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William Selig

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William Nicholas Selig
Selig in 1916
Born(1864-03-14)March 14, 1864
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
DiedJuly 15, 1948(1948-07-15) (aged 84)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Other names"Colonel" Selig
Col. William N. Selig
Col. William Selig
W.N. Selig
William N. Selig
Wm. N. Selig

William Nicholas Selig (March 14, 1864 – July 15, 1948) was a pioneer of the American motion picture industry. In 1896 he created one of the first film production companies, Selig Polyscope Company of Chicago. Selig claimed to have made the first narrative film shot in Los Angeles, The Count of Monte Cristo (1908 film), and, in 1909, what may have been the first permanent studio in Edendale, Los Angeles, and being the first U.S. company to shoot a two-reel film, Damon and Pythias (1908),[1] and the first true serial (film), The Adventures of Kathlyn (1913-1914).[2]

Early life

William Nicholas Selig was born March 14, 1864, at 10 Kramer Street, Chicago, Illinois, to Antonia (née Linsky) and Joseph Franz Selig,[3] a Bohemian-Polish immigrant family, in predominantly-Polish section of Chicago and attended primary school there.

Early Career

William N. Selig entered show business as “Selig the Conjurer” and morphed into the impresario of “Selig’s Mastodon Minstrels,” which featured Bert Williams, along with “five whites, four blacks, and a ‘Mexican’ who drove the horse team and played trombone” and then into the owner of the Selig Polyscope Company that made and licensed pro­jection equipment.[4]

Selig started as a furniture upholsterer. Selig apprenticed to a magician,[5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][3] and, still a teen, toured the Midwest as a vaudeville performer in his own minstrel show. He later settled in San Francisco and toured the state as “Selig the Conjurer”.[13][14] One of the actors was Bert Williams, who went on to become a leading African-American entertainer.

As a magician, Selig called himself "Professor Selig", later awarding himself the title of Colonel.[3][15]

Multiscope and Film Company

A mechanic to whom Selig turned for help had unknowingly made a duplicate Cinématographe for a travelling Lumière operator, and Selig's camera and Polyscope projector were based on the drawings of the Lumière machine.[16]

In 1894, at the Texas State Fair in Dallas, Texas, Selig met employees from Thomas Edison’s laboratory who were demonstrating the Kinetoscope.[13] He returned to Chicago, opened a small photography studio and began investigating how he might make his own moving pictures without paying a patent fee to Edison's company. Selig reportedly found a metalworker who had unwittingly repaired a Lumière brothers motion picture camera and, with his help, developed a working system. With machinist, Andrew Schutsek, he produced a similarity to the cinématographe. [13] In 1896, Selig founded the Selig Polyscope Company in Chicago, producing not only motion pictures, but film equipment as well, as one of the first motion picture studios in America, making actuality shorts, travelogues and industrial films for Chicago businesses.

Multiscope & Film Company gained a five year franchise in 1895 with the Edison Vitagraph Company of Chicago and New York to show the first moving pictures in the State of Minnesota and gained rights from the holder of Wisconsin’s franchisee to operate the first Vitagraph moving picture shows in Burlington and Elkhorn, making Burlington the first place outside of the largest metropolitan American cities in which the Vitascope was exhibited.

In 1896,[17] in a loft, at 43 Peck Court in Burlington, Wisconsin, Selig co-founded his first film company, the Multiscope and Film Company, [18][19] and his made first film, The Tramp and the Dog.[20][21][22]

Selig also copied the productions of others, like other pioneer companies, for his sale, through his own catalogues, his activity brought the attention of the lawyers of Edison.[16] Selig made films in the Southwest.[16]

Al-Vista panoramic camera

Multiscope & Film Company, produced, in Burlington, Wisconsin, the first successful commercial 180° panoramic camera,[23] made in quantity, the Al-Vista, later a series of panoramic still cameras.[24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45]

