"Blazing the Trail"

Part One

It was in June, 1906, that I literally jumped into the moving pictures. And from that day to this I have been connected with them as actress, scenario writer, producer and critic. In these different capacities I watched the very birth-pangs of the industry. I helped to develop and guide it, I cried and laughed over it, and was part of it as it was part of me.

In these reminiscences I make no attempt to write a history of moving pictures. I merely set forth what I recall of those early days in the few companies with which I was associated.

The impulse which led me to fling myself into a Connecticut river from which I issued forth leading lady of a small picture company destined to become a power in the industry was characteristic of the hour.

On the stage melodrama was in its heyday, and from the ranks of melodramatic actors were drawn the players for the first pictures. "Why Girls Leave Home: or A Danger Signal on the Path of Folly" gave us Lois Weber, Phillips Smalley, Anne Schaeffer and me. "The Worst Woman in London" was the play that graduated James Kirkwood. "Billy the Kid," starring the boy Joseph Santley, produced three men who eventually became great directors, Sidney Olcott, Robert Vignola and George Melford; also Marion Leonard, the original "Biograph Girl," and Fred Santley who afterward starred in the Bertie series for Kalem. Mary Pickford had already appeared in "The Fatal Wedding" and Laurette Taylor had been leading woman for young Santley in "The Boy of the Streets," written by her husband, Charles Taylor. Plays like "Bertha the Sewing-machine Girl," "Across the Pacific," and "Nellie the Beautiful Cloak Model" were coming fortunes for Al Woods, Sullivan and Harris, the Mittenthal Brothers, and the Blaneys. The public's appetite for thrillers seemed insatiable.

Like all players of the day, I came to New York each year at the close of the road season in search of an engagement for the next season. In 1906 I arrived with sufficient money to take a delightful little apartment on 101st Street near Central Park West for which I paid thirty-two dollars a month.

About June first I realized that my funds were running low and in a vague way I thought of the new opening for actors, moving pictures. But like the rest of the legitimate profession I looked on them with contempt and felt sure that my prestige would be lowered if I worked in them. I knew only one person who did work in them regularly, Sidney Olcott, whom I had met at the home of Mrs. Santley, mother of Tommie, Fred and Joe, and my own "New York mother." He was then with the Biograph Company. Today he is one of our outstanding directors.

One noon Sid came from Forty-second Street to 101st Street by surface car, as this was before the day of subways and we had no telephone.

"How would you like to come on a picture tomorrow with Biograph?" I stalled for I did not want to go. He went on to explain:

It's a water picture. If you can swim-"

But I can't," I cried, relieved.

"That's all right. You'll only have to get your feet wet. We are going up to Sound Beach, Connecticut, and it will give you a long day in the country. I know you'll enjoy it and it'll put three berries in your pocket. Probably will mean more work too. Now, Dot, I think you are foolish not to seize such an opportunity. It's all going out and nothing coming in with you, and that is no right way for anyone to live- just to lie around waiting for something to turn up.

Good old Sid, how many times has he guided not only me but all of his confreres along the road of his wisdom!

So the next morning at eight-five I met the company at the Grand Central Station and we took a train for Sound Beach.

Mr. Harrington was the director but the life of the party was a good-looking, enthusiastic man of vivid personality who seemed to take matters into his own hands. He was Frank J. Marion, sales manager for the Mutascope, a subsidiary of the Biograph.

Arrangements had been made for our reception at a farmhouse smothered in roses and lilacs and set down in a field of daisies. Beyond the winding dirt road flowed a river some fifty feet wide which, a few hundred yards below, had been dammed to give power to a woolen mill, dilapidated and abandoned. Here on one side of the dam was a great pool thirty feet deep and on the other a sheer drop of thirty or forty feet.

"A wonderful place for the plunge," announced Marion and turning to me he added, "You swim of course!"

"Never was in water in my life except a bathtub," I said cheerfully.

"I told you we must have someone who could swim," railed Marion at Olcott.

"You didn't say swim,"' said Sid; "you said someone to go in the water."

"That's a fine way to get out of it. The next time you do as I say. All right, folks, take off your make-up and we'll go home and come back again tomorrow."

This would never do. Mentally I made a calculation- ten people at three dollars a day, railroad fares and so forth. I spoke up:

"What do you want me to do?"

"The girt must be thrown into the mill dam."

"All right, I'll do it if you make sure someone will save me."

"It's impossible. The water is thirty feet deep. I won't risk it."

"Well, I will. just have rescuers near and I'll take the chance."

It took some persuading, Sid adding his voice to mine, and in the end Marion agreed.

