Since there are no film presentations to attend, and as this coronavirus pandemic has no end in sight here in the United States, no "nights at the movies" shall transpire for the foreseeable future, it is terrific that some organizations have been recasting their film festivals as online Zoom presentations. One such organization is the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum.
We are happy they are doing this and not just because otherwise, the gang at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog would pretty much have nothing to write about and, hence, no posts in the offing.
Since Mr. Blogmeister's writing mojo was last seen stumbling aimlessly in the south end of Uruguay, staggering towards Argentina, where Gomez Addams learned to tango, here's the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum press release regarding the salutes to the early cinema of Vitagraph and Biograph Studios.
"This weekend, direct from the Edison Theater in beautiful downtown Niles, home of the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, there will be a new Zoom presentation, NEW YORK SILENT FILM STUDIOS, PART 2.
The film and documentary links in this tribute to the early movie studios will be available for 24 hours (12:01 am to 11:59 pm) for each day listed - but ONLY that time period."
Saturday's program salutes Vitagraph Studios, also known as the Vitagraph Company of America, founded by J. Stuart Blackton and Albert E. Smith in 1897 in Brooklyn, New York. Vitagraph would be among the very few production companies in the United States that made movies before the turn of the 20th century. While not as advanced as the Lumiere brothers, Alice Guy-Blaché and Georges Méliès, already making movies in Paris, Vitagraph wasted no time in becoming the advance guard of American filmmaking, soon followed by Edwin S. Porter and the Miles Brothers.
The studio's early stars included the first of the rotund "big fella" movie comedians, John Bunny, English character actress Flora Finch, leading man Maurice Costello, Wally Van, Lillian Walker, Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Drew and, in a wide variety of roles, stage comedienne and accomplished mimic Florence Turner.
The tribute to Vitagraph Studios begins with a documentary on the first U.S. silver screen actor to headline his own comedy series, John Bunny, born on September 21, 1863. While not the first American comic to appear in a movie - that would be Ben Turpin - the corpulent, irascible, brilliant and very funny John Bunny was the first bonafide U.S. comedy star of the silver screen.
There will also be Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgers (1912), adapted from a Charles Dickens story, and Diplomatic Henry (1915), one of the Vitagraph films starring our favorite purveyors of sophisticated farce at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Drew, a team responsible for numerous outstanding comedy films in the teens. The Drews remained unsurpassed in the "witty and urbane" department until the teaming of William Powell and Myrna Loy two decades later.
Sunday's Salute to the Biograph Studio features a selection of historic D.W. Griffith films, courtesy of The Biograph Project. These short subjects produced in 1908-1910 by Biograph a.k.a. the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company will include Griffith's directorial debut, The Adventures Of Dollie, as well as pioneering films featuring Florence Lawrence a.k.a. The Biograph Girl and moviemaking powerhouses-to-be Mary Pickford and Mack Sennett. The Biograph Project and the Film Preservation Society have been doing incredible work restoring the Biographs and formerly lost films of Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.
OUR PRESENTERS:
Sam Gill is a Film Historian and Board Member of the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum. Formerly an Archivist with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Co-Author with Kalton C. Lahue of Clown Princes and Court Jesters. (Editor’s Note: and all around nice guy).
Steve Massa co-hosts the weekly Silent Comedy Watch Party series, live-streamed Sundays on YouTube, and is the author of Rediscovering Roscoe: The Films of "Fatty" Arbuckle, Slapstick Divas: The Women Of Silent Comedy, and Lame Brains and Lunatics: The Good, The Bad and The Forgotten of Silent Comedy.
Tony Susnick is an independent filmmaker, best known for writing and directing the historical documentary The Legend Of The Reno Brothers and John Bunny – Film's First King Of Comedy.
The museum's newsletter writer and, in the halcyon pre-coronavirus days, Saturday night show host Michael Bonham elaborates:
Welcome to our monthly online offering featuring part 2 of pioneering east coast film studios, happening this coming weekend September 19-20. As with our previous shows, the link for the John Bunny documentary will appear with the start of Saturday (12:01 am) and the special film programs and ZOOM codes will become active at the start times of the sessions.
