The Essanay Film Manufacturing Company was an early American
motion picture studio. The studio was founded in 1907 in
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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, and later developed an additional film lot in
Niles Canyon,
California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
. Its various stars included
Francis X. Bushman,
Gloria Swanson and studio co-owner, actor and director,
Broncho Billy Anderson. It is probably best known today for its series of
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin Jr. (16 April 188925 December 1977) was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, the Tramp, and is conside ...
comedies from 1915-1916. In the late 1916 it merged with other studios and stopped issuing films in the fall of 1918. According to film historian Steve Massa, Essanay is one of the important early studios, with comedies as a particular strength.
Founding
The studio was founded in 1907 in
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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by
George K. Spoor
George Kirke Spoor (December 18, 1871 – 24 November 1953) was an early film pioneer who, with Gilbert M. "Broncho Billy" Anderson, founded Essanay Studios in Chicago in 1907. He was a founding partner of V-L-S-E, Incorporated, a film distr ...
and
Gilbert M. Anderson, originally as the Peerless Film Manufacturing Company. On August 10, 1907, playing on the founders' initials the name was changed to Essanay ("S and A").
Essanay was originally located at 501 Wells Street (modern numbering: 1360 N. Wells). Essanay's first film, ''An Awful Skate, or The Hobo on Rollers'' (July 1907), starring
Ben Turpin
Bernard "Ben" Turpin (September 19, 1869 – July 1, 1940) was an American comedian and actor, best remembered for his work in silent films. His trademarks were his cross-eyed appearance and adeptness at vigorous physical comedy. Turpin wo ...
(then the studio janitor), produced for only a couple hundred dollars, grossed several thousand dollars in release. The studio prospered and in 1908 moved to its more famous address at 1333–45 W. Argyle Street in
Uptown, Chicago.
Leading players and staff
Essanay produced
silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, w ...
s with such stars (and stars of the future) as
George Periolat,
Ben Turpin
Bernard "Ben" Turpin (September 19, 1869 – July 1, 1940) was an American comedian and actor, best remembered for his work in silent films. His trademarks were his cross-eyed appearance and adeptness at vigorous physical comedy. Turpin wo ...
,
Wallace Beery,
Thomas Meighan
Thomas Meighan (April 9, 1879 – July 8, 1936) was an American actor of silent films and early talkies. He played several leading-man roles opposite popular actresses of the day, including Mary Pickford and Gloria Swanson. At one point he comm ...
,
Colleen Moore,
Francis X. Bushman,
Gloria Swanson,
Ann Little,
Helen Dunbar,
Lester Cuneo,
Florence Oberle,
Lewis Stone,
Virginia Valli,
Edward Arnold,
Edmund Cobb and
Rod La Rocque. The mainstay of the organization, however, were studio co-owner, Anderson, starring in the very popular "Broncho Billy" westerns, and
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin Jr. (16 April 188925 December 1977) was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, the Tramp, and is conside ...
, who was for a time its biggest star.
Allan Dwan was hired by Essanay Studios as a screenwriter and developed into a famous Hollywood director.
Louella Parsons was also hired as a screenwriter and went on to be a famous Hollywood gossip columnist. Owners Spoor (in 1948) and Anderson (in 1958) received the
Oscars'
Academy Honorary Award, for their pioneering efforts with Essanay.
Productions
Essanay's productions include the first American film version of ''
A Christmas Carol
''A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas'', commonly known as ''A Christmas Carol'', is a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in London by Chapman & Hall in 1843 and illustrated by John Leech. ''A Christmas ...
'' (1908) as well as the
Western short ''The James Boys of Missouri'' (1908), which is notable for being the first
biopic about the nineteenth-century American outlaw brothers
Jesse and
Frank James. The studio in 1916 also released the first American ''
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes () is a fictional detective created by British author Arthur Conan Doyle. Referring to himself as a " consulting detective" in the stories, Holmes is known for his proficiency with observation, deduction, forensic science and ...