Selig Polyscope Company

Selig studio, Chicago,
The Moving Picture World,
July 1916

In November 1900 Selig incorporated the Selig Polyscope Company.[20][21][46][47] By 1904, he focused on slapstick comedies and minstrel-comic scenes, and producing the first westerns of Broncho Billy Anderson, the later co-founder of the Essanay Company.[16] In 1909, Selig was the first producer[48] to expand filmmaking operations to the West Coast, where he set up studio facilities in the Edendale area of Los Angeles with director Francis Boggs. Southern California's weather allowed outdoor filming for most of the year and offered varied geography and settings which could stand in for far-flung locations around the world. Los Angeles also seemed to offer geographical isolation from Edison's Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC), a cartel which Selig later reluctantly joined. The Sergeant, a Western short shot in Yosemite and produced and directed by Boggs for the Selig Polyscope Company was released in September 1910.[49][50]

In 1911, Boggs was murdered by a Japanese gardener employed by the company. Selig was shot and wounded in the arm while trying to defend him.

Settling with Edison, Selig joined the Motion Picture Patents Company and in 1913 joined with Vitagraph, Lubin and Essanay to form the V-L-S-E, Incorporated distribution company; prominent productions included Hunting Big Game in Africa 1909, a studio-made film of Theodore Roosevelt's exploits on safari; The Coming of Columbus 1912, an three-reeler which won a medal from Pope Pius X; and The Adventures of Kathlyn 1913, the first serial with Kathlyn Williams.[16] Selig had studios in Chicago and the Edendale, Los Angeles, and produced animal pictures, with the Selig's Jungle Zoo near Eastlake Park growing to the then-largest collection of 700+ wild animals.[16]

Selig produced almost a thousand movies[51] and was responsible for developing new film talent such as Roscoe Arbuckle along with early cowboy western stars Gilbert M. "Bronco Billy" Anderson and Tom Mix. He also popularized the cliffhanger format through the serial (film) The Adventures of Kathlyn (1913). The Spoilers (1914), a western set in Alaska, is often cited as his greatest success.

In 1915, the United States Supreme Court nullified all of Edison's MPPC patents, breaking the cartel and allowing increased competition.

Selig Polyscope Company patents: US999679, US990786, US984496, US712462, US928804, US971864, US948654, US990787

Shakespeare publicity

"Shakespeare trial", 1916, Chicago Tribune, Selig (right)

In 1916, Selig sued George Fabyan on the grounds that profits from forthcoming films of Shakespeare's works, along with a film on "The Life of Shakespeare", would be damaged by Fabyan's assertion that Francis Bacon was the real author of Shakespeare's work, a popular claim at the time. He had already obtained an injunction stopping the publication of a book by Fabyan on the subject, in which Fabyan promoted the discovery of ciphers in Shakespeare's plays, identified in his private laboratory Fabyan Villa. Selig was hoping to capitalize on the celebrations organized for the upcoming 300th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, scheduled for April 1916. A Cook County Circuit Court judge, Richard Tuthill, found against Shakespeare. He determined that the ciphers identified by Fabyan's analyst Elizabeth Wells Gallup were authentic and that Francis Bacon was therefore the author of the works. Damages of $5,000 were awarded to Fabyan for the interference with the publication of the book. In the ensuing uproar, Tuthill rescinded his decision, and another judge, Judge Frederick A. Smith, dismissed the ruling.[52][53][54] It was later suggested by the press that the case was concocted by both parties for publicity, since Selig and Fabyan were known to be old friends.[55] An official of the Selig Company was quoted as saying, about the initial loss of the case, "Isn't that sad. That will be about nine million columns of publicity, won't it?"

After Selig Polyscope

The Jungle Goddess (pt) (1922), advertisement for the serial

At great expense, Selig created a zoo in East Los Angeles, stocked with hundreds of animals he had collected for his studio's jungle pictures and cliffhangers. He also moved his studio there. Meanwhile, World War I began cutting into profits from Selig Polyscope's extensive European operations and, as the war ended, the film industry moved towards more expensively produced full-length feature films. Under these circumstances, Selig Polyscope was unable to compete and closed in 1918.

