The Silent Archivist

Seeing a Film with New Eyes

Whoopee! Cinecon 48 is here! I can’t wait! Each year, with the Labor Day weekend, comes one of the most enjoyable film festivals in Los Angeles. It’s a chance to see some truly rare cinema, both silent and classic sound films. Cinecon (www.cinecon.org) gives classic film lovers a chance to check out some truly rare films, as well as a few “old friends.” And even old friends can appear fresh and “new,” under some circumstances.

Less than two months back, I was at another great festival, the San Francisco Silent Film Festival (www.silentfilm.org). It has become one of three “can’t miss” annual events on the west coast for me. The other two, in Los Angeles, are Cinecon, of course, and UCLA’s Festival of Preservation (www.cinema.ucla.edu/programs/ucla-festival-preservation ). Of these, San Francisco’s is the only festival that is made up exclusively of silent cinema. Over its seventeen seasons it has grown from a delightful trio of films to a smorgasbord of 17 programs, presented over 4 days. The presentations range from newly restored, well-known titles that are part of everyone’s “Silent Film 101” education, to rarities and truly remarkable discoveries from world cinema─ films that everyone ought to know. Now, thanks to the good folk in San Francisco, we can!

For a music lover, San Francisco offers something else that is unique, at least at the west coast festivals I have attended: a delicious variety of musical ensembles of extraordinarily high quality. This year, that meant (in order of appearance) the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, Donald Sosin, Dennis James, Stephen Horne, an amusing group known as Toychestra, the Matti Bye Ensemble, and the Alloy Orchestra.

For much of the silent era, if you went to a first-run theater in a major city, you heard an orchestra that might number from 3 or 5 players anywhere up to a 30 or even 50-piece symphony. Due to obvious financial constraints, screenings of symphonic proportion must be reserved these days for special events like SFSFF’s presentation of Abel Gance’s Napoleon, earlier this year. But the commitment required to present even a five member group like Mont Alto is significant, and the fact that San Francisco chooses to present not just one, but a several ensembles, makes this festival a true gem to behold.

I always particularly enjoy the foreign films that San Francisco brings from overseas. This year, Little Toys (1933) from China and the German film, The Wonderful Lie of Nina Petrovna (1929) were my personal favorites. From what I was told, a print of Nina Petrovna exists in the United States, but when the festival learned that a better and more complete print exited overseas, they went to the added expense to be sure that they presented the best material possible.

Exterior of the 1922 vintage Castro Theatre, at 429 Castro Street, San Francisco.

Of course, one of the great joys of this festival is its venue, the wonderful Castro Theatre. It’s such a pleasure to take a seat in this house, and settle in for a great movie. Naturally, a few of the restorations that appear in San Francisco may already have played Los Angeles, and I had seen three of this year’s offerings on big screens in LA. But seeing Wings (1927), The Loves of Pharoah (1922), and Pandora’s Box (1929) again at the Castro was still a treat.

This year my financial circumstances are more limited than they have been in the past, so I had to keep expenses to a minimum, and offset the cost in any way possible. That necessitated a visit to www.airbnb.com where I was able to find an inexpensive but conveniently located place to crash between midnight and 8:00 AM each night. Thanks also go out to Thomas Gladysz, journalist and creator of the internet-based “Louise Brooks Society” (www.pandorasbox.com) who was kind enough to invite me to the dealers’ lounge between films, to sell and sign copies of my documentary DVDs, including some of the last remaining copies of the original Image edition of my film Louise Brooks: Looking for Lulu (1998), as well as my more recent film, The Woman with the Hungry Eyes (2006), about the legendary Theda Bara.

Thomas Gladysz and Yours Truly

Several events at this year’s festival were presented by Fandor.com, an online streaming service that is quickly signing up silent film distributors. Jeff Masino of Flicker Alley introduced me to Fandor V.P. Jonathan Marlow, who is an enthusiastic proponent of the medium we love. Fandor is definitely a site to watch, and may prove to be the silent film online venue of the future.

I very much enjoyed Pola Negri in The Spanish Dancer (1923) and Betty Compson in The Docks of New York (1928), a particularly unflinching (and decidedly “pre-Code”) film from director Josef von Sternberg. A significant part of my appreciation for both presentations was due to the profoundly effective work of Donald Sosin at the piano. Sosin was joined by Jim Washburn and Gregg Smith for the Negri title, and I don’t think I could have asked for a more dramatic and enjoyable accompaniment.

Still other pleasures included Dennis James really slicing through a terrific score for The Mark of Zorro (1920), Douglas Fairbanks’ seminal swashbuckler, and the Alloy Orchestra’s delightfully quirky take on the even quirkier 1926 Russian film, The Overcoat, based loosely on a couple of stories by Nikolai Gogol. This comedy was a product of the creative collective FEKS, or “Factory of the Eccentric Actor.” It’s hard to watch the stylized acting in The Overcoat without mentally referencing The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, but this is really a very different sort of film, with terrific photography, much of it at night, and a sharply humorous spirit. I found myself contrasting it to a very different, much gentler Russian comedy, The Kiss of Mary Pickford (1927) that I had the honor to introduce at SFSFF’s winter event in 2009. Neither film would have been possible only a few years later, as “Socialist Realism” became a straightjacket binding just about all Soviet art.

Marquee casts its luminous glow over Castro Street on Saturday night.

The centerpiece of this year’s festival was the screening of Cineteca de Bologna’s new print of the recent and stunningly pristine restoration of G.W. Pabst’s Pandora’s Box (1929) with Louise Brooks. The restoration, like several at this year’s festival, was the result of meticulous frame-by-frame digital clean-up, and was overseen by a company called BigSound, David Ferguson, and Angela Holm, with much of the funding coming from Hugh M. Hefner. When this restoration was screened in Los Angeles, I was tapped to introduce the film, and I have fond memories of that screening. But this presentation, despite some minor problems with the English-language titles, which had to be projected live over the print, surpassed that experience, thanks to a stunningly evocative live score from the Matti Bye Ensemble.