The picture, The Paymaster, proceeded on its criminal way until noon and I quickly caught on to the knack of facing the camera. But in the back of my mind lurked the fear of the big scene. For I was afraid- horribly so. But I was going through with it if it killed me. We had a rehearsal, all except the plunge. I came running across the stone dam until I reached the center when Jim Slevin, the villain who was pursuing, caught me. There was a fierce struggle and he lifted me bodily, whispering: "Hold your breath. Now- one- two- three-!" and hurled me head downward into the water. Just outside the camera lines, in boats, waited the other members of the cast, tense and ready to plunge in should it be necessary. Slevin, frightened at what he had done, stared with mouth open and arms hanging.

"Get out, you fool," roared Marion, holding back Gordon Burbe, the hero, who strained to run into the scene and make the rescue. It was too good! Marion gripped him until my body rose and disappeared again. In the meantime I felt as it I were plumbing the bottom of the river. Ten feet down I went, with the strength of Slevin's arm. I thought I would never stop going and start up again. My lungs were bursting. It seemed impossible to hold my breath another second. I felt the air on my face and wondered why I wasn't rescued; then down I went again. I was panic-stricken. Something had gone wrong. I was going to drown! Just then I felt firm arms under me and remembered not to struggle. A few strong strokes and I was laid on the damhead while the camera ground out the last few feet.

It was quite a triumph. Marion seized my hands and all but kissed me. Sid laughed and cried in his excitement and the cast gathered around showering me with congratulations. As for me, I have never before nor since been so exhilarated and self-satisfied. The plunge was my open sesame to the film world, for Mr. Marion was so grateful that for several years he would not even consider another leading woman. Moreover I was presented with five dollars for my day's work instead of the customary three.

Before I continue the story of my career, let us take a look at the moving picture of 1906 and the theater in which it was shown:

The moving picture had just climbed upon the first rung of the ladder to fame and success. From the ignominy of being a "chaser" in the vaudeville program it had risen to the dignity of the "store theater," usually a dingy, odorous little hole, about the size of the average shop on Main Street. Outside it blazed with electric lights of low candle power, which made up in quantity what they lacked in quality.

The entire front was usually plastered with glaring sheets of pictorial paper and strips of canvas proclaiming the current atrocity of crime and adventure. Inside were benches, kitchen chairs, or, in the more luxurious, hard wooden opera seats. Admission was a nickel. The pictures were jumpy and dingy, running five to eight hundred feet, and thrown upon an oblong of more or less white canvas, generally ornamented with sagging folds and an occasional rent. But they moved, those old pictures, and that was the wonder of it, the thing which pulled in the crowds.

I had signed up with "The County Chairman" before I took my epoch-making plunge into the little Connecticut stream, but I made my third camera appearance before taking to the road, including a reproduction of the Harry Thaw-Stanford White murder for the Mutascope. My faith in the moving pictures increased with each experience; and before I returned to New York in the spring of 1907 many important things had happened. The Motion Picture Patents Company had been formed and was bringing some sort of order out of the chaos in which producers had been making and marketing pictures. The nickelodeons in which Mr. Marion was financially interested had spread all over the country and were coining money for him. Having decided that there was money in the producing end of the business he induced Mr. Samuel Long, who was manager of the Biograph factory at Hoboken, to believe likewise. With himself to write scenarios and direct and with Mr. Long to oversee the mechanical end success seemed assured. Such a company had been formed in Chicago by Spoor and Anderson (Broncho Billy) under the name Essanay (S and A). The other American producing firms were Biograph, Vitagraph, Edison, Selig and Lubin. Some foreign films also had a following, notably Pathe, Gaumont and Melies.

Unfortunately the combined savings of Long and Marion amounted to only three thousand dollars, so they approached George Kleine who was in the optical business in Chicago and who was also dabbling in films. Mr. Kleine put in two thousand dollars and received a third interest, but in a very short time the original promoters bought him out for several times the original investment.

With five thousand dollars and boundless enthusiasm they formed the Kalem Company- K for Kleine, L for Long and M for Marion. They secured a floor in a loft building at 131 West Twenty-fourth Street, put a thin partition in a small room, dividing it into two offices, and used the back part for a laboratory.

There was to be no studio. Mr. Marion believed that outdoor pictures were much better photographically, and also permitted the action which he had determined should be the keynote of his pictures. Three years passed before the first crude actor-built interiors were used in Kalem films.

The first drastic change Mr. Marion made was to raise the wages of the actor to five dollars a day, thereby compelling all other companies to follow suit, And in February of 1907 the first picture, The Sleigh Belle, was filmed, followed some weeks later by The Pony Express. In the latter appeared Sidney Olcott, Robert Vignola and Joe and Fred Santley, not to mention Joe's horse Silverheels.

The summer of 1907 saw a general improvement in pictures all along the line and the Kalem Company settled down to a regular release of a one-reel picture weekly. Mr. Olcott, the director, gathered about him a score of actors who were his personal friends and threw himself whole-heartedly into the work. The chief requisite of the actor who would work for Sid was a telephone number, so those whose lodgings had no telephones must arrange for calls at the corner delicatessen or at some friend's home, dropping in every evening to see whether their services were required for the morning. Another necessity for Kalem actors was "rough stuff." How often over the phone did listening ears catch the voice of the director:

"Hello! That you, Jim? We're going to do a picture tomorrow. Shadyside. Be at the Forty-second Street ferry at seven-forty-five. Bring your rough stuff."