Nonetheless, Selig had great hopes for the zoo. Over thirty years before Walt Disney built Disneyland, Selig made plans to expand it into a major amusement park and resort called Selig Zoo Park, with many mechanical rides, a hotel, a large swimming area, theaters and restaurants, believing thousands of visitors a day would flock to the location. As head zookeeper he hired Cy DeVry, who had been director of the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago. However, only a single carousel was ever built and the crowds never came. A business which ten years earlier had been one of the most prolific and widely known movie studios in the world had, in effect, become a struggling zoo on the other side of downtown Los Angeles from Hollywood's booming post-World War I film industry. Although for a time he was able to rent space on the lot for wild animal "location" shooting and other projects, this side of the business quickly dwindled into an animal rental service.

Selig did some work as an independent producer and expedition promoter into the 1930s, but ultimately lost the zoo and his assets during the Great Depression. He then became a literary agent, re-selling story rights to film properties he had produced or acquired years before.

Filmography (partial)

see: fr:William Selig

The Adventures of Kathlyn, 1913, Selig Polyscope
  • The Tramp and the Dog, 1896
  • Soldiers at Play, 1898
  • Chicago Police Parade, 1901
  • Dewey Parade, 1901
  • Gans-McGovern Fight, 1901
  • A Hot Time on a Bathing Beach, 1903
  • Business Rivalry, 1903
  • Chicago Fire Run, 1903
  • Chicago Firecats on Parade, 1903
  • The Girl in Blue, 1903
  • Trip Around The Union Loop, 1903
  • View of State Street, 1903
  • Humpty Dumpty, 1904
  • The Tramp Dog, 1904
  • The Grafter, 1907
  • The Count of Monte Cristo, 1908
  • Damon and Pythias, 1908
  • The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays, 1908
  • Hunting Big Game in Africa, 1909
  • The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, 1910
  • Lost in the Arctic, 1911
  • Life on the Border, 1911 [56]
  • The Coming of Columbus, 1911
  • Brotherhood of Man, 1912
  • Kings Forest, 1912
  • War Time Romance, 1912
  • The Adventures of Kathlyn 1913
  • Arabia, the Equine Detective, 1913
  • The Sheriff of Yavapai County, 1913
  • The Spoilers, 1914
  • A Black Sheep, 1915
  • The Crisis, 1915
  • House of a Thousand Candles, 1915
  • The Man from Texas, 1915
  • The Range Girl and the Cowboy, 1915
  • The Garden of Allah, 1916
  • The Ne'er-Do-Well (1916). re-released in 1921.[57]
  • In the Days of Daring, 1916. directed by and starring Tom Mix, re-released as Days of Daring in 1920 by Aywon Film Corporation.[58]
  • The City of Purple Dreams, 1918
  • Little Orphant Annie, 1918
  • The Lost City (it) (Serial film, 1920, Selig Polyscope Company & Warner Brothers)
  • Sic-Em (1920, William N. Selig Productions)
  • The Fighting Stranger (1921, William N. Selig Productions & Canyon Pictures Corporation (pt))
  • The Hunger of the Blood (1921, William N. Selig Productions & Canyon Pictures Corporation (pt))
  • The Last Chance (1921, William N. Selig Productions & Canyon Pictures Corporation (pt))
  • The Struggle (1921, William N. Selig Productions & Canyon Pictures Corporation (pt))
  • The Raiders (1921, William N. Selig Productions & Canyon Pictures Corporation (pt))
  • Kazan (1921, William N. Selig Productions)
  • pt:Miracles of the Jungle (1921, Selig Studios & Warner Brothers)
  • The Better Man (1921, Selig-Rork Productions)
  • The Fighting Breed (1921, Selig-Rork Productions)
  • The Shadow of Ligthning Ridge (1921, Selig-Rork Productions)
  • The Rosary (1922, Selig-Rork Productions)
  • Pals in Blue (1924, Col. Wm. N. Selig)
  • The Jungle Goddess (pt)(1922, Col. Wm. N. Selig & Warner Brothers)


Legacy

Selig and Harry Lauder

For his contributions to the motion picture industry William Selig has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6116 Hollywood Boulevard. In 1947 Selig and several other early movie producers and directors shared a special Academy Honorary Award to acknowledge their role in building the film industry.

