“Hollywood” in Chicago: The Essanay Studios, Motion Picture Pioneers Before Hollywood

Posted on by sabinebuena
Cinema, Popular Culture, Society & Culture
The old Essanay Film Co Chicago headquarters

When the average American movie-going punter thinks of motion pictures he or she thinks naturally of Hollywood. If they know a little bit of US cinema history though, they might stretch themselves to mention New York as well. New York City was the centre of the early film industry (production and distribution)❇︎ – where the whole movie caper started in the very early days before it shifted to sunny California. The place they probably won’t tend to associate with movie-making is Chicago. Yet Chicago did have a thriving film studio in the very early days of motion pictures. Essanay Studios, Chicago, made its first silent movie back in 1907, when Hollywood was still known as a place for growing exotic fruits and vegetables. ,

“Broncho Billy” aka GM Anderson, mainstay of Essanay westerns

Essanay got its name from the initial of the surnames of its two founders, George K Spoor and Gilbert M Anderson (“S–and–A”), the latter a specialist western movie actor acting on the screen under the name “Broncho Billy” Anderson. The first star at Essanay was cross-eyed Ben Turpin (formerly Essanay’s janitor), who specialised in vigorous physical comedy (An Awful Skate, a 1907 short exploiting the roller skate craze).

The three biggest players together at Essanay in 1915

Many future Hollywood stars got their early screen exposure with Essanay, including Francis X Bushman, Wallace Beery, Gloria Swanson and Lewis Stone (and director Alan Dwan behind the camera). Bronco Bill Anderson’s westerns, regularly turned out by Essanay, proved a very popular earner for the studio. In a change of style from the customary westerns and comedies Essanay is credited with the first Sherlock Holmes film made in the US. Because of Chicago’s seasonal weather patterns Anderson moved an arm of the studios west, first to Colorado and later to California, based in Niles in San Francisco.

Sherlock Holmes (1916)

The studio had many of the top silent draws in the 1910s but no one was a bigger star at Essanay Motion Picture Company than Charlie Chaplin. Chaplin who joined the studio in 1915 was poached by Essanay from Mack Sennett’s Keystone Studios with the lure of much more money and his own production unit. While at Essanay Chaplin made 14 or 15 shorts (one or two-reelers), the crowning gem of which is The Tramp (1915), which received saturation publicity from Essanay. In this two-reeler Chaplin immortalised his most famous character, the vagabond “tramp”, conveying the right mix of melodramatics and wild slapstick [Neibaur, J. L. (2000). Chaplin at Essanay: Artist in Transition. Film Quarterly, 54(1), 23–25. https://doi.org/10.2307/1213798]. The studio’s star performer however wasn’t happy at Essanay’s locations in either Chicago or Niles and after just one year he departed the studios, moving to LA and Mutual and First National corporations for even more mega-money (his first $1M movie paycheck) and more creative control§.

The Tramp (1915)

Chaplin was far and away Essanay’s biggest money-spinner…with him no longer front-lining for the studio it started a downward spiral. Less than three years after the star draw card defected to Hollywood the Essanay Studios in both Chicago and Niles folded for good. Film historians contend that Essanay could have stayed successful had it been prepared to move with the times. The new trend was towards feature films (five or more reels), which were supplanting the short film as the popular form. Essanay Studio head GK Spoor lacked the necessary prescience to grasp this trend, preferring to stick with the old short film mode [Smith, M. G., & Selzer, A. (2015). Essanay Signs Charlie Chaplin. In Flickering Empire: How Chicago Invented the U.S. Film Industry (pp. 120–130). Columbia University Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7312/smit17448.16]. Selig Polyscope, William Selig’s rival film studio in Chicago, was more attuned to the future of cinema, producing The Spoilers in 1914, an early full-length feature film starring William Farnum. Selig Polyscope however was also forced to shut down its productions in 1918, bringing Chicago’s role as a hub of American cinema production to a close, leaving Hollywood firmly and permanently in the movie-making ascendency.

Essanay Film Manufacturing Co logo

❇︎ New Jersey was often used to shoot the outdoor scenes, especially for westerns!

