Hollywood Studio Magazine (August 1972)

By Pete La Roche t In 1903 a man named Edwin S. Porter, who for the past few years had been filming oddities for the “peep” shows, embarked upon a venturesome project that culminated in the first “feature” film ever made, and overnight became a classic. The film was THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY. And for years thereafter, whenever a new nickelodeon opened, it invariably billed it as the star attraction. THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY was a one-man show, having been written, produced, directed and filmed by Porter. He was a talented man, for having no real precedent to go on, showed great skill in film construction and editing. He put the film together by cutting from one scene to another, changing locale, close-ups and building to a cümax that showed a good sense of storytelling. He also established here the basic pattern for all Westerns to come . . . crime, pursuit and capture. In later years, D. W. Griffith himself was to say: “Porter established many innovations in the art of film-making that enabled us to quickly elevate the technical quality of the film.” Edwin Porter continued to make films for quite a few years after, and even directed Mary Pickford in, TESS OF THE STORM COUNTRY twelve years later (cost, $500,000). It is rather ironic that his first real film, THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY, made for a few dollars, remains the one that he is famed for. *** “DEMAND THAT GOVERNOR WALSH STOP ’BIRTH OF A NATION’! After Conference with governor it is announced producers will be prosecuted!” That is how D. W. Griffith’s great füm, THE BIRTH OF A NATION was received in Boston, April 19, 1915. A riot ensued at Trenton Theatre when Negroes were refused admission. Griffith was assailed by such names of the day as, Jane Addams, Albert Bigelow Paine, Booker T. Washington and Charles W. Eliot of Harvard. In response he wrote a pamphlet titled: THE RISE AND FALL OF FREE SPEECH IN AMERICA and inserted the following plea as a foreword to the film. “We do not fear censorship, for we have no wish to offend with improprieties or obscenities, but we do demand, as a right, the liberty to show the dark side of wrong, that we may illuminate the bright side of virtue . . . the same liberty that is conceded to the art of the written word . . . that art to which we owe the Bible and the works of Shakespeare.” But the BIRTH OF A NATION was too great, too big, too awe-inspiring to be tumbled by the yapping at its heels. It involved the audience. It made them see raw history, and engulfed them with its great emotion, astonishing them with its tremendous panorama of a whole nation aflame. After the hysteria had subsided the film was viewed for what it was . . . a masterpiece that raised film making from a mere novelty to the Status of an art. * * * A Christmas dinner party in a lonely Klondike cabin to which the honored guest, a beautiful girl, never comes, was the poignant moment in a film called, THE GOLD RUSH. Up until 1925 most comedies had been short, cheap and mostly based on gags. For quite some time, Chaplin had toyed with the idea of a long comedy with a story. In the GOLD RUSH he had what he wanted. By the time it was released it had run to nine reels, taken well over a year to film and had cost a great deal of money. But it was worth all that had been expended to produce it, for the acceptance was tremendous as witness the long lines that waited hours to see the film. In some instances the critics claimed that it was short of the greatness of his earlier films such as, THE KID and SHOULDER ARMS, but time has proved that these two films now rate rather poorly alongside the GOLD RUSH. Of all the films that Charlie Chaplin made (and they number well over a hundred) none was ever so universally accepted and stood up to the test of time as did the GOLD RUSH. With each revival over the past decades we still see a motion picture that was produced to give us pathos, a good idea of what the “gold fever” was like, a heart-tugging love for an unattainable girl and laughs that to this day have not quite been equaled. *** The lights lowered, the screen lit up then came to life in the form of John Barrymore and suddenly, swelling music filled the theatre to the amazement of the audience. EXTRA! Vitaphone! “Don Juan" EXTRA! 1mm . VITAPHONE THRILLS L A. REMARKABLE FIRST NICHT ‘TjXZZ.zSxP* ERAIN HCHJRES, SAYS - CR0WD ACCLAMS VITAPHONE £ HAYS Of THE VTTAPH0NE