Personal life

Selig married Mary Holdeness Pinkham (1875-1956).[59][60][61][62] Selig retired and ceased active film production in 1918, due to the same poor health that had sent him to California in 1893. Selig continued minor film work, and sponsored mountaineering expeditions and explorers.[16] William Selig died on July 15, 1948.[63] His ashes were stored in the Hall of Memory Columbarium at the Chapel of the Pines Crematory in Los Angeles.

See also

References

  1. ^ Damon and Pythias (play)
  2. ^ Loerzel, Robert. Alchemy of Bones: Luetgert Judge Rules Bacon Wrote Shakespeare's Plays. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0-252-02858-9. He claimed to have made the first narrative film shot in Los Angeles, 1908 's The Count of Monte Cristo, and he established what may have been the first permanent studio in the Los Angeles area in 1909. He had other claims to fame as well: His studio was credited with being the first U.S. company to shoot a two-reel film, Damon and Pythias (1908), and the first true serial, The Adventures of Kathlyn (1913-1914). Western star Tom Mix got his start with Selig. Selig shut down his Selig Polyscope Company in 1918 but continued to produce motion pictures into the 1930s. The final pictures credited to Selig were The Drag-Net (1936) and Convicts at Large (1938).
  3. ^ a b c Erish, Andrew A. (1 March 2012). Col. William N. Selig, the Man Who Invented Hollywood. University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-0-292-72870-7. Retrieved 3 August 2021. PDF
  4. ^ Davis, Robert Murray (2005). "Shooting Cowboys and Indians: Silent Western Films, American Culture, and the Birth of Hollywood by Andrew Brodie Smith (review)". Western American Literature. 39 (4): 465–466. doi:10.1353/wal.2005.0061. ISSN 1948-7142. Retrieved 3 August 2021. Later he was rescued from near-bankruptcy by the Armour Company, which wanted his help in combating bad publicity from Upton Sinclair's The Jungle (1906). Selig turned to Westerns partly because of Harry H. Buckwalter, a photographer and pitchman for Colorado tourism who had a keen eye for what is now called product placement and brought to Western films authenticity of background, if not of plot.
  5. ^ Solomon, Matthew (2010). Disappearing Tricks: Silent Film, Houdini, and the New Magic of the Twentieth Century. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-07697-8. Retrieved 4 August 2021. Disappearing Tricks revisits the golden age of theatrical magic and silent film to reveal how professional magicians shaped the early history of cinema. While others have called upon magic as merely an evocative metaphor for the wonders of cinema, Matthew Solomon focuses on the work of the professional illusionists who actually made magic with moving pictures between 1895 and 1929.
  6. ^ Musser, Charles (4 May 1994). The Emergence of Cinema: The American Screen to 1907. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-08533-6.
  7. ^ Bowser, Eileen (4 May 1994). The Transformation of Cinema, 1907-1915. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-08534-3. OCLC 22488744. Retrieved 4 August 2021. The Transformation of Cinema chronicles the history of the American film business from the days of storefront nickelodeons to the premiere of D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation, complete with full symphony orchestra. Eileen Bowser here redresses the imbalance of the "Griffith did it all" cliché by discussing the efforts of countless lesser-known figures who also helped to create Hollywood and shape the growing film industry. The effect of the surroundings -- the size of the hall; whether the film was shown alone or along with vaudeville entertainment; and the size, quality, and relevance of the musical background -- are all examined for their impact on the filmgoing experience. Bowser documents the emergence of the star system, which set the stage for the classic silent-film era. By 1915 the silent film is seen as a full-fledged art form with its own style and place in the world of business.