To access the programs, CLICK HERE to go to our home page. Once you're there click on the Upcoming Schedule tab on the top of the page or on the "Vitagraph & Biograph Studios" icon on the left.
We hope you have enjoyed all our online shows so far and we plan to continue them until we can once again open our theater to all our friends. We would like to extend many thanks to Larry Telles, Bill Levesque, and Zack Sutherland for handling the technical end of these shows. Also, a big thank you to Rena Kiehn for putting all the puzzle pieces together and helping make it all happen.
Our theater is undergoing a major renovation at this time and if you would like to help with the cost, please CLICK HERE to make a donation. We appreciate any amount you can give.
Watch for us again next month!
Saturday, September 19th - SALUTE TO VITAGRAPH STUDIO
John Bunny's international stardom, beginning in 1910, preceded Roscoe Arbuckle and Charlie Chaplin. Frequently referred to as a "Dickensian" comedian, he fit right into the studio's emphasis on sophisticated comedy and films based on literary sources; John Bunny starred in Vitagraph's 1913 version of The Pickwick Papers.
John Bunny appeared in 172 films and was frequently teamed with Flora Finch, stately British actress of stage and screen, in a series termed Bunnyfinches or Bunnygraphs. In films that frequently cast the duo as a combative husband-and-wife, there was palpable tension between the two of them - think William Frawley & Vivian Vance on I Love Lucy or John Belushi & Jane Curtin in Saturday Night Live - and this added a great deal to the comedy. Here's the trailer to John Bunny – Film's First King Of Comedy.
To answer those who find the John Bunny films most entertaining and what to know where the heck can one more of them, will note that in addition to the John Bunny DVD, several John Bunny Vitagraph short subjects in excellent pictorial quality have been uploaded to YouTube by the marvelous archivists of Eye Film Institute. "Bunnyfinches" can also be found in the Silent Comedy Watch Party programs, taking place on Sundays on YouTube.
4:00 pm PT / 7:00 ET (one time only screening)
Short Subjects by Vitagraph Studios, courtesy of USC Hugh M. Hefner Moving Image Archive. Musical accompaniment by the Edison Theater's own Greg Pane. This includes a film starring future Metro Pictures headliner Clara Kimball Young and a hilarious short subject starring Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Drew, the king and queen of sophisticated comedy on the silver screen during the World War I era.
Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgers (1912)Diplomatic Henry (1915)
Saturday, 5:00 pm PT / 8:00 pm ET - Zoom Link TBA Zoom presentation with film maker Tony Susnick and film historians Steve Massa and Sam Gill. See the remains of the original Vitagraph Studio in Brooklyn, New York. The studio continued to be in use into the sound era; 1930's Vitaphone short subjects were shot there.
Sunday, September 20th - SALUTE TO BIOGRAPH STUDIO
Mr. Jones At The Ball (1908), featuring Florence "The Biograph Girl" Lawrence and Mack Sennett.
A Smoked Husband (1908), featuring John R. Cumpsen and Florence Lawrence.
At the Altar (1909)
The Gibson Goddess (1909)
The Adventures of Dollie (1908)
A Child's Impulse (1910), featuring Mary Pickford
5:00 pm PT / 8:00 ET
Zoom presentation by Tracey Goessel, founding member of The Biograph Project. Zoom Link TBA.
We at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog respectfully tip our battered yet prized Max Linder top hat - after all, Mack Sennett's Biograph film The Curtain Pole was clearly inspired by the Paris boulevardier's distinctive comedy stylings - and salute the outstanding work of the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, Eye Film Institute and all the terrific historians and experts noted in this post.
2 comments:
Thanks for posting all the information about this weekend and your kind comments. Appreciate all you do! Tony
Thanks, Tony and likewise - have your John Bunny documentary on DVD! You are all doing terrific work. John Bunny, Flora Finch, Florence Turner and the Drews are very important in the history of silver screen comedy.
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