Pandora’s Box is a difficult film to score “just right.” Prior to this screening, my favorite music for the film was the score recorded many years before by Stuart Oderman, available only on VHS tape. A few years ago the Criterion Collection brought out a DVD edition with no less than four different scores, but tragically, for my money, not a single one was a “home run.” On that disc, Dimitar Pentchev’s score, with its Kurt Weill-ian sensibility, comes closest, but none of the music offered can match the film’s irony and dark esthetic. Saturday, July 14, at the Castro Theatre, the Matti Bye Ensemble did! The music seemed to breathe through the mouth and nose and into the body of Louise Brooks, filling her lungs and bringing her to exquisite life. She floated on this musical current, downriver on her tragic odyssey, from the carefree dance in her lover’s flat, along her travels through the German night, down to the docks by the sea, and then finally the music seemed to evaporate, a dissolving wisp, as her heart is pierced by the knife of “Jack the Ripper.” I hope you, too, were there, because like all live performance, even with the best of intentions and opportunity, it may never live and breathe this same way, again.

As evocative as the music was, the impact of the film was also due to a great degree to the remarkable restoration presented here. It cannot be denied that the digital tools available to today’s archivists are not merely powerful, but are in fact profoundly effective, when used wisely. The ability of these digital tools to correct problems with dust, scratches, stability, contrast, timing, and particularly various forms of emulsion damage, far exceeds anything that can be done photochemically. We have seen the dawn of a new generation of film restoration, where careful, conscientious use of these new tools can bring us closer than ever to the filmmaker’s ideal presentation.

Pandora’s Box on the Castro Theatre screen. (Image simulated.)

I think you could not help but watch this screening with “new eyes,” as though seeing the film for the first time. This can produce a delightful, but ironic effect: one film archivist friend of mine told me afterward that he was amazed by all the additional footage in the restoration that he had never seen before. The thing is, I think he was mistaken! Of course there were badly cut versions of Pandora’s Box, but the film has been available in a substantially complete form for some time now. While Ferguson and Holm pulled material from archives all over Europe, my understanding is that the key to this restoration was the clarity of the image (as well as some previously lost title cards). Over the years we’ve all gotten used to seeing the films we love through images that are far from perfect, be it a battered 35 mm print, a fuzzy 16 mm copy, or a god-awful film-to-tape transfer done by careless people with substandard equipment. When we get a chance to see a film we have seen many times before, in a print that surpasses those of our previous experience, it can be like seeing that film with new eyes.

I had this experience myself, a few years ago. When we made the documentary The Woman with the Hungry Eyes: The Life and Films of Theda Bara, I spent hours in the telecine room with a 16 mm dupe negative of Theda Bara’s first hit, A Fool There Was (1915). After that I spent multiples of those hours with our film-to-tape transfer in the video edit room. By the time I was done, I was certain I knew that film as well as anyone. At the time, a 16 mm element was all that was available. Though the Museum of Modern Art had a 35 mm source, they did not have an access print in that format, and the only other 35 mm print, at BFI, had been retired due to deterioration. Kino had released a DVD that was completely unusable for my purposes, as it had been transferred at 24 frames per second, when it should have been run at 18 or 19 frames per second, and furthermore it had extremely poor shadow detail in many of the interior scenes. The 16 mm material we worked from was no sharper than the somewhat soft Kino version, but we were able to transfer it at the correct speed and control the contrast more effectively, in some scenes significantly so. The point here is that we took a lot of time, and by the time we were done, I thought myself thoroughly familiar with the film.

Theda, the vampire, watches over the remains of one of her victims, in a publicity shot probably made for A Fool There Was.

With an irony that is all to frequently encountered in this business, a year or so after we finished our documentary, the Museum of Modern Art produced a new 35 mm access print of A Fool There Was. This was no digital restoration, as the cost of both the tools and the raw man-hours required to do a thorough job still keep digital work out of reach for silent film projects that do not enjoy significant studio or private funding. But when the best example you’ve had is a soft 16 mm, a sharp new 35 mm print, with carefully-controlled contrast, and shot-by-shot timing, can still be a revelation. I visited the Museum of Modern Art in 2008, and viewed their new 35 mm print of A Fool There Was on screen in the museum’s theater. I was bowled over! The improved sharpness and contrast revealed so much more of the work of the actors and the director! And still further, I saw several shots, and even one scene of which I had no memory. I was certain that I had seen footage I had never seen before. I rushed home and pulled out my film-to-tape transfer, using notes I had made at the museum to look up each scene where I had seen new footage. But I was wrong! Everything I had seen in the museum’s 35 was there in the 16 mm footage, down to the frame.

I had seen A Fool There Was in 2006, but now I had seen it with new eyes! There were moments in the film that I had looked through, rather than at. It’s so easy to do this, when the image is of poor quality. And when the fog is lifted it becomes a revelation.

Yes, of course, I’m sure the two year gap had something to do with it. But once such images have seared your memory, they have much greater staying power. I’ll wager that I will have no such surprise the next time I view the 35 mm print of this film. I have now seen the film as I had not, before. I hope others will have such opportunity…frequently.

As yet it is not possible to simply scan a film to 2k, or 4k, or 8k resolution, press a single computer key, and – Voilah! – get a fully restored work ready to record back to film. To do much of the work that we saw in the digital restorations at this year’s San Francisco Silent Film Festival (Wings, The Loves of Pharoah, and Pandora’s Box) a great number of hours must still be spent, reviewing and fixing one frame at a time. Not all that is digital is gold, too. An overenthusiastic operator can easily over-correct, and introduce digital artifacts, or remove visible film grain, or bring out detail the was meant to be obscured, and thus destroy the integrity of the film he or she is trying to restore. But when these tools are used well, they offer great possibility.

At the informative talk given Friday morning about digital restoration, Paramount archivist Andrea Kalas, while showing us fascinating comparisons of raw and fixed frames and scenes from Wings warned that it may be some time before we see another Paramount silent raised to this level of restoration. It’s still too expensive for a profit-making company and, one presumes, a public or privately funded archive, unless some unique funding strategy is available. Nevertheless, we should be grateful that new ways to restore our film heritage do exist, and are getting better and more affordable by the year. Soon, we may be able to see many more films with new eyes. And that is a good thing, indeed.

~ Hugh Munro Neely

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BEVERLY DRIVE MONUMENT – PART 3

Freed from the threat of annexation by the city of Los Angeles in 1923, Beverly Hills continued to grow.  In 1920, when Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks were remodeling their new home into what would become Pickfair, the census recorded only 672 residents within city limits.  By 1924, the year after annexation was defeated, there were 5,000.  Will Rogers wrote about Beverly Hills in his syndicated column, and in 1925 became honorary mayor of the city, in which capacity he continued to promote the growth and improvement of the fledgling “metropolis.”