  8. ^ Koszarski, Richard (4 May 1994). An Evening's Entertainment: The Age of the Silent Feature Picture, 1915-1928. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-08535-0. OCLC 230763064. The silent cinema was America's first modern entertainment industry, a complex social, cultural, and technological phenomenon that swept the country in the early years of the twentieth century. Audiences in the lavish new movie palaces were thrilled by such landmark films as The Birth of a Nation, The Gold Rush, and Nanook of the North, and soon they were eagerly following the on-and-off screen activities of a host of glamorous media celebrities. But there is more to this story than glamour and glitz. Richard Koszarski examines the underlying structures that made the silent-movie era work, from the operations of eastern bankers to the problems of neighborhood theater musicians. He offers a new perspective on the development of a major industry and art form and provides a revealing new context for the creative contributions of such screen icons as D.W. Griffith, Cecil B. DeMille, Erich von Stroheim, Gloria Swanson, Rudolph Valentino, and Mary Pickford
  9. ^ Crafton, Donald (22 November 1999). The Talkies: American Cinema's Transition to Sound, 1926-1931. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-22128-4. OCLC 932371718. The Talkies offers readers a rare look at the time when sound was a vexing challenge for filmmakers and the source of contentious debate for audiences and critics. Donald Crafton presents a panoramic view of the talkies' reception as well as in-depth looks at sound design in selected films, filmmaking practices, censorship, issues of race, and the furious debate over cinema aesthetics that erupted once the movies began to speak.
  10. ^ Balio, Tino (1995). Grand Design: Hollywood as a Modern Business Enterprise, 1930-1939. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-20334-1. OCLC 640377013. Retrieved 4 August 2021. The advent of color, big musicals, the studio system, and the beginning of institutionalized censorship made the thirties the defining decade for Hollywood. The year 1939, celebrated as "Hollywood's greatest year," saw the release of such memorable films as Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, and Stagecoach. It was a time when the studios exercised nearly absolute control over their product as well as over such stars as Bette Davis, Clark Gable, and Humphrey Bogart. In this fifth volume of the award-winning series History of the American Cinema, Tino Balio examines every aspect of the filmmaking and film exhibition system as it matured during the Depression era.
  11. ^ Schatz, Thomas (23 November 1999). Boom and Bust: American Cinema in the 1940s. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-22130-7. OCLC 848966111. Boom and Bust traces the movie industry through the momentous decade of the 1940s. It discusses changes in the structure of the studio system—including the shift to independent production—and the dominant stars, genres, and production trends through the period.
  12. ^ Corcoran, Michael; Bernstein, Arnie (June 2013). Hollywood on Lake Michigan: 100+ Years of Chicago and the Movies. Chicago Review Press. ISBN 978-1-61374-578-6. OCLC 833339878. Retrieved 4 August 2021. Ranging from the dawn of the silent era to today s blockbusters and independent films, this revamped second edition chronicles the significant contributions by Chicago and Chicagoans to more than a century of American filmmaking. Among the Windy City s unique honors in this history are the development of film technology by early major players Essanay Film Manufacturing Company and the Selig Polyscope Company; the first African Americanowned and operated film studios; the birthplace of gore flicks; the origination and growth of movie palaces; and the importance of the Second City, Goodman, and Steppenwolf theaters as training grounds for the industry s best comedic and dramatic talent.
  13. ^ a b c "Col. William Selig, Hollywood's Forgotten Man". Silver Lake News. August 18, 2015. Retrieved 3 August 2021. In 1909, Selig opened a permanent studio in Edendale, at 1800 Glendale Boulevard; the site, still a comparatively isolated area with a backdrop of mountains, quiet residential streets and bodies of water, all within striking distance of a bustling downtown, proved to be ideal. Others would follow Selig's lead in dramatic fashion: Mack Sennett's Keystone Film Company arrived in town and set up shop a block away (at 1712 Glendale Boulevard) followed by cowboy star Tom Mix's "Mixville" at the corner of Glendale and Silver Lake Boulevards.