And in suitcases or paper bundles the "rough stuff" would appear with Jim- and Joe and Bill and Harry; an old flannel shirt, bandanna handkerchief, rough trousers and shoes, and a cap or wide-brimmed shabby hat. Bob Vignola had a particularly good character shirt, a dark red flannel with plaid marking of dingy white. Again and again that shirt appeared in Kalem pictures, worn either by Bob or some friend to whom he had loaned it, for they seemed to think that on a different person it would not be recognized. Finally one day after watching the shirt get in its deviltry for the tenth time in as many pictures, Mr. Marion remarked to Sid:

"I think you had better give that shirt of Bob's a rest. It'll soon be known as the Kalem trademark."

Compare this with the elaborate wardrobes of today!

The general procedure for taking a picture was always the same. There was never a scenario on hand and Sid, after finishing up the previous week's work, would hang about the lean-to office waiting for something to turn up. About Wednesday, Mr. Marion would come down from his home in Connecticut, a black scowl on his face and an unfriendly attitude toward everyone. And Sid would whisper, "Either his liver is bad or he has a story to get off his chest." Sid would then "beat it" till after lunch, returning to face a smiling buoyant Marion looking up expectantly over his desk.

"That you, Sid? The report is for good weather earlier tomorrow. You'd better get your people together and run out to Shadyside and take this picture. It's about a horse thief and there's a dandy climax. The last scene shows him after the vigilance committee has lynched him, hanging over the Palisades by his neck. Here's the dope. You'll better get busy on the 'phone right away. And he would hand Sid a used business envelope on the back of which, in his minute handwriting, was sketched the outline of six scenes, supposed to run one hundred and fifty feet to the scene- as much as our little camera would hold. A half dozen words described each scene; I believe to this day Mr. Marion holds the championship for the shortest working scenario.

So the next morning at quarter of eight a bunch of sleepy actors would be grouped before the ferry gate as the boat clanged in, with Sid running excitedly back and forth scanning the entrance for some late comer, and marching him forward scolding volubly just before the gates closed. Or if the delinquent did not appear:

"Frank, Bill isn't here. If he doesn't come on the next boat you'll have to double one of the posse. We need him in the first scene and the suit is only on that barn early in the morning. Better make it smooth face, you'll wear whiskers as the father."

Shadyside, lying at the foot of the Pallisades, furnished the background for practically every picture we made that first summer. It was a crude ugly little settlement with miserable shacks clinging to the side of the hill, but we had discovered it and had tested its possibilities, so we guarded it jealously from other picture companies.

We carried our suitcases and props up and down the steep road on each trip, and we made our headquarters in a boarding house run for laborers. We made up in hot cell-like rooms, uncarpeted and furnished with lumpy beds which we eyed with distrust. Rickety washstands from which we removed chipped howls and pitchers served as our dressing tables, all in striking contrast to the cool inviting dressing-rooms of today's wonderful studios.

The food served by the German couple who ran the house consisted largely of muscle-making dishes like stewed beef with noodles, corned beef and cabbage or sauerkraut, boiled potatoes, cabbage slaw, rye bread, huge mugs of beer or coffee; but after a grueling day on location we did not find it distasteful.

It was Olcott's ambition to finish each one-reel picture in a single day, so he held a stop watch on the final rehearsal. If during the actual training he heard the cameraman say quietly, "Speed up, Sid; film's running out," he would dance up and down shouting, "Hurry up, folks; film's going. Grab her, Jim; kiss her; not too long; quick! Don't wait to put her coat on- out of the scene- hurry now! Out, Max? Good lord! Why didn't you hurry? You should have cut across the side-lines."

For the first picture technique did not permit of the action's being stopped midway. If the actors were headed for an exit, outside the carefully marked lines they must be at the end of the scene.

This early technique, which like Topsy "just growed," requires some explanation. The marvelous photographic effects of today were far beyond the possibilities of the pioneer moving picture cameras and film. Klieg lights were unknown and interior or studio pictures were not successful. Producers demanded outdoor background for all scenarios. There were no close-ups, no subtle pauses. There could be no action directly across the foreground because this meant a blurred picture. If Mary and John were strolling through the woods they must be seen entering the path at an angle from the sidelines and they must exit the same way. A stare had to be held, a start had to be violent. If the director wished certain spoken words to register, they were enunciated with exaggerated slowness, leaving no doubt in the mind of the spectator.

Original article, 1928.

"Gene Gauntier, Blazing the Trail," Woman's Home Companion, Volume 55, Number 10, October 1928, page 7.

© 1997, David Pierce, on editing and revisions (if any)

Blazing the Trail: One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven | Eight | Nine | Ten | Eleven | Twelve

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