§ the other reason Chaplin and other east coast film-makers moved to the west coast and LA was to evade the enforcement of Thomas Edison’s patents on motion pictures [‘A Brief History of Hollywood Before It Was Hollywood’, Silent–ology, (2015), www.silentology.wordpress.com]

‘Queen Kelly’, a Jinxed 1920s Hollywood Silent Film Destined Never to be Finished

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Cinema, Popular Culture, Society & Culture

 ❦❦🎥 🎬 🎞🎞🎞🎞🎞 🎬 🎥

Queen Kelly is one of early Hollywood’s most controversial movies…its story is a cinematic journey of a production burdened by recurring misfortune and internal conflicts which is doomed to become the incomplete expression of a would-be silent classic. It’s excruciatingly long drawn-out saga starts in 1928, as a United Artists feature intended as a star vehicle for top silent screen actress of the day Gloria Swanson who had defected from Paramount to go independent. Joe Kennedy Sr, patriarch of the tragedy-soaked, almost self-destructive Kennedy family of jinked and fated politicians, comes into the film’s story at this juncture. In the late 1920s Kennedy shrewdly acquired a string of small movie studios which he consolidated into RKO (Radio-Keith-Orpheum) in 1928. 

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Kennedy’s foray into the movie biz led to a meeting with Swanson and a three-year affair between the two. Joe was hoping to launch a successful career as a Hollywood film tycoon and agreed to finance Swanson’s Queen Kelly. Controversial auteur director Erich von Stroheim was brought in to write the original story and to direct, this was the start of everything going pear-shaped. Let loose with a big budget, Stroheim, an autocratic perfectionist by nature, dragged out the filming of what he intended to his personal masterpiece with constant reshoots and delays – amassing enough footage for a five-and-a-half hour epic, but having shot only just over one-third of the film’s scenario (‘Queen Kelly’, Silent Era, www.silentera.com).

Swanson in the title role with co-star Walter Byron (still from Queen Kelly)

With the movie still not finished and the Austrian-American director having drained more than $800,000 from the production budget, Stroheim was finally sacked. Filming done, this is where the machinations started getting really interesting. Swanson discovered that Kennedy has deceived her, instead of being an investor in the project Joe had actually loaned Gloria the capital, leaving Swanson wholly responsible for the loss! To try to recoup her money, Swanson tried to finish the disaster of a movie❇︎. After a savage round of editing, a sound version directed by Richard Bokeslawski with an alternate ending was released by Swanson’s own production company in Europe and South America in 1932. Stroheim, still holding the US rights to the production, had vetoed an American release (‘Erich von Stroheim’s Damned Queen: Queen Kelly’, Michael Koller, Senses of Cinema, August 2007, www.sensesofcinema.com).

Swanson in Sunset Boulevard (“the pictures got smaller…”)

Sunset Boulevard: American audiences finally got their first screen glimpse of Queen Kelly in a curious, twisted fashion some 20 years later. The film Sunset Boulevard (1950) reunited two of the original forces behind Queen Kelly, Swanson and Stroheim (as actor). Stroheim cheekily talked director Billy Wilder into using an excerpt from Queen Kelly in Sunset Boulevard, in which Swanson plays Norma Desmond, a forgotten silent film star. In a delicious irony the interspersed old footage from the doomed 1928 “classic” is presented as one of Desmond’s great silent films! The ensuing interest generated by Sunset Boulevard resulted eventually in a very belated second release of Queen Kelly in 1957.

The 1985 version

In 1985 Kino International brought to the screen a third release of the much maligned and butchered Queen Kelly. The 1985 version—hyped as a “restored masterpiece” and “lost masterwork”—was based on Stroheim’s original script (IMDb, www.imdb.com), but of course remains incomplete as intended. Over the course of the production’s extended lifespan, four cinematographers, five directors (in addition to Stroheim) and three other writers worked on the uncompleted feature.

