their craft, protecting the independents from the ?""C gunmen. The move away from the east coast proved to be the turning point in the independent companies, fight for survival. *llowed to make films in a more friendly environment, their work was soon (ust as popular, and often times more so, than the ?"CC films. $orking without corporate restrictions, the independent films were more imaginative and entertaining on the whole, and soon the ?""C lost control of its empire and the ability to enforce its rules. Goliath is Slain( The end of the MPPC The westward migration by the independent film companies culminated with the merger, in 1-12, of si9 of the most successful producers operating in California. !pearheaded by studio owner Carl Eaemmle, the merger of Eaemmle,s Independent ?oving "icture Company with five of its competitors formed a west coast power base as strong as the east coast,s ?""C. This new company, called the <niversal 'ilm ?anufacturing Company, and known today as <niversal "ictures, (oined with two other independent studios, "aramount and 'o9, to file an anti&trust suit against the ?""C.

#acked by their new&found financial power, the independents,suit was successful, and the <.! government in 1-14 forced the ?""C to disband. It was a great victory for independent film makers, as well as for the movie&going public in general. It was also the death knell of the east coast as a ma(or center of film production. :f the nine companies which had formed the ?""C only eight years previously, only one, Ditagraph, survived, and it was swallowed by the west coast $arner #rothers studios in the mid 1-20,s. The patents war over, film producers were able to concentrate on their product, which had undergone incredible changes in the few years following the release of The Great Train Robbery.