  14. ^ Giambrone, Jeff T. (19 October 2011). "The Crisis: Mississippi's First Civil War Film". Mississippians in the Confederate Army. Retrieved 3 August 2021. the silent movie The Crisis. This was the first feature-length film to be shot in Mississippi, a Civil War epic that was released in 1916......The future studio executive got his start in the entertainment industry as a magician in 1894, billing himself as "Selig, Conjurer." From this humble beginning he expanded and developed his act into a minstrel show attraction, and picked up the rank of "Colonel." Selig saw his first movie in 1895, on a Kinetoscope, which had been invented by Thomas Edison.
  15. ^ Smith, Michael Glover; Selzer, Adam (20 January 2015). "4". Flickering Empire: How Chicago Invented the U.S. Film Industry. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-85079-7. Selig was one of the most successful, and colorful, motion-picture pioneers of the 1890s and early 1900s. A native Chicagoan and traveling magician, Selig conferred the title "Colonel" upon himself while touring the minstrel show circuit. It was while in Dallas that Selig first saw Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope, and he soon became obsessed with motion pictures and with finding his own way to create and exhibit them. Selig returned to Chicago, where he created, in collaboration with machinist Andrew Schustek, his own camera and projector based on the design of the Cinematographe. Selig named his camera the "Selig Standard Camera" and his projector the "Selig Polyscope."
  16. ^ a b c d e f g "William N. Selig ('Colonel') (1864-1948)". Who's Who of Victorian Cinema. Retrieved 4 August 2021.
  17. ^ "Makes 'Scope' Films". The Phonoscope. 1 (7). Phonoscope Publishing Company: 13. June 1897. Retrieved 4 August 2021. William A. Bennett, and William N. Selig
  18. ^ "Multiscope & Film Company Camera Listing". Historic Camera. Retrieved 4 August 2021.
  19. ^ Keil, Charlie (3 December 2001). Early American Cinema in Transition: Story, Style, and Filmmaking, 1907–1913. Univ of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 978-0-299-17364-7. Retrieved 4 August 2021.
  20. ^ a b "William Selig". Oz Wiki. Retrieved 4 August 2021.
  21. ^ a b Slide, Anthony (1994). Early American Cinema. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-2711-0. Retrieved 4 August 2021. A completely revised and rewritten new edition of the pioneering film book first published in 1970, Early American Cinema, New and Revised Edition provides a concise history of the American motion picture industry before 1920, documenting the work of the early production companies, releasing organizations, filmmakers, and performers, and will serve both as a textbook and a reference source. Chapters cover pre-cinema, the Motion Picture Patents Company, independent filmmaking, the birth of the feature film, Thomas H. Ince, D.W. Griffith, sound and music, the star system, the role of women, new technologies, genres, and the languge, business, and art of the film.
  22. ^ "Multiscope & Film Company Camera Listing". Historic Camera. Retrieved 4 August 2021.
  23. ^ https://patents.google.com/patent/US778394A/en
  24. ^ http://www.bromoil.info/PDF%20BOOKS/1907_Camera_Notes/1907_camera_notes.pdf
  25. ^ https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co8084585/al-vista-panoramic-camera-panoramic-camera
  26. ^ https://books.google.com/books?id=d_j-tgAACAAJ
  27. ^ https://www.si.edu/es/object/SILNMAHTL_43115
  28. ^ http://www.antiquewoodcameras.com/AlVista-5F.html
  29. ^ https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/advertisement-for-the-al-vista-camera-by-the-multiscope-and-film-in-picture-id186607951
  30. ^ https://journaltimes.com/panoramic-camera/article_33b1fd71-0218-5f4c-b6fc-3b9e056849bc.html
  31. ^ http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Al_Vista
  32. ^ https://www.dancuny.com/camera-collecting-blog/2020/10/19/baby-al-vista-panoramic-camera
  33. ^ https://c7.alamy.com/comp/2ABXKJX/photography-at-wide-rance-alyista-camera-longand-short-pictures-camera-has-univer-sal-focus-level-attached-detachable-handle-fitted-with-univer-sal-tripod-socket-morocco-leather-covered-case-multiscope-and-film-company-burlington-wis-u-s-a-asbe-pure-asbestos-hw-john-n-rt-roofing-materials-st-0-s-coverings-absolutely-fire-proof-perfect-non-conductors-ladelphia-boston-rs-air-uouid-paints-6-stains-electrical-materials-men-0-brains-made-at-key-west-cortez-cigar-co-key-west-winton-motor-carriage-automobile-patents-exploitation-company-automobile-patents-exploitation-compa-2ABXKJX.jpg
