On November 10, I will eat my piece of chocolate cake and play a couple of Mabel Normand movies, which is my way of celebrating her birthday.  In 1923 Mabel gave a party for Mae Busch, it was just the lovely and sweet kind of reconciliation that Mabel was known for; she was such a generous soul. July 1, 1923

The Brazilian achieves of early film publications is an absolute treasures trough and I am having a lot of fun digging in it. As a resource it is fantastic and as a researcher, it has become very important part of my evening on the internet.  I posted the link about a week ago. But of course, I am having one little problem; I don’t read Portuguese! 

 There is a particular article I found in Cinearte called “A historia tragica do Vida de Mabel Normand” which maybe just the usual story of Mabel’s life but Cinearte did have a correspondent in Los Angeles and there maybe unique information in the 5 pages article in the bi-weekly which ran in volumes 211 & 212 that isn’t in the usual stories told in the American magazines and newspapers, so if anyone is able to read the PDF and can let us know what is written, it would really help as the usual translation software has problems with the security formatting imposed by the Cinematheque MAM in Rio de Janeiro's Municipal Andrade and Historical Museum.

www.bjksdigital.museusegall.org.br. Please feel free to contact me directly at marilynslater@hotmail.com with any questions. 

Oh, happy day….a couple of weeks ago Bob Birchard had asked me about the ‘home movie’ that Mabel made as a gift for Lew for Christmas 1928.  One of his questions was, where was it shot?  I thought it was at Mabel’s house in Beverly Hills, well I was WRONG. 

Thanks to Mark Vieira, I now know… The set of “Our Dancing Daughters” (MGM 1928) was used by Mabel.  I have the pictures to prove it!

Obviously, the set has been redressed but the iron on the stairs and the unique wall treatment are the same.  The entry to Mabel’s home has a very similar layout and staircase. I just didn’t look hard enough at the photos. 

 I am so lucky to be surrounded by such good researchers.

This is a link to a review I wrote for the Michelle Vogel's book

about Mabel Normand's friend Ollie Thomas.

Coy Watson Jr. dies at 96;

one of nine silent-era sibling actors

Just received an email from MALNOR FILMS, this is the only information I have perhaps if you email John directly, he can full you in... This is a very eclectic mix from 1912 to 1927 which covers early and late films. It doesn’t seem to be in any order, but I am sure they can be accessed on an opening menu so you can watch them in a chronological order

"Hello All

Just To Let You Know I have A new DVD Out With 5 Of Mabel's Movies

Anything Once 1927
Raggedy Rose 1926
The Engagement Ring 1912
Mabel's Blunder 1914
Fatty And Mabel Viewing The World Fair At San Francisco 1915

all the best

John"

Visit www.freewebs.com/malnorfilms/index.htm

The photos in the 2009 Album, as of February 28, 2009 are 44 of the following pictures all have been added. I don’t expect to upload at this rate in the next ten months but as I come across images, I like, they will become part of the album. 

Please feel free to download anything you like.  I only post things I want to share.  The pictures that are high-lighted are one that I colored, myself, I am just learning.

