Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1921 - Feb 1922)

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Behold Tom Santsclii, veteran actor — /ze's the man with the goggles on his hat — in a picture of the earlv days. Back to Pioneer Days This article, the first of a series, goes back to the very beginning of the movies as a commercial venture, and takes us down to the discovery of California as a production center. By Paul S. Conlon HOW many people know that motion pictures were actually being produced a quarter of a century ago? Very few, I'll wager. A good many of our silver-sheet stars of to-day hadn't even been born twenty-five years ago. Nevertheless, there is a captain of the industry very much alive and active in the making of motion pictures to-day who began his career as a producer April i, 1896. And this calls to mind the following questions which every screen lover ought to know : Who is the oldest person — in point of service — in motion pictures to-day ? Who was the Columbus of California? Who first discovered the possibilities of Los Angeles as a motion-picture producing center? Who produced the first serial? Who introduced wild animals in silent drama? Who made the first "Western" picture ? Who first sectored the cooperation of the press in the interest of motion pictures ? Who produced the first special feature? Who photographed the first scenics? Who organized and financed the first scientific expeditions to record with motion-picture cameras the life in strange lands? Who produced the first historical-educational feature? Who first saw the coming of the day of big pictrires and secured the copyrights of famous stories and plays ? One answer suffices for each of the above questions. One man was this "Coltimbus." His name is ^^'illiam N. Selig, better known as Colonel Selig. To the average person Los Angeles, or Hollywood, has always been the film capital of the world, and sunny California really the birthplace. It will surprise many people to know that the first scenes in a real motion picture made in California were filmed by the Selig Polyscope Company in 1908, only thirteen years ago. In fact, the industry wasn't discovered by the papers until the following year, as I found by digging through the files of the Los Angeles Times. It was in 1909, six months after the arrival of the Selig Company, that the Times came out with big headlines: "New pla3's without words are put on films here. Southern California conditions found to be ideal for moving-picture work because of very small size of negatives and great rapidity of exposures. — Real actors in demand for pictures." Then followed a long article, describing the new industry and forecasting its development in California. If this was the beginning of film-land's capital thirteen years ago, imagine then the status of what were called "living pictures" twenty-five years ago, when Colonel Selig began his career, about which he reminisced one day when I talked with him at his famous zoo, in Los NO TALE OF FANCY was ever more strange than the actual history of the growth of motion pictures. The facts told in this article are so different from what we read of the industry to= day that it scarcely seems possible that they happened such a short time ago. Yet this is no legendary tale, but one that has living wit= nesses to vouch for every word.