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Cutting Back
Reminiscences of the Early Days
By WILLIAM N. SELIG
EDITOR'S NOTE: Colonel William N. Selig is a real picture pioneer. Consider that he was responsible for the first real serial, "The Adventures of Kathlyn" which may be said to have started the present wave of popularity for chapter drama. He was '■^ first, too, to introduce animals as film actors; first produce a long historical photoplay, — "Christopher Iambus," in three thousand feet, a forward step in se old days of split and one rcelers. Selig preted a new era in celluloid drama when he staged he Spoilers" and this marked, too, one of the first tances of a widely-read novel being translated into tures. He was the first to move his producing ces to California. And the Selig zoo is still one of Liie beauty-spots of Los Angeles. His activities are not done — he has just superintended the production of a new serial in which animal: and human actors share honors.
A FEW weeks ago a small group of amateur bandits undertook to hold up a bank in a little suburb of Los Angeles. They were appropriately armed and wore the determined countenances of men on serious business.
But the cashier and his assistant didn't believe it. The former took a swing at the leading bandit; his assistant took care of the ne.xt one and in the melee that followed all of the would-be robbers were captured.
You see, the bankers thought it was a movie scene and were aggrieved that permission was not first invoked to use the
bank for the filming thereof, as is the prevailing custom.
And it is not even a decade ago that the Los Angeles police were getting daily calls — hurried robbery, murder, abduction alarms — only to discover upon investigation that the participants in the pseudo-violence were moving picture actors. Having sent the first motion picture company to California, not quite a dozen years ago, I may modestly lay claim to initial honors — if the police will permit that word — along those lines.
It is not quite twelve years since that pioneer company left Chicago looking for sunlight and finally got to Los Angeles by way of New Orleans. Today the making of motion pictures
All old pictures by courtesy of James McGee.
The first studio in California, at 8tli and Olive Streets, Los Angeles, in what is now the lieart of Film Row. Francis Boggs, at the left with hat on, is directing his Selig players in their first "Made in California" product, in March, 1908.
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