Queen Kelly’s final release, 56 years after production ceased (source: New York Times)
Swanson and Stroheim

❇︎ timing also contributed to Queen Kelly’s failure…it was in production at the same time as ‘’talkie” movies were starting to make their inexorable rise ultimately to unparalleled popularity. Also, the Hays Code, recently introduced, insisted Stroheim make cuts to the movie’s raunchy content, which Stroheim defiantly and characteristically refused to do

Physician Heal Thyself … Literally! The Fusion of Surgeon and Patient Together in a Polar Wasteland

Posted on by sabinebuena
Built Environment, Coastal geology & environment, Geography, Literary & Linguistics, Medical history

Twelve men from the Soviet Union on a scientific expedition to the remotest part of planet Earth, Antarctica, in 1961, found themselves on the horn of an incredible dilemma. One of their number, none other than the expedition doctor, suddenly became acutely stricken with appendicitis. What to do? No one else was medically trained and outside medically help was thousands of kilometres away, the patient couldn’t be transported there and waiting would prove fatal. So the surgeon, Leonid Rogozov, did the only thing he could do to try to save his own life…as mind-numbingly inconceivable as it sounds he operated on himself!

Novolazarevskaya Station, Antarctica, in winter (Photo: Sky News/Getty Images)

Auto-appendectomy was virtually unheard of, let alone performing such an impossibly dangerous procedure in a non-hospital environment, but Dr Rogozov rolled the dice. Firstly, he planned the operation systematically and meticulously (despite being in agonising pain), choosing two members of the expedition to be his surgical assistants, their roles were to hand him surgical instruments and hold a mirror to avail him of a view of his abdomen. The degree to which he prepared the operation exceptionally well can be seen in that he had the foresight to assign a third man to be present in the makeshift operating “theatre” in the event that one of the assistants fainted. As Rogozov needed to stay conscious he submitted only to a local anaesthetic and proceeded slowly in excruciating pain. Finding the inverted view of the mirror more a hinderance than an aid he dispensed with it and operated instead by touch with his bare hands.

The Soviet Union’s pioneering auto-appendectomy (Source: Vladislav Rogozov)

Somehow after nearly two hours the doctor succeeded in removing the offending appendix (while noting that its gangrenous appearance indicated it in all likelihood would burst the following day). Operation successfully completed, Rogozov stitched up his gaping wound and even had the presence of mind to instruct the assistants on how to wash the instruments properly and hygienically clean the room, before finally allowing himself a dose of antibiotics and sleeping tablets to induce sleep. After just two weeks rest the extraordinary doctor was, true to form, back at work. Truly remarkable, real Ripley’s “believe it or not” sort of stuff! [Sara Lentati, “The man who cut out his own appendix”, BBC, 05-May-2015, www.bbc.com].

Dr Rogozov recuperating after the operation (Source: Vladislav Rogozov)

The Antarctic ordeal wasn’t entirely over for Dr Rogozov. Mission completed, the expedition was meant to be picked up by a Soviet vessel about 12 months after the doctor’s self-appendectomy, however exceptionally bad weather and thick sea ice prevented it from getting close enough. Consequently there was a further lengthy delay before all the explorers were eventually evacuated by single-engine aircraft, a distinctly hairy manoeuvre in the treacherous polar conditions. Back in the USSR Leonid Rogozov was hailed as a hero of the Motherland and honoured with the Order of the Red Banner of Labour, although the good doctor did his utmost to shun the huge publicity focused on him, preferring simply to return to his medical clinic work in Leningrad.

Leonid I Rogozov in happier times during his Antarctic stay (Source: Vladislav Rogozov)

ᨎᨐᨏᨃᨑᨎᨐᨏᨃᨑᨎᨐᨏᨃᨑᨎᨐᨏᨃᨑᨎᨐᨏᨃᨑ

Footnote: As a consequence of the 1961 Soviet expedition’s medical quasi-catastrophe, several countries including Australia made appendectomies mandatory for Antarctic explorers about to embark on an expedition to the farthest southern continent.

