Silent film 1920s

1. Classical Silent Cinema
1908 - 1927

2. Edison
• Competition ruthless (1907 $1 million
 1910 $3 million industry)
– Copyright was still being defined
– Companies were using Edison or
variation on machines, not paying
royalties
– Lawsuits, Pinkerton plant drugs;
bomb; send goons
• 1908 - Edison: Motion Picture
Patents Company (MPPC)
– 10 companies
– 16 patents and royalties – machine,
exhibitor, and film royalties
• Eastman exclusivity agreement
– General Film Company - swallowed
116 film exchanges
• 1909 Independent Film Protective Assoc.
– Financial
– Legal

3. Early Studios (1910s - 1920s)
• Independents - William Fox, Carl Laemmle and Adolph
Zukor
• American Mutoscope & Biograph Co.
– W. K. L. Dickson
• Laemmle - 1912 – Universal Studios (1915 – Universal
City)
• Zukor - 1916 - Paramount: Merged Famous Players
with distribution wing (1927 reorganized as
Paramount)
• Fox - 1915 - Fox Film Corporation – merged with 20th
century in 1935

4. 1910s - Hollywood
• Edison conflicts fostered
movement to California.
– Distance from MPPC
offered a buffer zone
• By 1913
– Patent members also
utilized California for the
warm climate, sunshine
suited to year-around
movie making.
– variety of filming locations
– Cheap labor and land

5. 1910 - Star system
• Carl Laemmle, head of
the Independent
Motion Picture
Company (IMP), helped
to initiate the movie
star system by
promoting Florence
Lawrence and Mary
Pickford.

6. 1910 - Star system
• Annual salaries of major movie
stars, such as Mary Pickford,
Charlie Chaplin, and Douglas
Fairbanks, grew substantially to
about $1 million by 1919.
• For instance, in 1913 Sennett
hired Charles Chaplin for $125
per week
– Essanay (1916): $1,250 per week
+ a $10,000 signing bonus
– Mutual (1916) : $10,000 per
week + $150,000 signing bonus
– 1st National (1917): 1 million

7. 1915 - Courts ruled that the MPPC was an
illegal trust
• Based their decision upon
Section 1 of the Sherman
Act and Section 3 of the
Clayton Act of 1914.
• Fox, a licensee, had initiated
a suit against the MPPC,
charging it with illegal
restrain of trade and
monopolistic practices in
violation of the Sherman
Antitrust Act of 1890.

8. 1915 - Thomas Ince established a "studio
system"
• Standard approach:
– group production units
– shoot scenes using a brief outline.
• Thomas Ince separated:
– conception (preproduction)
• At Ince's studio, a movie was prepared
on paper by management, followed
by its execution by workers.
• Developed continuity script (“a
motion-picture scenario giving the
complete action, scenes, etc., in detail
and in the order in which they are to
be shown on the screen”)
– production phase

9. 1915 - Thomas Ince established a "studio
system"
• He further standardized the work
process by dividing labor through
specialization.
– Producer: organized the work
– Scenario Editor: controlled the
script
– Director: headed and supervised
shooting
– Editor: cut the film.
– As his production studio grew,
Ince divided these and other
production responsibilities among
specialized areas and individuals.

10. Mack Sennett
• New style of comedy --
Slapstick
• Comedy of the absurd --
breakneck chases, wild
sight gags
– Keystone Kops -- underdog vs.
establishment
• 12 directors/ large gag crew
--- Sennett more of an
executive producer

11. Mack Sennett
• Stock company of stars:
– Many important actors
began their film careers
with Sennett
– Charlie Chaplin, Buster
Keaton, Mabel Normand,
Fatty Arbuckle, Gloria
Swanson, Carole
Lombard, Marie Dressler,
Roscoe Arbuckle, Harold
Lloyd, Bing Crosby and
W. C. Fields.
• Keaton started earlier as
a child in vaudeville with
his family
• Nicknamed “Buster” by
Houdini

12. Steamboat Bill, Jr.
• Released May 12, 1928
• Keaton’s last great film; last for
UA;
– Last film in which he had
artistic control
– Film industry was changing and
control was handed to
supervisors, line producers
• Ince system was in place – gone
were the D.W. Griffith’s and Erich
von Stroheim’s
– Keaton was to be sold to Metro
• For nearly thirty years Keaton was
largely one of early Hollywood’s
forgotten

13. Steamboat Bill, Jr.
• The perennial
outsider who tries to
find a place in rigid
society
– World is an absurd
place that threatens
to devour outsiders
– Woman and the
chase – finds love
and success

14. Steamboat Bill, Jr.
• Keaton’s films expanded
experimentation of comic gags,
stunts and film techniques
– Keaton’s films derive from
vaudeville slapstick, but exploit
cinematic technology
– Explored interaction of actor,
scene, costume and
cinematography
– Facial expression, collapsing sets,
carnations and hats, mobile
framing
– Keaton’s trademark “Stoneface”
expression – never smiles –
absorbed by the film process –
forgot expression

15. Steamboat Bill, Jr.
• What, in your estimation, is the most
memorable scene or sequence in Our
Hospitality and Sherlock, Jr., and why do you
think so?
– Train station
– Hat store
– Introduction to boat
– Jail sequence
– Cyclone

16. Steamboat Bill, Jr.
• Mississippi river – filmed
along the Sacramento
Delta
– Cyclone sequence
• Second half of the film
consists of this one
continuing gag
• semi-autobiographical –
Piqua, Kansas
– Perilous stuntwork carefully
planned
• Yet all seems effortless

17. Steamboat Bill, Jr.
• The major events in Cyclone sequence
– Willie's bed being blown out of the hospital and through a stable,
– the famous shot of the house front falling on Willie,
– Willie running in place against the wind,
– Various adventures in an empty theater,
– A house dropping on him from the sky, and
– His being carried away clinging to a tree and dumped in the river.