  34. ^ http://www.pacificrimcamera.com/rl/00580/00580.pdf
  35. ^ https://books.google.com/books?id=SArKjgEACAAJ
  36. ^ https://mycompanies.fandom.com/wiki/Multiscope_%26_Film_Company
  37. ^ https://collections.eastman.org/search/Multiscope
  38. ^ "Multiscope & Film Company". Historic Camera. Retrieved 4 August 2021.
  39. ^ Kodak Panoram
  40. ^ "Peter N. Angsten residence". Wisconsin Historical Society. 1 January 2012. Retrieved 4 August 2021. Peter N. Angsten was born in Coblenz, Germany, in 1855. While still in Germany, where he worked briefly as a schoolteacher, he conceived the idea for a camera with a pivoting turret-like, spring-wound lens that could record an almost 180 degree-wide view on film. He immigrated to the United States in 1882, found work as a painter and decorator, and soon patented his idea. He partnered with C. H. Gesbeck and began manufacturing a small number of the camera, called the Al-Vista, in Chicago. In 1897, Leonard J. Smith of Burlington met Angsten in Chicago and was astounded by the innovative camera. Smith bought out Gesbeck, and with Angsten, brothers Gustave C. and William G. Rasch, W. A. Bennett, Edward Caldwell, and William N. Selig formed the Multiscope & Film Company, which commenced production of the first American panoramic camera in Burlington. Angsten served as vice-president and continued to develop improvements for the Al-Vista camera, receiving multiple additional patents.
  41. ^ "Newsletter - June 2015". Burlington History. Retrieved 4 August 2021. The Multiscope & Film Co. of Burlington was incorporated in 1897 by Leonard J. Smith, Gustave C. Rasch, William G. Rasch, William A. Bennett, Edwin Caldwell, and William N. Selig. The company's purpose at that time was to take over Wisconsin rights of the Edison Vitascope, a forerunner of the motion picture projector. Al-Vista factory 1900 Shortly after this, the personal camera craze struck the country and one day, when Leonard Smith was in Chicago, he saw Peter Angsten and C. H. Gesbeck experimenting with a panoramic camera which Angsten had invented in his native Germany. Smith induced them to come to Burlington and they joined the Multiscope & Film Co. for the manufacture of their camera, called the Al-Vista, here. A re-organization was effected with G. C. Rasch, Smith, Angsten, and Gesbeck taking the stock. Shortly afterward, Clarence E. Partee (Smith's son-in-law) joined the firm and was elected secretary. (William N. Selig maintained his hope in the future of the motion picture and his confidence was not misplaced because he left Burlington with hardly a cent in his pocket and became head of a million dollar film corporation that bore his name.)
  42. ^ Publication: The Saint Paul Globe; Location: Saint Paul, Minnesota; Issue Date: Friday, January 19, 1900; Page: Page 3;
  43. ^ https://books.google.com/books?id=ax5HAQAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA45&lpg=RA1-PA45&dq=%22Multiscope+and+Film+Company%22+%221307+Jefferson%22+%22Burlington%22&hl=en
  44. ^ https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/Ladies%2527_Home_Journal_Vol.15_No.07_%2528June%252C_1898%2529.pdf
  45. ^ https://archive.org/stream/annualreportofco1904unit/annualreportofco1904unit_djvu.txt
  46. ^ Lahue, Kalton C. (1973). Motion Picture Pioneer: the Selig Polyscope Company. A. S. Barnes. ISBN 978-0-498-01103-0. OCLC 475595062.
  47. ^ Smith, Michael Glover; Selzer, Adam (20 January 2015). "9". Flickering Empire: How Chicago Invented the U.S. Film Industry. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-85079-7. Selig Polyscope upgraded the production values of its films by taking full advantage of its new studio facilities in Chicago and making historical epics with impressively designed costumes and sets. One of the most ambitious Selig productions after opening the new Chicago studio was an adaptation of Alexandre Dumas's The Count of Monte Cristo, the first picture to effectively illustrate the superiority of southern California's exterior locations; it was, essentially, the "big bang" of Hollywood filmmaking. The Count of Monte Cristo was directed by Francis Boggs, with Thomas Persons as cinematographer. In Chicago, Colonel William Selig launched a massive publicity campaign in an attempt to make motion pictures a more acceptable form of entertainment for people other than just the working class. The year 1914 was good for Selig as a film producer; Selig Polyscope's western studio was thriving at this time as well.