1.   May Allison, 1919

2.   May Allison, 1924

3.   Caryle Blackwell, 1916

4.   Eleanor Boardman, 1926

5.   Anita Booth, 1920

6.   Ethel Clayton, 1921

7.   Ruth Clifford, 1917

8.   Adele Cliffton, 1916

9.   Beatrice Dancy, (by Spurr)

10.   Marion Davis, 1923

11.   Dolores del Rio

12.   Elsie Ferguson, 1916

13.   Douglas Gerrard, 1916

14.   Dorothy Gish, 1924

15.   Louise Glaum, 1916

16.   Louise Glaum, 1920

17.   Pauletta Goddard

18.   Evelyn Green, 1916

19.   Corinne Griffith, 1928

20.   Elaine Hammerstein, 1919

21.   Hope Hampton, 1927

22.   Peggy Hyland, 1917

23.   Alice Joyce, 1916

24.   Doris Kenyon, 1920

25.   Bessie Love, 1929

26.   Wilfred Lucas, 1916

27.   Cleo Madison, 1916

28.   Mabel Normand, 1915

29.   Mabel Normand, 1916

30.   Mabel Normand, 1918

31.   Mabel Normand, 1919

32.   Louise Orth, 1916

33.   Mary Pickford, 1919

34.   Mary Pickford,

35.   Mary Pickford, 1916

36.   Marie Prevost, 1926

37.   Ruth Roland, 1916

38.   Mack Sennett, 1949

39.   Connie & Norma Talmadge, 1917

40.   Connie Talmadge, 1921

41.   Norma Talmadge, 1916

42.   Norma Talmadge

43.   Fay Tincher, 1917

44.   Pearl White, 1916

for a little more information press poster

 Life in Los Angeles was a dream, is a dream, will be a dream but to see my city though the eyes of Delores Hanney is to wake to a new view.  It is important to understanding the familiar to see it in a new way.  I have known Delores for a number of years and think of her a one of my best friends… a real friend, so sometimes I forget what a fantastic artistic soul dwells within her heart.  Do you want proof?  She has written an extraordinary mythical journal of the Los Angeles as she dreamed Mabel Normand might have known it.

enjoy

Marilyn

"Looking-for-Mabel"

http://www.mabel-in-paradise.webs.com/

Last Wednesday (January 21) PBS Public Broadcast Services aired a segment of their series called “Make ‘em Laugh”, which created a discussion at the Yahoo Mabel Normand Group.  I thought I should say something here. For me to simplify history to the point that it negates the social significance of Keystone in the history of  Slapstick comedy to just a passing reference in the overall telling of the development of comedy and relegating Mack Sennett to little more than a footnote, is bad enough but the PBS total lack of understanding of Mabel Normand’s contribution is sad, horrendously sad.  There were no Slapstick silent films without Mabel. 

 If you saw it you will understand my righteous anger, it is not OK to exclude Mabel. 

December 15, 2008

Marilyn Slater

“Looking-for-Mabel”

I would like to recommend a book;

THE FUN FACTORY by Rob King

(the little fringe around the book’s edges are my post-it notes)

Rob King is an Assistant Professor of Cinema Studies and History currently at the University of Toronto. Oh, how I envy the students that are able to take classes from this scholar; he has written a fabulous study on the Keystone Studio.

The title of the book is “The Fun Factory;” it covers the period from 1912 when the Keystone Studio was established to around 1917 when the “Fun Factory” morphed into the Mack Sennett Studios.  It is a cultural and social history rather than the more common film histories, which tend to be “Great Man” histories, the kind that tell the story of a particular era through the life of a dominate personality.  Research is the strength of this book since almost a 3^rd of “The Fun Factory” are the end-notes and, frankly, the notes alone are worth far more than the price of the book, which is extremely reasonable.

If you want to know about the products made at the Keystone Studio (The Fun Factory), this is the book for you: “The history of the changing social patterns that produced laughter.”

What you will find is a thoughtful and detailed discussion of “The Keystone Film Company and the Emergence of Mass Culture” and the importance of slapstick films on the large American viewing public.  He argues that the history of comedy reflects the general culture, which was portrayed on film (and the stage during this period) and the comedy expressed the values of the society.  

If you are looking for a new discussion of “who threw the first pie,” “why Mack Sennett and Mabel Normand didn’t marry,” “who killed William Desmond Taylor,” “the love life of Charlie Chaplin,” “if Gloria Swanson was a bathing beauty,” or pictures of the early players or a filmography of Keystone films this is not  a book where you will find that kind of stuff. 

There are some illustrations but small, and for the most part, ones, which you are probably familiar, if you have done any research into Keystone; they are mostly from the Margaret Herrick Library Collection.  The filmography in the back of the book only covers the films discussed within the text and is very abridged.  