But this wasn’t enough, and furthermore, even though new wells had been drilled, water quality in the burgeoning city was still a problem. So a bond measure was proposed to fund the design and construction a unique water treatment plant for the purpose of purifying the city’s well water.  While I have not found any information that can confirm that Mary Pickford, Will Rogers, and the other honorees of the Beverly Drive monument actively campaigned for this water treatment plant, the plans were certainly aligned with their dreams for their hometown.  In any event, the measure was approved and construction of the plant began in 1927, the same year that Douglas Fairbanks became the first president of the newly formed Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 

Arthur Taylor, of the architectural firm of Salisbury, Taylor and Bradshaw, created a strikingly elegant Spanish/Italian design, remarkable for such an apparently humble municipal building. The structure was sited in a new park at the corner of La Cienega and Country Club Drive. (Country Club Drive was an extension of Los Angeles’ 10^th Street, and in 1932, when LA hosted the Olympic Games, its name was changed to Olympic Boulevard.) Opened in 1928, Beverly Hills Water Treatment Plant No. 1 was a success.  By treating and aerating its well water to remove the contaminating hydrogen sulfide, the city claimed to provide the purest and best-tasting water in Southern California.  (More information on the history of the Waterworks can be found in Mary Mallory’s informative blog, here: http://ladailymirror.com/2012/02/20/mary-mallory-hollywood-heights-beverly-hills-waterworks/ 

For some 48 years the treatment plant pumped water faithfully behind its beautiful facade. Finally it was abandoned in 1976, when the city of Beverly Hills, still firmly independent, was able to contract with the Los Angeles Metropolitan Water District to meet its needs.  The building sat empty for a decade before it was finally renovated by the Academy that had been founded the same year it was built.  Today, restored, expanded, and more beautiful than ever, it is known by the name of Mary’s former husband, one of the eight honorees of the Beverly Drive monument, as the Fairbanks Center for Motion Picture Study.  Inside is the Margaret Herrick Library, the Academy’s world-renowned motion picture research facility.  The Fairbanks Center remains a highly visible monument to a small city that valued its independence.  Down Olympic Boulevard to the west, some 22 blocks, stands a much smaller monument to the motion picture pioneers who helped to preserve and nurture that city.  Next time you’re there, stop and take a closer look.

BEVERLY DRIVE MONUMENT – PART 2

As it appears today, the seal of the City of Beverly Hills commemorates the area’s Spanish heritage (the Castle & Lion in lower right) and Mexican years (the Eagle holding a snake), before the Los Angeles area became part of California (represented by the flag in the upper right) and the USA (represented by the shield in the upper left). These symbols surround a picture of the beautiful Spanish-revival City Hall.  But though the city was incorporated in 1914, the famous City Hall wasn’t built until 1932.  In between those years, some very interesting things happened. 

As I noted in my last entry, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford started the film industry rush to Beverly Hills in 1919, quickly making it the “Gold Coast” for movie professionals.  The new landowners were proud of their community, and enjoyed the rapidly increasing prestige of their city address (in an era before such honor was expressed through a mere zip code number).

Los Angeles County was growing rapidly in the early 1920’s. New residential communities in the Los Angeles basin were sprouting out of bean fields and orange groves as fast as developers could throw frame and stucco together and realtors could write sales contracts.  The city of Los Angeles, bent on expansion, stood ready to absorb as many of these communities as wished to join its tax base.  Each new community was faced with a choice, become a part of Los Angeles City, or stay independent and tackle the duties and responsibilities of providing city services to their own population.

Like so many tales of Southern California development, water has something to do with this story.  Greater Los Angeles needed water.  There just wasn’t enough for this “city in the desert.”  The year before Beverly Hills was incorporated, the city of Los Angeles completed its five-year construction of the 250 mile-long Los Angeles Aqueduct, with bonds that obligated every man, woman and child in the city to years of taxes.  The cost of the initial project created a tax burden for a family of four that would amount to $352. Though that was amortized through bonds over a number of years, Angelinos knew that additional, yet unknown expenses were coming, as the city built reservoirs and hydroelectric plants to store and use the water it now had. 

Beverly Hills, however, didn’t need Los Angeles water.  The city’s needs were provided by wells that produced enough water in the early 1920’s to handle its population for decades to come.  But that didn’t stop LA city “boosters” from aggressively promoting the annexation of little Beverly Hills by the big city in late 1922.  Beverly Hills wells produced very hard water, mixed with significant quantities of hydrogen sulfide, and sometimes called “swamp gas,” which could produce a pronounced “rotten eggs” smell. It was suggested that if Beverly Hills residents were to agree to annexation by Los Angeles, the city’s water problem would be solved.  Promoters of the annexation left bottles of sulfurous water, presumably from local wells, on the doorstep of every home in the small city, with a note warning homeowners of the liquid’s “laxative qualities.” The annexation issue was placed on the ballot for 1923.

Whether because of these “scare tactics,” or simply because of a desire to remain independent, Beverly Hills residents Will Rogers and Mary Pickford, joined by the rest of those commemorated on the Beverly Drive monument. campaigned to keep their city independent. Judging from the limited amount of information available, it is possible that the monument’s description of “valiant” action may be a bit exaggerated, but as anyone who has participated in local politics can attest, emotions run high when the future of your home is on the line.

 In the primary elections that took place in Los Angeles County on May 1, 1923, residents of many areas agreed to be annexed by Los Angeles.  Going this route were communities, some of whose names have been erased in later histories.  Voting for annexation were the residents of Eagle Rock, Highland Park, Laurel Canyon, Carthay, Vermont, Laguna, and Ambassador.  But in Beverly Hills, thanks to Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Harold Lloyd, Tom Mix, Fred Niblo, Rudolph Valentino, Conrad Nagel, and Will Rogers, the vote was 337 for annexation, compared to 507 for continued independence. 

 The following year the movie stars pushed for public ownership of the water, and bonds were approved to purchase water rights from the private company that had been accused of providing substandard water.  Will Rogers and Mary Pickford, in particular, were singled out for their leadership. A few years later Will Rogers was named “honorary mayor” of Beverly Hills, for his many efforts to promote and improve the community.

