Actress Mary Carlisle, the last surviving WAMPAS Baby Star, died at the age of 104. She was married to the same guy from 1942 until he died in 2007. She retired from acting soon after they were married.
Actor James O'Neill, father of playwright Eugene O'Neill, spent a significant portion of his career playing Edmond Dantes, The Count of Monte Cristo. O'Neill played the part over 6000 times between 1875 and the early Twentieth Century. He grew sick of the role and felt that it stunted his growth as an actor, but the public demanded that he play the Count.
The ad above is for an 1884 week at San Francisco's California Theater.
Moving Picture World, 25-October-1913
In 1912, James O'Neill played the part in the first production of the Famous Players Film Company. It was directed by Edwin S Porter.
Mary Miles Minter was a young, beautiful actress who took many parts that could have been played by Mary Pickford. She was very popular, but she got tangled up in the case of the murder of director William Desmond Taylor, which quickly ended her career.
When I read Kevin Brownlow's The Parade's Gone By, one story that struck me was the chapter about director Edward Sloman. Brownlow said that The Ghost of Rosy Taylor was one of the few movies directed by Sloman that was available to screen. He tried to contact Sloman, but found that he was too old and ill to talk.
Moving Picture World, 13-July-1918
Moving Picture World, 13-July-1918
I later learned that the movie was co-directed by Henry King.
Roscoe Arbuckle appears with his friends and partners, Buster Keaton and Al St John in "Good Night Nurse."
Moving Picture World, 20-July-1918
Roscoe spends the first reel trying to get home in a rainstorm. In the second reel, he gets sick, so his wife sends him to a sanitorium with lots of pretty nurses.
Motion Picture News, 06-July-1918
This exhibitor is not amused.
Motion Picture News, 20-July-1918
Roscoe spent part of the movie in drag.
Motion Picture News, 13-July-1918
Just as WH Productions was rereleasing Charlie Chaplin's Keystones, they also rereleased Roscoe's Keystones. That is a terrible picture of Roscoe.
Motion Picture News, 27-July-1918
The Bee-Hive Exchange, which also released Billy West's imitation Chaplin comedies, rereleased Roscoe's one-reelers.
Motion Picture News, 20-July-1918
Roscoe and his team had to rush through shooting "The Cook" because Buster had been drafted.
Motion Picture News, 27-July-1918
Comique planned to release ten comedies for the next season.
100 years ago this month, in July, 1918, Jewel Productions, a subsidiary of Universal, released Winsor McCay's animated documentary, "The Sinking of the Lusitania."
After a year of war, Germany was not in a good position. The British had established a fairly tight blockade of imports, and the army had failed to take Paris and had settled into static positions on the Western Front. In order to disrupt vital shipping to Britain, Germany had decided to adopt a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. U-Boats would no longer warn civilian vessels before sinking them. On 07-May-1915, U-20 torpedoed and sank RMS Lusitania near the coast of Ireland. A number of Americans died and this nearly drove the country into the war on the side of the Allies, Britain, France and Russia. Germany promised to stop unrestricted submarine warfare and America stayed out until they resumed it again.
Lusitania carried 1,962 passengers. 1,191 died. 128 of the dead were Americans.
Pioneering animator Winsor McCay devoted his own time and money to make a film of the sinking. This was his first animated movie to use the cel method which is still used today for hand-drawn animation. Despite the time saved with cels, the movie took nearly two years to complete.
It is an effective piece of anti-German propaganda.
Moving Picture World, 27-July-1918
Motion Picture News, 06-July-1918
"One would never imagine that the time would come when the more serious things in life would be told most realistically by animated cartoon drawings."
The Ebony Film Corporation was based in Chicago. It was managed by whites, but had two black executives, the Pollard Brothers, Luther and Harry. Luther directed and Harry served as a talent scout and agent. The company tried to avoid obnoxious stereotypes, but picked up some older films from another company that didn't care and wound up ruining its reputation.
Moving Picture World, 20-July-1918
"...the next series of Ebony comedies will be a departure from the usual custom of production, inasmuch as the five comedies will be enacted by a mixed cast of white and negro comedians, the negro humor still predominating."
Henry (Pathé) Lehrman started out at Biograph, then went to Keystone with Mack Sennett, then left Sennett to found L-KO (Lehrman Knock-Out) Komedies. He left L-KO to produce Sunshine Comedies for Fox. Sunshine Comedies frequently featured pretty girls and lions. Many of the films were lost in a big fire at Fox.