There are some thoughtful and well-researched monographs on class and popular culture inasmuch as they are reflective of the mass entertainments of the era.  There is another composition on the ethnic-comedies with some wonderful insights into the on-screen character played by Ford Sterling.  He wrote a terrific treatise on “Tillie’s Punctured Romance.” It is presented in a classic compare-and-contrast composition format It deals with the feature film and the stage play, Tillie’s Nightmare,  The Triangle dream of Harry Aitken and his brother, Roy, is explored in a very understandable chapter. 

Rob King takes-apart a number of the split-reels screen-by-screen (much like the work done by the French film scholar, Thierry Georges Mathieu, with his monumental work on “La Naissance de Charlot,” the journals of each of the Chaplin films from 1914 at Keystone

I agree with the author in that the timing of the shorts are reflective of the rhythms of the industrial factories with which the working-class audiences would have been familiar with but the whole use of the various “machines” in the Keystone production was something I had not thought of before but it is so much apart of the Fun Factory product!    There is also a nice essay on the use of the Bathing Beauties as a part of the emerging new consumer culture. 

What is of particular interest to me is the material on the “New Women” in a section called “A Slap From A Perfumed Hand: The Screen Comedy of Mabel Normand,” in which Rob King wrote “For the New Woman had defined herself, in large part, by reclaiming the right to her own embodiment against the morally and spiritually defined – hence quintessentially disembodied – ideal of true womanhood.  Hence the growth of women’s sporting pursuits, hence the flamboyance and flirtations encouraged in the new world of commercial recreation…” I had not considered the development of the amusement parks as a place where women were allowed to participate without the restrictions of the social rules that where still very much a part of the Victorian primary social paradigm, and, of course, my interest is in the influence of Mabel Normand on the Keystone audiences and beyond.  

All in all this is a scholarly little treasure but accessible to the general, educated public. 

The amazon link is below:
http://www.amazon.com/Fun-Factory-Keystone-Company-Emergence/dp/0520255380/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1229399451&sr=8-1

Leslie Howard

He danced with Mabel in 1920

press image to link

with Charlie Chaplin in a film called

"Mabel at the Wheel" (Keystone 1914)

but while she was working at Goldwyn Studios

she had her picture taken on a wonderful Indian

According to Elif Rongen, Film Collections Project Manager from the Nederland’s Film Museum, Olive Thomas in GLORIOUS LADY (1919), which was thought lost is being preserved, and should be in viewable shape soon.  And another long thought lost film; the Constance Talmadge EAST IS WEST (1922) again is near ready to show to the public.  The first reel was in deplorable shape but rest of the nitrate print is in great shape.  I talked a little after the UCLA program Monday, to Elif and sadly they are not holding any of Mabel’s lost Goldwyn films but as far as getting their copy of THE FLOOR BELOW, with English dialogue cards, it doesn’t seem likely as the Nederland’s Film Museum’s goal is preservation of existing silent movie more than restoring and their films are the Dutch copies. The question of repatriation is a thorny one, they have and will continue to make study copies available but returning the films to the country of origins is highly unlikely.   Like most museums' collections the film museum’s collection come from all over the world.

The films she brought with her to show last night at UCLA were 3 previously thought lost films of Sessue Hayakawa, well actually fragments of films but will worth the viewing.  These were produced by his own company with William Worthington THE COURAGEOUS COWARD (1919), HIS BIRTHRIGHT (1918), and THE MAN BENEATH (1919).  Elif in the Q&A after the screening explained that these films were done before THE FLOOR BELOW premiere and the fabulously popular program done in Amsterdam, which Steve Massa was involved in but the Hayakawa fragments were set aside until now. 

All of Hayakawa films were made in southern California, the locations that look like Japan were done at the Huntington Library Gardens in Pasadena and the location in THE MAN BENEATH that appears to be in India were the BRAND LIBRARY in Glendale! 

I did an article about the Brand Castle being used as a backdrop for a number of movies one done was  THE MAN BENEATH (1919 Hayakawa)  the link is to "Looking-for-Mabel" piece.

I had a lovely long dinner with the film scholars, Joan Myers and Elaine Mae Woo before the movies and after the show had just short little hellos with old friends that I seem to only run into at this type of evening and some people that were new but not really new.

Marilyn (Looking-for-Mabel)