Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1921 - Feb 1922)

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90 Back to Pioneer Days Continued from page 73 little painted backings in the studio. There were no sets then. Daylight was a faithful photographic ally. Our little stage was under glass, and we never attempted artificial light. That came later." Three years after Colonel Selig began commercial production he enlarged his studio by taking over the entire loft building in Peck Court. This sturdy pioneer had the supreme faith in igoo to organize the Selig Polyscope Company and incorporate for fifty thousand dollars. His confidence staggered the infant industry. A banner year of motion-picture advancement was 1904. It marked many turning points. Bit by bit, Selig bad kept' plugging away at stage effects, such as arc and spotlights, until, in 1904, he actually photographed by artificial, as well as daylight, forty thousand feet of film showing the famous Armour packing plant and stockyards in Chicago. This film, which was used for advertising as well as educational and industrial advancement throughout the entire world, insured the future of the Selig Polyscope Compan}-. The pioneer producers educated the public and exhibitors to longer films — five hundred to one thousand feet — during that year. Real dramas and comedies were produced. Real sets were used. I wonder if any of the readers of this magazine can remember seeing "Tracked by Bloodhounds," "Girls in Overalls," and "Humpty Dumpty?" One reel was the limit, excejn in very unusual cases. Colonel Selig filmed twent}-six hundred feet of the Root-Gardner fight at Fort Erie on the Fourth of July, 1904, and the picture ran for eight weeks at the Olympic Theater, Chicago. 1906 was a big year for motion pictures. This was the year that D. W. Griffith came a-knocking at the door of the Biograph studio. New York, for a humble job. This vv^as the year when Selig really established his one-reelers and created the famous "Diamond S" trade-mark. In the spring of this fateful season the Selig Polyscope Company moved from those dingy but beloved surroundings in Peck Court to a new studio on Western Avenue, near Irving Park Boulevard, ^^'ithin a year the company had purchased the entire block and erected what at that time was the largest studio building in the world, capped l)y a skylight one hundred and ten by sixty feet. The birth of the nickelodeon occurred in 1906. For the benefit of the present generation I will explain that the nickelodeons were the first little theaters that sprang up in storerooms and holes in the walls, or wherever they could, showing pictures for the price of one nickel. "Twenty-five to thirty dollars a week was the actor's salary in those days," said Colonel Selig, "and a director possibly got five more. Most of my actors had been recruited from vaudeville and stock, although one or two legitimate stage actors braved the ridicule of their fellows to try their luck at the new profession. "Tom Santschi was one of these. This sterling man and actor came to me in 1906. So did 'Broncho Billy' Anderson and the lamented Francis Boggs, who were my first directors. The first stayed but a short time, while Mr. Boggs became the director in chief. James L. McGee, who is to-day the manager of my Los Angeles studio and zoo, also stai'ted in 1907." Colonel Selig has kept a list of every film or picture he has produced, the footage and the date of release. As far back as 1907 Selig was producing in one reel such classics as "The Two Orphans." which Griffith is reviving to-day, and in 1908 "The Count of Monte Cristo," "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," "East Lynne," and "Damon and Pythias." While looking through this lengthy catalogue of the years I ran across a most un usual thing. When two and three-reel pictures first came into being they were released on successive days, one reel a day. "How could the exhibitor expect people to come each day to see a continued picture?" I asked Colonel Selig. "The exhibitors were wrong," he replied, "although patrons came anyway because pictures were a novelty. \A'e producers couldn't persuade the men who showed our films that their patrons would sit through longer films. But I gambled in 1907 to the extent of inaugurating two-reel dramas. The first of these was 'The Holy City.' 'It was in twenty-six hundred feet. The picture was a success. "With the constant expansion of our Chicago studio and the gratifying growth of public interest in motion pictures, we felt called upon to venture bigger things. "I have been called the 'Columbus of Cahfornia,' but much of the credit for that is due Francis Boggs. When I decided to produce 'The Count of Monte Cristo,' in 1907, he urged me to let him make the water scenes off the Coast, near Los Angeles. This was an unheard-of venture, but I consented. "When Boggs returned with the water scenes of ']\Ionte Cristo' I made up my mind that California was the place for us. And .'^o it came about that our entire company left Chicago for Los Angeles, via New Orleans, January 8, 1909. "V.'e still had to watch the financial corners mighty carefully in those days, so we seized the golden opportunity to shoot several pictures in picturesque New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and the Louisiana country. The company stayed thirteen weeks, and then proceeded to California. "Alarch 23, 1909, was the birthday of the first studio in Los Angeles. It was located at Eighth and Olive Streets. We acquired an old Chinese laundry on a corner lot, approximately one hundred b}' two hundred feet. We changed the laundry to dressing rooms and an office, and constructed a stage forty by forty feet." Here the Western company stayed for almost a year, during which time Hobart Eosworth cast his lot with motion pictures. During this year Selig contracted with the Southern Pacific Railroad to make educational scenics along its route through the picturesque Yosemite, at Lake Tahoe, and in Oregon and Washington. The company, with Jean Worth as the new leading woman, traveled for three months, combining the educationals with one-reel Western dramas. In those days Hollywood was unknown, and Los Angeles had not come to respect this new industry. The way of the motion-picture man was hard. He had little standing. Even the loafers in Central Park looked at them askance. Extra people were unknown. James L. jMcGee told me that in 1909 he used to walk through Central Park in search of extras. There hundreds of the imemployed were wont to loll in the sunshine. Selecting a type, he would approach him with all the courtesy of a floorwalker. "I beg your pardon, but are you looking for work?" "What's your business?" "Motion pictures !" ''^^'hat — me work in them things? Naw. nothin' doin' !" Retaining his courtesy, Mr. McGee would start on. "Say, what do I have to do?" "Put on make-up and do what the director tells you. You're just the type we want," added Mr. McGee suavely. And only after a promise of three dollars a day would the loafer reluctantly consent to honor the studio with his presence. The temperamental star of to-day has nothing on the lordly extra of that prehistoric period !