Thirty-five years later, in 1958, former silent film actress and Beverly Hills resident Corinne Griffith had an idea that the city should commemorate the role that prominent motion picture industry professionals had played in the development of their hometown. Others joined her in this effort, including Jack Benny and Charles “Buddy” Rogers.  Griffith got the city to donate the land and $15,000 to cover half the cost of the design and construction of a monument.  She raised most of the rest of the money by selling benefit tickets to a premiere at the Fox-Wilshire Theatre of the Hugo Haas production, Stars in the Back Yard (later released under the title Paradise Alley).  When the monument was dedicated, Griffith presided over the event, which was attended by the three commemorated stars that were still alive: Conrad Nagel, Harold Lloyd, and Mary Pickford.

 The movie pioneers had their monument. But there’s one more chapter to this story. I’ll finish the tale in next week’s post.

BEVERLY DRIVE MONUMENT – PART 1

Now that we at the Mary Pickford Institute for Film Education have finished moving to our new address: 9415 Culver Blvd., Suite 8, Culver City, California 90232, we can finally begin to think and write about new things.  Manon Banta, our Director of Education, has some exciting new projects planned for the fall.  For my part, I greatly enjoy answering questions about Mary, her life and her movies.  Our email addresses and telephone number remain the same, so you can send your questions about Ms. Pickford to hugh@marypickford.com .  Anything I can’t answer myself, I’ll refer to our “brain trust” of Pickford experts that includes a number of prominent historians and Pickford biographers.

 Something I’ve wanted to do for some time now is write about Mary Pickford-related landmarks and locations in the Los Angeles area.  So today we’ll start what I hope will become a series on “Pickford Places.”

 The other day I was driving north up Beverly Drive into Mary Pickford’s hometown.  As I have many times before, I passed the monument that stands on the traffic island at the triangular intersection of Olympic Blvd., Beverly and Beverwil Drives.  I know some folk who have passed this monument for years, without ever realizing who and what this fascinating little monument commemorates.  So to help fill everyone in, I decided to stop and take some pictures.

The monument is 30 feet high, with a base that was reported to be of marble, but looks to me more like polished granite.  On top of the rectangular base is an octagonal column of the same stone, with bronze bas-reliefs of figures on each face of the column.  Above the column is a high pole topped with what is reputed to be a 14-carat gold multi-pointed star.  Spiraling elegantly around the pole is a bronze sculpture of a filmstrip with sprocket holes. 

It’s the filmstrip that catches the eye of the casual observer sees as he drives by.  I have often wondered how many of the thousands of people who pass by this corner repeatedly, have ever stopped to learn to story of this monument and the fascinating people who are depicted on the column below the soaring film strip sculpture. 

 If you approach the monument from the south you will see an inscription on the base that reads: “IN TRIBUTE TO THOSE CELEBRITIES OF THE MOTION PICTURE INDUSTRY WHO WORKED SO VALIANTLY FOR THE PRESERVATION OF BEVERLY HILLS AS A SEPARATE MUNICIPALITY – ERECTED 1959”.

On each face of the eight-sided stone column you will find depicted: seven actors (in costume) and one director, over reproductions of their signatures and the name of a representative motion picture that each made. The honored individuals are:

Will Rogers, who appears dressed as his character from Lightnin’ (1928)

Mary Pickford, dressed as Tess of the Storm Country (1914 and 1922)

Douglas Fairbanks, as he appeared in The Iron Mask (1929)

Harold Lloyd, dressed from Why Worry(?) (1923)

Tom Mix, appearing in Hard Boiled (1926) – here misspelled as “Hardboil”

Fred Niblo, director of Ben Hur (1925)

Rudolph Valentino, in The Four Horsemen (of the Apocalypse) (1921)

Conrad Nagel, in Glorious Betsy (1928)

I have to admit that the first time I viewed the monument up close, I was disappointed that the image of Mary Pickford, wearing her fisherman’s gear from the 1914 version of Tess of the Storm Country, didn’t look a little more like… well… Mary Pickford.  Most of the other stars featured on the monument are a little more readily recognizable.  Still, I appreciated the care that was given to honoring the role that became a landmark for her career that she ultimately filmed the story twice. 

As I looked around the entire monument I found myself wondering why it had been erected at all? So far as I knew, Mary Pickford had nothing to do with the founding of the city.  Beverly Hills was incorporated as a city in 1914, the same year Tess of the Storm Country was released, but Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks didn’t begin remodeling the former hunting lodge in the hills that would become Pickfair until 1919; just about everyone else on the list came later. So what was the work these industry leaders performed “so valiantly” that it earned them a monument erected in 1959!?

I’ll tell you about that in my next post.

Mary Pickford, Producer

This post was written for  the Mary Pickford Blogathon, currently being hosted by KC of the Classic Movies Blog.

Charlie Chaplin said with a certain degree of awe that Mary Pickford understood every word of her contract. But he didn’t mean this as a compliment. He thought that a woman with a head for business was unfeminine, and he never seems to have understood Douglas Fairbanks attraction to Mary.

Too many biographies of Mary Pickford seem to trail off around her last appearance in a dramatic role in 1933’s Secrets. The fact is she was much more than an actress. She produced all her films from Less Than The Dust in 1916 up through Secrets, but that’s not the end. She continued to produce films, if sporadically, after she left the screen. In fact her last major screen credit as producer is found on Love Happy (1950), which is considered the last film of the Marx Brothers! 

Pickford was definitely the first super-star of the movies. Florence Lawrence’s recognition preceded Mary’s slightly, but Pickford’s popularity had a staying power that Lawrence could not hope to equal. She developed a persona that people responded to during her Biograph days with D. W. Griffith, and in the films she produced herself for Artcraft Pictures from 1916 to 1919 she managed to expand and adapt this persona to films as diverse as The Poor Little Rich Girl (1917), Stella Maris (1918), and Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley (1918). The greatest successes of her United Artists years (1920 to 1950) are unparalleled.

D.W. Griffith noticed, even in the early Biograph days, that Mary was paying close attention to every element of film-making.  What she learned at the side of Griffith and technicians like cameraman Billy Bitzer served her well in the coming years.