'' film. Directed by
Arthur Berthelet, it stars
William Gillette in the title role. The first
pie-in-the-face gag on screen is believed to have hit Essanay star
Ben Turpin
Bernard "Ben" Turpin (September 19, 1869 – July 1, 1940) was an American comedian and actor, best remembered for his work in silent films. His trademarks were his cross-eyed appearance and adeptness at vigorous physical comedy. Turpin wo ...
in ''
Mr. Flip
''Mr. Flip'' is a 1909 American silent comedy film made by Essanay Studios, directed by Gilbert M. 'Broncho Billy' Anderson and starring Ben Turpin. The film is about a man going to various locations in town where he flirts with the women, an ...
'' (1909).
Animated comedies were produced as well by the Chicago company, including installments showcasing the small boy "Dreamy Dud" and his dog "Wag", who in the early 1900s were among the favorite cartoon characters of theater audiences.
Due to
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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's seasonal weather patterns and the popularity of westerns, Gilbert Anderson took a part of the company west, first to
Colorado
Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the ...
. He told ''The Denver Post'' in 1909, "Colorado is the finest place in the country for Wild West stuff". The western operations moved to California, but traveled between Northern to Southern California seasonally. This included locations in
San Rafael, just outside
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...
, and
Santa Barbara. Essanay opened the Essanay-West studio in
Niles, California, in 1912, at the foot of
Niles Canyon, where many Broncho Billy westerns were shot, along with
''The Tramp'' featuring
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin Jr. (16 April 188925 December 1977) was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, the Tramp, and is conside ...
. The Chicago studio, as well as the new Niles studio, continued to produce films for another five years, reaching a total of well over 1,400 Essanay titles during its ten-year history.
Chaplin Films
In late 1914, Essanay succeeded in contracting Charlie Chaplin away from
Mack Sennett's
Keystone Studios, offering Chaplin a higher production salary and his own production unit. Chaplin made fourteen short comedies for Essanay in 1915-1916, at both the Chicago and Niles studios, plus a cameo appearance in Broncho Billy film 'His Regeneration'. Chaplin's Essanays are more disciplined than the chaotic roughhouse of Chaplin's Keystones, with better story value and character development. The landmark film of the Chaplin series is ''
The Tramp
The Tramp (''Charlot'' in several languages), also known as the Little Tramp, was English actor Charlie Chaplin's most memorable on-screen character and an icon in world cinema during the era of silent film. '' The Tramp'' is also the title ...
'' (1915), in which Chaplin's vagabond character finds work on a farm and is smitten with the farmer's daughter. Chaplin injected moments of drama and pathos unheard of in slapstick comedies (the tramp is felled by a gunshot wound, and then disappointed in romance). The film ends with the famous shot of the lonely tramp with his back to the camera, walking down the road dejectedly, and then squaring his shoulders optimistically and heading for his next adventure. Audiences responded to the humanity of Chaplin's character, and Chaplin continued to explore serious or sentimental themes within comic situations.
Attempting to capitalize on the popularity of Chaplin, the studio in 1915 had its cartoon character Dreamy Dud in a Chaplin themed short ''Dreamy Dud Sees Charlie Chaplin'' in which Dud watches a Chaplin short.
Chaplin's stock company at Essanay included
Ben Turpin
Bernard "Ben" Turpin (September 19, 1869 – July 1, 1940) was an American comedian and actor, best remembered for his work in silent films. His trademarks were his cross-eyed appearance and adeptness at vigorous physical comedy. Turpin wo ...
, who disliked working with the meticulous Chaplin and appeared with him in only a couple of films; ingenue
Edna Purviance, who became his off-screen sweetheart as well;
Leo White, almost always playing a fussy continental villain; and all-purpose authority figures
Bud Jamison and
John Rand.
Chaplin disliked the unpredictable weather of Chicago and left after only one year for more money and more creative control elsewhere. His departure caused a rift between founders Spoor and Anderson. Chaplin was the studio's biggest moneymaker, and Essanay resorted to creating "new" Chaplin comedies from file footage and out-takes. Finally, with Chaplin off the Essanay scene for good, Essanay signed French comedian
Max Linder, whose clever pantomime, often compared to Chaplin's, failed to match Chaplin's popularity in America.
V-L-S-E, Incorporated
In 1915, the Essanay entered into an agreement, in a last-ditch effort to save the studio, with
Vitagraph Studios
Vitagraph Studios, also known as the Vitagraph Company of America, was a United States motion picture studio. It was founded by J. Stuart Blackton and Albert E. Smith in 1897 in Brooklyn, New York, as the American Vitagraph Company. By 1907, ...