Yasmar House: Gentleman’s Colonial Villa to Reformatory for Delinquent and Wayward Youth

Posted on by sabinebuena
Built Environment, Heritage & Conservation, Local history, Natural Environment, Town planning
Through the arboreal jungle: Road to juvenile remand

In the West Connex neighbourhood that is Parramatta Road, Haberfield, there’s an entire block on Cadigal land with the street frontage almost completely camouflaged by a dense outgrowth of foliage, overgrown Moreton Bay figs and other assorted large trees. If you stop and peer through the ancient but imposing gates, beyond the locked high wire fence, you’ll see a deserted, winding driveway, bisecting the sprawling green maze. At the end of this serpentine path is Yasmar House in the inner west suburb of Haberfield. The name sounds vaguely Middle Eastern (Arabic female name?), but is actually less exotic than it sounds, “Yasmar” is simply “Ramsay” spelt backwards. Ramsay is the name of an early 19th century landowner in what was originally called the Dobroyde Estate, David Ramsay𖤓. Ramsay’s son-in-law Alexander Learmonth and daughter Mary Louisa Ramsay commissioned architect John Bibb to design their Yasmar House as their family residence on a parcel of the estate land.

(source: Stanton & Son)

Yasmar House (1854–56), still extant today, is the sole remaining villa estate on Parramatta Road, Australia’s oldest and busiest road. The once grand building is U-shaped with rear wings (originally servants’ quarters and service rooms) and stables, the buildings set well back from the front entrance…architecturally, it is a Regency designed villa in the Greek Revival Style (John Bibb’s speciality). The classical gateposts, made of Italianate style sandstone with Gothic recesses and a ball motif atop them are connected to a high, ornate iron palisade fence. After Yasmar became a borstal the entrance was widened to accommodate prison trucks. The garden design of the arboretum and Georgian landscaping adhered to JC Loudon’s “Gardenesque” principles. During this period many exceptional and unusual species of flora were planted…to a large part this was the work of Mrs Learmonth’s brother Edward Ramsay who had a keen botanical interest. Among the rare or uncommon plantings that survive are palo blanco trees, Chilean wine/coquito palms, Pacific kauris and a Chinese midenhair tree [Jackson-Stepowski, Sue, Yasmar, Dictionary of Sydney, 2008, https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/yasmar, viewed 02 Nov 2024].

Yasmar House in its juvenile detention period

Yasmar House has had only three owners in its nearly 170-year history – the Learmonth family, the Grace family (co-founder of the iconic Grace Brothers Department Store Joseph Neal Grace and his wife Sarah Selina Smith) and the NSW state government.

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Beyond these gates… (photo: Michael Wayne)

Yasmar House has bore many names and many uses over the course of its existence, including Yasmar Hostel, Yasmar Detention Centre, Yasmar Child Welfare Home, Yasmar Shelter, Yasmar Juvenile Justice Centre, Ashfield Remand Home. It also functioned as a Sunday school in the 1860s. At one point the site included a reform school facility for girls, the Sunning Hill Education and Training Unit.

Carpentry class, Yasmar Shelter, 1948 (source: www.findandconnect.gov.au/)

Currently, the complex operates as the Yasmar Training Centre (administered by the Department of Corrective Services). The state government acquired the villa in 1944 after it had served as army officers’ quarters during the war. In 1946 Yasmar House became a remand centre for delinquent boys, with its grand reception rooms serving as a children’s court and other rooms assigned for attending magistrates.To accommodate the increase in juvenile inmate numbers at Yasmar, timber structures were built on top of the property’s tennis courts and croquet lawns§ (Jackson-Stepowski).

183–185 Parramatta Road

 In 1991 Juvenile Justice relocated away from Haberfield and Yasmar House became vacant, leading to a marked deterioration in the condition of the heritage-listed villa and the gardens. Consequently, Yasmar has been described as “a landscape at risk”, prompting locals from the Haberfield Association to volunteer their labour to try to restore the garden to its comely former state.

𖤓 nearby the Yasmar site there is both a Ramsay Street and a Yasmar Avenue

§ former inmates of the Yasmar institution from decades ago paint a picture of harsh living conditions, brutal treatment, beatings at the hands of the guards and other abuses of authority [‘Yasmar – Ashfield, NSW’, Past/Lives of the Near Future, (Michael Wayne), www.pastlivesofthenearfuture.com]