Hearts Adrift (1914) and especially Tess of the Storm Country (1914) were the films that really burnished her star in her early days with producer Adolph Zukor. 

(Photo: Fans line up to view “Hearts Adrift” poster. From the collection of the author.)

Hearts Adrift, where Mary plays a desert island castaway in a grass skirt, is unfortunately a lost film. Tess of the Storm Country (1914) survives, though it is in need of restoration. Despite the popularity of these titles, and many subsequent ones, the quality of the Zukor productions is highly variable. It leads one to suspect that Zukor may have tried to do with Mary what B.P. Schulberg would later do with Clara Bow – place her in numerous pot-boilers and modest productions, knowing that her popularity would pull the film through – trying to squeeze as much out of her as he could before her popularity faded.  While there are some lovely films from this period, like Rags (1915) and The Foundling (1916), there are also some surprisingly weak films, like the recently rediscovered The Dawn of a Tomorrow (1915) and Hulda from Holland (1916).

In a filmed conversation, many years later, Pickford recalled to Zukor that she thought Hulda from Holland such a weak film that she actually offered to make another for Zukor for free, if only he would prevent Hulda from being released.

Zukor hit on a plan to stop Pickford from complaining of both the quality of the pictures, as well as the manner in which Pickford’s undiminished popularity was used to sell other films in the Paramount line-up, a process known as “block booking.” He decided to give Pickford greater say in the films she made, and he also created a new company banner, Artcraft, under which her films would be released.  Pickford’s opposition to block booking and the creation of Artcraft has been frequently noted.  But the other thing that happened at the same time was the establishment of the Pickford Film Corporation, the production company which produced Mary’s Artcraft releases, and in which Pickford and Zukor were described as equal partners. This was when Mary really started to produce her own films.

The difference was immediately evident.  Just compare Hulda, Mary’s last film before Artcraft with Less Than the Dust (1916), her first production with the Pickford Film Corporation. 

(Photo: Mary Pickford on the set of “Hulda from Holland.” Photo courtesy of the Bridgehampton Historical Society.)

 Dust may have been a flawed film, but its ambition; both in story and production design was miles ahead of the modest little romance of Hulda.

(Photo: Newspaper advertisement for “Less Than the Dust” promotes this film as setting “a new standard in film achievement.” Photo courtesy of www.newspaperarchive.com)

Advertising for Less Than The Dust promised that the film was “The First of Miss Pickford’s Efforts Under Her Own Artistic Guidance,” and furthermore, that Mary had handpicked the story, the cast, the costumes and the director, and even (erroneously), claimed that she had paid for the entire production herself.  Except for paying for the film herself, there was a good deal of truth behind the ballyhoo.

Her new job as producer did not go altogether smoothly, at first. After an advance in-studio screening of The Poor Little Rich Girl (1917), Zukor told Mary and her writer/collaborator Frances Marion that the film was a disaster.  He wheedled Mary into promising to do what she was told when she made her next two films with Cecil B. DeMille. The DeMille films were good, but Pickford felt thwarted. When The Poor Little Rich Girl was released, it became a tremendous success, which gave Pickford the leverage she needed to take real control of her productions. 

Pickford, as producer, brought in Marshall Neilan, who was known more as an actor than as a director. Together with Neilan directing and Marion writing, the three created an incredible string of hits, beginning with Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1917), followed by a stunning version of The Little Princess (1917) and the superb Stella Maris (1918). 

(Photo: Pickford plays both roles in “Stella Maris, an amazing achievement, both artistically and, for its time, technically. Photo courtesy of the Mary Pickford Institute for Film Education)

There can be no question but that Mary Pickford was determined to do the very best work that could be done in the film medium.  Her standards were high for herself, and equally so for her collaborators.  She pushed herself hard, but the testimony of people who worked with her suggests that she managed to challenge people to do their best with grace and kindness. She was loyal to her employees and fair in her judgments on the set.

 As much as she appreciated Adolph Zukor, Mary still seems to have been disappointed by the power he retained through their 50-50 partnership. So when the First National Exhibitors Circuit offered her $750,000 to make three pictures on her own in exchange for the right to distribute the films for five years, Mary weighed her options for several months before she finally said “yes.” 

This meant the creation of a new production company, known simply as The Mary Pickford Company. It was company she would own for the rest of her life.  There were other woman-owned production companies out there, with women-stars such as Olga Petrova and Norma Talmadge. But most of these companies were, in fact, partnerships between an actress and a male producer, and many of these organizations were not long-lived.  In Mary’s case, her partner in The Mary Pickford Company was her mother, and for the first ten years of the company (ending with Charlotte’s death), these two women held full control over every decision.

(Photo: Mary, with her mother and business partner, Charlotte Pickford. Photo courtesy of the Mary Pickford Institute for Film Education)

Mary’s three films for First National were carefully chosen. For the first time in her life she was completely free to do what she wanted, without anyone else to countermand her order.  But barely before production on her first film, Daddy-Long-Legs (1919) had begun, First National entered into talks with Paramount to consider a merger. Fearing that she would lose her new, hard-won independence, Pickford and that other First National actor/producer, Charlie Chaplin, hatched the plan with partners that included Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith to create United Artists.

Initially, UA was a distribution company. The individual Artists were required to finance and produce their own films.  They would each own the titles and the negatives. UA would have seven years to distribute the title, and then 100% of the rights would revert to the Artist alone.

(Photo: Clocking-in at The Mary Pickford Company. Photo courtesy of the Mary Pickford Institute for Film Education)

The first years with United Artists were not easy. Pickford felt tremendous pressure to turn out hits. This pressure was exacerbated by the fact that not all her partners in the company were able to provide a sufficient number of productions to make UA profitable. In its first two years of releases, Mary’s new husband, Douglas Fairbanks turned out six features, Griffith provided five, and Mary produced five starring herself, plus one low budget film starring her sister Lottie, that was released by another company. Charlie Chaplin turned out zero. Due to his incredibly slow work methods and a backlog of previous commitments, Chaplin wouldn’t provide a film for UA release for four years. 

Even with six films in two years, Mary’s output fell short of what she may have felt it should have been. After all, in the two years prior to her first UA release, nine Pickford features had been released. The UA partners were producing some of the most finely crafted and elaborate productions to be seen in the early 1920’s, and rapidly expanding production values meant that it took longer to complete each feature. The days of completing a new feature every 6 to 8 weeks were gone. By mid-decade, each UA partner was turning out barely more than one film a year, except for Chaplin, whose features took at least two years apiece.