,
Lubin Manufacturing Company
The Lubin Manufacturing Company was an American motion picture production company that produced silent films from 1896 to 1916. Lubin films were distributed with a Liberty Bell trademark.
History
The Lubin Manufacturing Company was formed in ...
, and
Selig Polyscope Company
The Selig Polyscope Company was an American motion picture company that was founded in 1896 by William Selig in Chicago. The company produced hundreds of early, widely distributed commercial moving pictures, including the first films starring T ...
to form a film distribution partnership known as
V-L-S-E, Incorporated
Vitagraph Studios, also known as the Vitagraph Company of America, was a United States motion picture studio. It was founded by J. Stuart Blackton and Albert E. Smith in 1897 in Brooklyn, New York, as the American Vitagraph Company. By 1907 ...
. It was orchestrated by Chicago distributor
George Kleine. Only the Vitagraph brand name continued into the 1920s, and was absorbed by
Warner Bros. in 1925.
Black Cat films
In 1916, Essanay arranged a deal with William Kane, who later become the publisher and editor of ''
The Black Cat'', to acquire a hundred stories from the magazine to turn into "Black Cat" films, each about half-an-hour long.
The plan was to release one picture a week, starting on December 5, 1916 with "The Egg", a comedy starring
Richard Travers
Richard Travers (15 April 1885 – 20 April 1935) was a Canadian film actor of the silent era. He appeared in more than 140 films between 1912 and 1930.
Selected filmography
*''Homespun'' (1913) short for Essanay
*'' The Ambition of the B ...
and
Marguerite Clayton
Marguerite Clayton (born Margaret Fitzgerald; April 12, 1891 – December 20, 1968) was an American actress of the silent era. She appeared in more than 170 films between 1909 and 1928, many of which were westerns with Broncho Billy Anderson ...
.
Kane loaned Essanay a set of ''The Black Cat'' issues, complete from the first issue through May 1915, and received $1,250 from Essanay for the one hundred stories they selected. Essanay failed to return the magazines to Kane, who sued them for $20,000 compensation for the loss of the magazines,
eventually winning his case in the
US Supreme Court.
Final years
George K. Spoor continued to work in the motion picture industry, introducing an unsuccessful
3-D system in 1923,
["Natural Vision Picture", ''The New York Times'', August 21, 1923, p. 6.] and Spoor-Berggren Natural Vision, a 65 mm
widescreen format, in 1930. He died in Chicago in 1953. G. M. Anderson became an independent producer, sponsoring
Stan Laurel
Stan Laurel (born Arthur Stanley Jefferson; 16 June 1890 – 23 February 1965) was an English comic actor, writer, and film director who was one half of the comedy duo Laurel and Hardy. He appeared with his comedy partner Oliver Hardy in 10 ...
in a series of silent comedies. Anderson died in Los Angeles in 1971.
The Essanay building in Chicago was later taken over by independent producer Norman Wilding, who made industrial films. Wilding's tenancy was much longer than Essanay's. In the early 1970s, a portion of the studio was offered to Columbia College (Chicago) for a dollar but the offer lapsed without action. Then it was given to a non-profit television corporation which sold it. One tenant was the midwest office of Technicolor. Today the Essanay lot is the home of
St. Augustine's College, and its main meeting hall has been named the Charlie Chaplin Auditorium.
See also
*
Chicago film industry
*
Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum
The Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum is located in what is now the historic district of Niles in the city of Fremont, CA. The museum is housed in the Edison Theater, a century-old Nickelodeon movie theater, just half a block from the former site ...
References
Further reading
* David Kiehn, ''Broncho Billy and the Essanay Film Company'', Farwell Books, 2003. .
External links
Essanaystudios.org: Official Essanay Studios landmarks websiteNilesfilmmuseum.org: Niles−Essanay Silent Film Museum��at Essanay Studios West, located in
Niles Canyon, East San Francisco Bay Area, California.
Nilesfilmmuseum.org: "Story of Essanay Studios in Niles"��detailed history and extensive filmography
Essanay Film Archive The Silent Film Channel
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Mass media companies established in 1907
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Defunct American film studios
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