  48. ^ Locke, Michael J.; Brook, Vincent (2014). Silver Lake Chronicles: Exploring an Urban Oasis in Los Angeles. History Press. ISBN 978-1-60949-958-7. Retrieved 3 August 2021.
  49. ^ Smith, Andrew Brodie (2003). Shooting Cowboys and Indians: Silent Western Films, American Culture, and the Birth of Hollywood. University Press of Colorado. ISBN 978-0-87081-746-5. Focusing on such early important production companies as Selig Polyscope, New York Motion Picture, and Essanay, Smith revises current thinking about the birth of Hollywood and the establishment of Los Angeles as the nexus of filmmaking in the United States. Smith also reveals the role silent westerns played in the creation of the white male screen hero that dominated American popular culture in the twentieth century.
  50. ^ Agnew, Jeremy (24 September 2020). The Landscapes of Western Movies: A History of Filming on Location, 1900-1970. McFarland. ISBN 978-1-4766-4223-9. Retrieved 4 August 2021. Western films have often been tributes to place and setting, with the magnificent backdrops mirroring the wildness of the narratives. As the splendid outdoor scenery of Westerns could not be found on a studio back lot or on a Hollywood sound stage, the movies have been filmed in the wide open spaces of the American West and beyond. This book chronicles the history of filming Westerns on location, from shooting on the East Coast in the early 1900s; through the use of locations in Utah, Arizona, and California in the 1940s and 1950s; and filming Westerns in Mexico, Spain, and other parts of the world in the 1960s. Also studied is the relationship between the filming location timeline and the evolving motion picture industry of the twentieth century, and how these factors shaped audience perceptions of the "Real West."
  51. ^ https://collections.eastman.org/search/Selig+Polyscope
  52. ^ McMichael, George L.; Glenn, Edgar M. (1962). Shakespeare and His Rivals: A Casebook on the Authorship Controversy. Odyssey Press. p. 199.
  53. ^ Wadsworth, Frank W. (1958). The Poacher from Stratford: A Partial Account of the Controversy Over the Authorship of Shakespeare's Plays. University of California Press. pp. 74–75.
  54. ^ Niederkorn, William S. (Fall 2004). "Jumping o'er times : the importance of lawyers and judges in the controversy over the identity of Shakespeare, as reflected in the pages of the New York Times". Tennessee Law Review. 72 (1). Tennessee Law Review Association: 82–85. ISSN 0040-3288.
  55. ^ Rose Sheldon, The Friedman Collection: An Analytical Guide, item 1365.
  56. ^ https://web.archive.org/web/20131105201529/http://abbot.si.edu/naa/dv/arrow_maker_high.mov
  57. ^ MUNDEN, Kenneth White. The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures. University of California Press, 1971.
  58. ^ LANGMAN, Larry. A Guide to Silent Westerns, Greenwood Press, 1992, p. 220.
  59. ^ "Mary Holdeness Pinkham Selig (1875-1956) -". Find A Grave. Retrieved 4 August 2021.
  60. ^ https://www.geni.com/people/William-Selig-Col/6000000028415253018
  61. ^ Leonard, John William; Marquis, Albert Nelson (1920). Who's Who in America. A.N. Marquis. Retrieved 4 August 2021.
  62. ^ Sherwood, Robert Emmet (1923). The Best Moving Pictures of 1922/23: Also Who's who in the Movies and the Yearbook of the American Screen. Small, Maynard. SELIG , WILLIAM NICHOLAS ( Colonel , Actor ) . b . Chicago , March 14 , 1864 ; educ . Los Angeles ; m . Mary H. Pinkham , Stockton , California , September 7 , 1900.
  63. ^ "William N. Selig, Pioneer in Films. Early Producer and Developer of Industry Dies. Fought With Edison on Patents". New York Times. July 17, 1948. Retrieved 2008-07-16. William Nicholas Selig, one of the true pioneers of the motion-picture industry and for many year a famous producer, died today at the age of 84 in his ...
  64. ^ https://collections.eastman.org/people/31277/ica-ag/objects

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