Mary and Douglas purchased a partially developed production lot on Santa Monica Boulevard from Jesse D. Hampton, and opened the Pickford-Fairbanks studios in 1923. This is the same property; now know as “The Lot” that hit the news earlier this year when concerned citizens protested the destruction of historic buildings.  From this point on, almost all of the production work of The Mary Pickford Company was done on the lot, with only rare run-outs to remote locations. 

(Photo: Doug and Mary hang their “shingle” on Santa Monica Blvd. Photo courtesy of the Mary Pickford Institute for Film Education)

Pickford started to work with a wide range of directors. For one of her earliest productions on the new lot, Mary hired Ernst Lubitsch from Germany, bringing him across the Atlantic to make his first American film, the epic tale of a Spanish dancer, Rosita (1923). This film survives, but is in urgent need of restoration. Many years later, when Mary re-examined her life for her autobiography, Sunshine and Shadow, she decided that Rosita had been a misstep. But at the time of its initial release, the film did very well at the box office. 

In addition to the films in which she appeared, Mary also took a hand in producing several films for her brother’s company, Jack Pickford Productions: Garrison’s Finish (1923), The Hill Billy (1924), and Waking Up the Town (1925). This has not generally been recognized until recently, even by some of her biographers, but surviving photographs and financial records make it clear that Mary’s was at least one of the hands in charge of these productions.

Even with the financial pressure mounting, Pickford, as producer, made bold decisions, and took chances.  She could have played it safe, and done endless knock-offs of her first UA hit, Pollyanna (1920), but instead she alternated popular “child roles” with demanding adult productions. Despite some titles having been knocked about by earlier film historians, Rosita and Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall (1924), My Best Girl (1927), Coquette (1929), and The Taming of the Shrew (1929) all warrant discovery, though only My Best Girl is easy to find, as of this writing.

(Photo: Dressed for her Oscar-winning role in “Coquette.” Photo courtesy of the Mary Pickford Institute for Film Education)

Mary Pickford retired from her roles in front of the camera after her 1933 classic, Secrets, in which she plays opposite Leslie Howard, with Frank Borzage directing. But she did not retire from her roles behind the camera, both as an owner of United Artists and as a film producer. 

Initially she turned much of her energy to other media, producing two short inspirational books, a novel, and a short-lived radio show.  She also returned to the stage in a touring production of The Church Mouse. But by 1936 she was back in the movies, producing with Zukor’s old partner, the reliable Jesse Lasky.  The two films they produced together, One Rainy Afternoon and The Gay Desperado (both 1936) are well worth a look. 

(Photo: Nino Martini and Ida Lupino in “The Gay Desperado.” Photograph from the author’s collection)

Both are available on home video (although The Gay Desperado may be temporarily out of print, at this writing), and both feature an irresistible young Ida Lupino.  Mary championed Ida, who at 18, was barely older than Mary had been when she made her first Biograph shorts. Some thirteen years later Lupino would set out on her own as writer/director/producer of independent productions. 

With her private life disrupted, first by divorce, and then marriage to her third husband, Charles “Buddy” Rogers, Mary took a break from producing films to begin support for a wide variety of charitable causes, all the while maintaining her position at United Artists.  

In 1946 she and Buddy created a small company, Comet Productions, to make low-budget pictures. They produced four titles, but the results did not appear to meet Mary’s expectations. 

In 1948 she created still another company, Triangle Productions, perhaps using this name in honor of her old friend and colleague, the ailing D.W. Griffith. With her new partners she produced a terrific Douglas Sirk-directed thriller, Sleep, My Love. The film is sometimes unfavorably compared (I suspect by those who haven’t seen it) to George Cukor’s Gaslight (1944), but the similarity between the two plot lines is only visible in the broad strokes of a one or two sentence description. Sleep, My Love treats its story in a very different and highly effective manner. At the center of the film is a compelling performance by a 44 year-old Claudette Colbert, who looks similar enough to Mary at the same age that you wonder if she might have been cast as some sort of a doppelganger for the great actress/producer.

(Photos: Lobby card from “Sleep, My Love” featuring Claudette Colbert and Robert Cummings.  Author’s collection. + Mary Pickford portrait, late 1930’s. Mary Pickford Institute.)

Sleep, My Love was a strong chapter in Pickford’s producing career, and it could have been the final one. Perhaps it is, in a sense, but there are two more films on which she received credit. Pickford picked up a British film called White Cradle Inn, about French children living in Switzerland, displaced by World War II, and a couple that faces a difficult decision about what to do about the return to France of one child orphaned by the war. Somehow this sensitive film got re-titled High Fury (1948) for its American release through United Artists. Mary Pickford is credited as one of its producers, but it’s unclear what, if any, changes she made to the film to prepare it for the US market. 

Just after Sleep, My Love, Pickford was also involved in the early stages of the development of  Love Happy, a film originally planned as a solo vehicle for Harpo Marx.  From what I have seen, she seems to have exited the troubled production fairly early in the game.  Eventually all three Marx brothers appeared in the film, though not together.  The film is also notable for a bit part played by Marilyn Monroe, one of her first. The resulting film is enjoyable enough, but is far off the mark from the Marx Brothers’ best work.  For contractual reasons, Mary Pickford retained her screen credit as producer on prints of the film. So if you want to stump any of your friends who missed this blogathon, ask them if they know which Marilyn Monroe film was produced by Mary Pickford!

The Love Happy production ran short of money late in the shoot, and release was delayed. There was a single screening in the fall of 1949, but the commercial release didn’t come until early 1950.  So this curiosity became, by default, the final feature to carry Mary Pickford’s name as producer. Pickford maintained her share in United Artists and in the former Pickford-Fairbanks studio until 1955, but her era as producer had ended.

(Photo: Mary, on the set of “Pride of the Clan” an Artcraft release from 1917. Photograph from the Library of Congress.)

Mary Pickford’s effect on the motion picture industry cannot be overestimated. She was on the scene within the first decade of the life of narrative film in the United States. She was among the first of the actress/producers to make a mark in the industry, and her company lasted longer than any other woman of her day. It is proper that we give her credit for her indelible work as an actress. She was unique; one of a kind; an original. But it’s also proper that we remember that she was an artist who understood the complexity of film production and the need for meaningful collaboration. As we honor her legacy, lets remember Mary Pickford as a producer as well. 

