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Essanay Studios
Essanay Studios, officially the Essanay Film Manufacturing Company, was an early American motion picture studio. The studio was founded in 1907 in Chicago by George Kirke Spoor and Gilbert M. Anderson, originally as the Peerless Film Manufacturing Company, then as Essanay (formed by the founders' initials: S and A) on August 10, 1907. Essanay is probably best known today for its series of Charlie Chaplin comedies produced in 1915-1916. In late 1916, it merged distribution 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. Founders Spoor and Anderson were subsequently awarded special Academy Awards for pioneering contributions to film.
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 (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.
Essanay produced silent films with such stars (and stars of the future) as George Periolat, Ben Turpin, Wallace Beery, Thomas Meighan, 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, was studio co-owner Gilbert Anderson, starring in the very popular "Broncho Billy" Westerns, and ultimately its biggest star was Charlie Chaplin, who for a time had his own production unit at the studio.
Allan Dwan was hired by Essanay Studios as a screenwriter and developed into a famous Hollywood director. Louella Parsons was also a screenwriter for the studio and went on to be a powerful Hollywood gossip columnist. Owners Spoor (in 1948) and Anderson (in 1958) received the Oscars' Academy Honorary Award, for their pioneering efforts with Essanay.
Essanay's productions include the first American film version of A Christmas Carol (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 first pie-in-the-face gag on screen is believed to have hit Essanay star Ben Turpin in Mr. Flip (1909). The studio in 1916 also released the first American Sherlock Holmes film. Directed by Arthur Berthelet, it stars William Gillette in the title role. 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's seasonal weather patterns and the popularity of Westerns, Gilbert Anderson took a part of the company west, first to Colorado. 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, north of San Francisco, and Santa Barbara.
In 1912 Anderson settled on a location in Niles Canyon in the San Francisco East Bay Area, setting up in Frank Mortimer's empty barn on Second between G and H Streets, for interior scenes. The next year in the town of Niles at the mouth of Niles Canyon, "Essanay built 10 modest cottages for their actors on 2nd Street, between F and G streets, and constructed an unassuming (200-foot) studio nearby", across the street from the railroad tracks. More than 350 films were produced in Niles by Essanay. On 16 February 1916, the Niles lot was closed by George K. Spoor via telegram. By the 1930s, it had been torn down.
In late 1914, Essanay succeeded in hiring 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 the 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 (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 until shrugging off his disappointment.
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Essanay Studios
Essanay Studios, officially the Essanay Film Manufacturing Company, was an early American motion picture studio. The studio was founded in 1907 in Chicago by George Kirke Spoor and Gilbert M. Anderson, originally as the Peerless Film Manufacturing Company, then as Essanay (formed by the founders' initials: S and A) on August 10, 1907. Essanay is probably best known today for its series of Charlie Chaplin comedies produced in 1915-1916. In late 1916, it merged distribution 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. Founders Spoor and Anderson were subsequently awarded special Academy Awards for pioneering contributions to film.
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 (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.
Essanay produced silent films with such stars (and stars of the future) as George Periolat, Ben Turpin, Wallace Beery, Thomas Meighan, 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, was studio co-owner Gilbert Anderson, starring in the very popular "Broncho Billy" Westerns, and ultimately its biggest star was Charlie Chaplin, who for a time had his own production unit at the studio.
Allan Dwan was hired by Essanay Studios as a screenwriter and developed into a famous Hollywood director. Louella Parsons was also a screenwriter for the studio and went on to be a powerful Hollywood gossip columnist. Owners Spoor (in 1948) and Anderson (in 1958) received the Oscars' Academy Honorary Award, for their pioneering efforts with Essanay.
Essanay's productions include the first American film version of A Christmas Carol (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 first pie-in-the-face gag on screen is believed to have hit Essanay star Ben Turpin in Mr. Flip (1909). The studio in 1916 also released the first American Sherlock Holmes film. Directed by Arthur Berthelet, it stars William Gillette in the title role. 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's seasonal weather patterns and the popularity of Westerns, Gilbert Anderson took a part of the company west, first to Colorado. 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, north of San Francisco, and Santa Barbara.
In 1912 Anderson settled on a location in Niles Canyon in the San Francisco East Bay Area, setting up in Frank Mortimer's empty barn on Second between G and H Streets, for interior scenes. The next year in the town of Niles at the mouth of Niles Canyon, "Essanay built 10 modest cottages for their actors on 2nd Street, between F and G streets, and constructed an unassuming (200-foot) studio nearby", across the street from the railroad tracks. More than 350 films were produced in Niles by Essanay. On 16 February 1916, the Niles lot was closed by George K. Spoor via telegram. By the 1930s, it had been torn down.
In late 1914, Essanay succeeded in hiring 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 the 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 (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 until shrugging off his disappointment.