I’m a fan. I enjoy them without thinking about the cues in the scripts and visuals, because I speak their language. But it is a great feeling to not just see what is on the screen, but also recognize the heritage and evolution of those cues from the background of the films’ genre. I read Fenin & Everson’s book The Western: From Silents to the Seventies – a veritable tome – and now I have that perspective when I watch a Western. A few aspects of the early films and industry surprised my young mind.
I love Clint Eastwood and the modern myth of the Western in movies like Tombstone and Once Upon a Time in the West. But the early industry was very different. It is easy to bring up an image of the Keystone Kops bouncing down the street to ragtime piano music. But the great dramas of the very early 1900s were Hart films.
William S. Hart
Hart’s films were carefully made, relatively historically accurate, and gave peaceful depictions of Native Americans. Reminds me of Chuck Norris – both grew up with Native Americans and made them a priority, and portrayed similar themes.
In Hart’s films, The Enemy was not some plastic tribe of uncivilized mongols; they were most often the white man, drinking and sinning against women. In practically every film the benefactor is a man who’s gone wrong and learns to go right, the victim is a wife or sister, the enemy is a hardened criminal, and the right path is generally religion – but if the sister isn’t an angel, then she must be the god of that religion, by the way the camera shines on her.
His heroes were not as brightly painted; they wore standard cowboy clothes, not flashy, useless decorations. They were gritty, flawed, but reasonable heroes who came around when needed most. And his stunts were right on target.
Copyright, Ince
The book shines a sympathetic light on Hart’s career, cheering him as one of the greatest western directors of all time. Hart had a number of fights with his “publishers.” As the first films became more complex, it was decided to have an actor direct the other actors, so that cameramen could focus on the scene. These directors then took charge of the script, directing the actors, and usually starring in the short films, as well. Hart was part of that beginning tradition.
As footage was very expensive, studios would re-edit and reuse scenes or tricks that were shot especially well. They would do this to such an extent that numerous “new” films were simply new edits of old footage, where the order of the plot would change just slightly. Audiences expected new movies every weekend, and with three days to shoot a 20-minute film, sometimes they wouldn’t have time to shoot good scenes every week. Much of Hart’s films were shot very well, so the studios would often reuse his footage in later shorts, without crediting or paying him for it. He fought in court and helped established some of the first copyright laws because of it.
Hart’s films were almost never credited to him publicly. Most of his writing, starring, and directing work was done for Thomas “Father of the Western” Ince, and Ince had the diabolical habit of taking whatever good films were made for him, and titling himself as Director – even when he had done nothing but finance the film! Hart eventually had a falling out with Ince over this.
It is just as interesting how much power snowballed from that point on until today’s multi-billion dollar film studios. Ince created the first modern studios, Inceville, which he later sold to Hart. Cecil Demille bought it in 1925. RKO shot there. Remember the reference to RKO in Singin’ In The Rain? All that old blood. My old Swedish friend has good memories of all those studios, names, and days.