Article written by Hugh Munro Neely, Director of Archive, Library & Legacy, The Mary Pickford Institute for Film Education 

WHAT WOULD MARY DO?

If you’ve been reading this blog, then you know that our organization, the Mary Pickford Institute for Film Education, has lost some 80% of its funding, since the Mary Pickford Foundation ceased all support for our education, library, and “legacy” programs on March 1, 2012.

 Since that time the Foundation has received dozens of letters and phone calls asking them to reconsider. As of April 23, nearly 650 good folk have signed our “Save the Mary Pickford Institute” petition.

If you are one of those who has already spoken up for the Institute, we thank you. What is more, your voices have been heard by the Foundation, though not with the effect that we had hoped for. The result is that the Foundation has hired a new employee, Elaina Archer, to serve as “Director of Archive and Legacy.”  They will continue at least some of the work of the Institute, only with a different person in charge. This is, of course, devastating to the four members of our Institute staff, who have worked long, heart-felt hours in support of Mary’s legacy, teaching young children about filmmaking and film history, producing screenings and concerts and new DVD masters, and maintaining a research library, open to the public, where anyone can learn more about Mary Pickford’s silent film era. Is this what Mary would do?

The Foundation has offered no answer.

 While this situation is a profound setback for the Institute and for myself, director Andi Hicks, education director Manon Banta, and controller William Handelsman, we can take some solace, at least, in the idea that our call for support appears to have caused the Foundation to make a positive move. Fifteen years ago Elaina Archer got her start as a filmmaker with my company, Timeline Films. We put her in charge of the collection of films and photographs that then made up what we called the “Mary Pickford Library.”  She showed such talent that I hired her as lead producer on several Timeline productions that I directed, Louise Brooks: Looking for Lulu, Clara Bow: Discovering the “It” Girl, and Captured on Film: The True Story of Marion Davies. I know from those days when she worked for Timeline that Elaina is a passionate supporter of Mary Pickford.

Perhaps, with the slate wiped clean, and a fresh face before the Foundation board, Elaina will be able to convince the Foundation to do some of the things we had proposed and promoted, and that the foundation had rejected or failed to act upon: a Mary Pickford seminar/festival, the preservation of  Mary Pickford films (Rosita would be an excellent start), more screenings and lectures and play presentations, a web site with lots of video and deeper resources for research, a real and continuing commitment to providing information and assistance to students and scholars, or any of a half dozen other ideas we have floated to the Foundation over the last nine months. Maybe even the establishment of a “Mary Pickford Award” for a modern-day “triple-threats” like Mary: a woman with solid achievements in art, business, and philanthropy. We hope that Elaina will not be reduced to just the “two big projects” that Henry Stotsenberg (Foundation president) had previously insisted upon.

 From what I have read, Ms. Archer will be working directly for the Foundation. This should solve the one and only real problem the Foundation ever had with us: the fact that we are an independent non-profit with an independent board of directors. It is clear that the Foundation wants to have complete control over all things Pickford. No matter that we worked hand-in-hand with the Foundation for years. Up until last May, a member of the Foundation board served as our CEO. When he resigned, the Foundation began to re-evaluate everything. They said that the Institute was supposed to become self-supporting. That was a smoke-screen. Will they require that Ms. Archer’s work turn a profit? I doubt it. The real reason for abandoning the Institute is found in an email sent by Foundation board member Gary Shoffner. After we worked cooperatively for six months to help the Foundation define its own goals and create new projects, they dumped us because, as Mr. Shoffner wrote to our supporters, “…the Foundation concluded it would not continue to fund an organization with an independent board of directors with its own goals and its own notions about how to achieve those goals.”

So what of us?  What would Mary do? 

Mary started her Foundation in 1958, initially to provide scholarships at the university level, and to help the very young and the very old. Over the last several years, the Foundation is doing less and less of all three of these things. Without more financial support, we cannot hope to take up all or even most of their slack, but there is one thing we do well, and that they have shown no interest in: teaching children.

Our Mobile Film Classroom programs teach children from 3^rd grade to high school. In addition to giving students a short primer on film history, some of our recent students have made their own silent film-style movie projects. This practical experience opens young people up to a world of motion pictures where classic filmmaking becomes understandable on a very practical and basic level. Take a look at the work from one team of 3^rd graders, who made a black and white silent film to address the problem of school-yard bullies: “Bullys Finish Last”

Our classroom programs are doing well, but we are in need additional donors and grants, in order to help this program grow to meet its true potential here in Southern California. Education director Manon Banta would like to see the program expand beyond our local schools. In the long run, there’s no reason this couldn’t grow beyond California to help to educate a nation-wide audience. We have many opportunities in this area.

The outlook for our research library is less rosy. The Mary Pickford Foundation owns most of the films and photographs and memorabilia that form the core of our library, and they plan to take these things back. I’m sure with Ms. Archer on board, that they will continue to show the films, but what they plan to do with the rest is, at this writing, unknown. Perhaps they will donate or loan many of these items to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, so that they can be displayed in the Academy’s upcoming museum. We can only hope that the Foundation doesn’t lock everything away, where it will be difficult for writers and researchers and other filmmakers to access it.

 In the short run, The Mary Pickford Institute will be moving to smaller quarters, and we will not be able to maintain our research library in the manner in which it has existed in the past. We still have a few unique resources in film history that are not owned by the Mary Pickford Foundation, and we still have a great deal of stored knowledge. As a historian who believes strongly in the free flow of information, I plan to continue to work with the Mary Pickford Institute for Film Education to provide any assistance I can on any question from the public that crosses my desk, or arrives via email to hugh@marypickford.com 

I only hope that we can keep this line open!  The problem is that the Mary Pickford Foundation is trying its damnedest to close that line off. Here’s the thing: they want to take away our name!

 The Foundation has offered the Institute some “transition funds,” but these funds come at a price. They want us to strip the name “Mary Pickford” from our Institute, to hand them complete control of our domain, www.marypickford.com , to turn over our email addresses at marypickford.com, to sell them every item we own (photographs, memorabilia, etc.) that is related in any way to Mary Pickford, and even to cease any references to Mary Pickford in our classroom curriculum. That is their price for some very limited additional assistance. When we declined this “generous offer,” at least at the price they dictated, they resorted to a lawyer who alternately cajoled, threatened, and stalled us, refusing any meaningful negotiation in favor of phrases like the ones in this letter, dated March 27, 2012:

“I have not received a response from you concerning the Mary Pickford Foundation’s demand for credentials to access the records for the domain name marypickford.com. The Foundation intends to enforce its rights to the domain name under both state and federal law. If I do not receive the credentials, or an adequate explanation by noon today, suit will be filed against you and Timeline Films, LLC under the Lanham Act, the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, California Business & Professions Code, sections 17525, et seq., California Civil Code section 3344.1 and for general and punitive damages for breach of fiduciary duty. Please understand that if you fail to comply by noon today, the next communication you receive will be service of a lawsuit seeking injunctive relief, money damages and attorneys’ fees. The lawsuit will not be dismissed upon your belated compliance with your legal obligations.”

 It has been nearly a month, and so far the threatened lawsuit has not materialized. For the record, this website was originally created by Timeline Films, for the purpose of providing public information about Mary Pickford. It was not then, and has never been a website used to promote the Foundation. In fact the Foundation had requested in the past that the names of its board members and its address not appear anywhere on the website. However, after the Institute was formed in 2002, we did put information about the Institute and its programs on marypickford.com, and a few years later we transferred all control of marypickford.com to the Institute, which has paid for its upkeep ever since. In my opinion, this website belongs to the organization that has used it for more than ten years, and that organization is the Mary Pickford Institute for Film Education.

What would Mary do?

I’m not sure the Foundation has a clue, but here at the Mary Pickford Institute, we do!

Mary Pickford’s Birthday

This day, April 8, 2012, is Mary Pickford’s 120^th birthday. So it seems fitting to release a sort of “State of the Union” assessment of her amazing legacy as an actress, producer, and businesswoman.

As a woman, Pickford is distinctive in that she was able to become a hugely successful actress without having to accentuate her sexuality. This is remarkable for any era, not the least for the time of Theda Bara, Pola Negri, and Gloria Swanson, when “vamps” seemed to reign supreme. Yet Mary Pickford became more famous than any of these accomplished women, working with her innate charm, determination, and sprightly humor, so that she became know to all the world as “America’s Sweetheart.”

Pickford was a forward-thinker, and while many have noted her comments, made at the time when “talkies” had become the rage, that she might wish to have her silent films burned upon her death, it is well to remember that during her lifetime she collected her films, buying many of her early Biograph negatives, and bequeathed her best negatives and prints to the Library of Congress. While 80% or more of films from the silent era are today considered lost, it is important to remember that some 75% of Pickford’s films survive.

We are proud that the Mary Pickford Institute has been involved in so many screenings of Pickford films in the last year, from Ramona (1910) at Rancho Camulos in Ventura County, California, to Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm(1917) at Grand Performances in downtown Los Angeles, to Amarilly of Clothesline Alley (1918) with the Fort Collins Symphony in Fort Collins, Colorado. Our research library has played host to dozens of guests while our website continues to attract hundreds of queries and thousands of visitors annually. Our goal is to improve the website significantly over the next 12 months. This coming summer our distributor, Milestone Films, will finally release our new 3 disk set, on blu-ray and on DVD, that will include Ramona (1910), The Poor Little Rich Girl(1917), The Hoodlum (1919), and the newly restored and tinted version of Sparrows (1926), with some wonderful bonus features, including special options aimed specifically at introducing silent films to younger audiences.

None of this would be possible, of course, had Ms. Pickford not started the Mary Pickford Foundation in 1958. That organization, in turn, started our independent 501(c)3 non-profit, the Mary Pickford Institute for Film Education in 2002, for the specific purpose of promoting film preservation and disseminating Mary’s legacy to the world. We’ve had a few bumps along the road. By far the biggest bump, however, happened on March 1^st of this year, when the Foundation abruptly ceased all its funding for our organization. Since that date, the Foundation has received calls and letters asking them to reconsider. We have provided them with the results of our MPI Office Survey, that indicated a strong public desire to see the Institute maintained as an open research library that also offered classroom instruction in film making and film history, with new releases of restored films and innovative public presentations of these marvelous treasures for everyone to enjoy. If you have not already signed our petition to the Foundation, I hope you will do so:

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/447/355/995/save-the-mary-pickford-institute-for-film-education/

When we reach 1,000 signatures on our petition, we will present it to the Foundation, and further proof of public support for our programs.

Many people have asked me why the Foundation has engaged in this unprecedented change of plans. The only communication we have received on this issue, suggests that the Foundation thinks that the value of our programs is outstripped by the cost to the Foundation of their support. In their new plans they have made no commitment to film preservation or to new film releases on home video. We disagree with these ideas, but we have been given no chance to explore the issue or effectively defend our work. Additionally, we have been told by Foundation president Henry Stotsenberg that he wishes to reduce the number of “Pickford projects” to no more than two a year. One project would help US veterans, while the other would be related in some (undefined) way to Pickford’s film legacy… perhaps a “Pickford Festival” with a few of her films mixed with other classic Hollywood fare. Mr. Stotsenberg evidently feels that putting most of their available money into just two projects will have a “bigger impact” than our current programs. Again, we respectfully disagree.

The Pickford Foundation has discontinued more than just our Institute. In recent years they stopped their annual contribution to the Jewish Home for the Aging, one of Mary’s oldest charitable traditions, and they have stopped their annual scholarship to a film preservation student offered by the Foundation through the Association of Moving Image Archivists for the last nine years. So we are not alone in our plight.

Please make no mistake, the Mary Pickford Institute will continue, even if our activities may be limited for a time. We have no intention of quitting the field.

We sincerely hope that the Mary Pickford Foundation will reconsider this new direction, and restore funding to the Institute and to these other programs. For those of you who have already signed our petition, we humbly thank you. Should the Foundation continue to turn a deaf ear, we hope that your support may convince other potential donors of the value of our work.

Let’s remember the great determination and generosity of our founder, and celebrate her birthday on April 8^th. Mary wouldn’t give up, and neither will we!

Happy birthday, Mary. We’re here for you!