Flickering Empire : How Chicago Invented the U.S. Film Industry / Adam Selzer, Michael Glover Smith.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Smith, Michael Glover, author.

Selzer, Adam, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Chicago (Ill.)--Guidebooks.

Motion picture industry--Illinois--Chicago--History.

Motion pictures--History.

Motion picture industry--History--Chicago--Illinois.

Motion picture industry.

Local Subjects:

Chicago (Ill.)--Guidebooks.

Motion picture industry--Illinois--Chicago--History.

Motion pictures--History.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (233 p.)

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Columbia University Press, [2015]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Flickering Empire tells the fascinating yet little-known story of how Chicago served as the unlikely capital of American film production in the years before the rise of Hollywood (1907-1913). As entertaining as it is informative, Flickering Empire straddles the worlds of academic and popular nonfiction in its vivid illustration of the rise and fall of the major Chicago movie studios in the mid-silent era (principally Essanay and Selig Polyscope). Colorful, larger-than-life historical figures, including Thomas Edison, Charlie Chaplin, Oscar Micheaux, and Orson Welles, are major players in the narrative-in addition to important though forgotten industry titans, such as "Colonel" William Selig, George Spoor, and Gilbert "Broncho Billy" Anderson.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

FOREWORD / Doll, Susan

Persons Discussed in Flickering Empire

PREFACE: Hollywood Before Hollywood

Part One: Thomas Edison, Invention and the Dawn of a New Chicago

1. Edison's Kinetoscope and Pre-Motion-Picture Entertainment

2. The Columbian Exposition

3. The Dawn of Exhibition

Part Two: Chicago Rising

4. Colonel William Selig

5. George Spoor, George Kleine, and the Rise of the Nickelodeon

6. Gilbert "Broncho Billy" Anderson

7. The Edison Trust

Part Three: The Golden Age of Chicago Film Production

8. The Golden Age of Essanay

9. The Golden Age of Selig Polyscope

10. Essanay Signs Charlie Chaplin

11. Chaplin in Chicago: His New Job

Part Four: It All Came Crashing Down

12. The Decline Of The Chicago Studios

13. Major M.L.C. Funkhouser And The Chicago Censorship Code

Epilogue

Post-Script: Oscar and Orson

Appendix A: Selig Polyscope's Pointers on Picture Acting

Appendix B: A Complete List of the Extant Chicago-Shot Films Named in this Book and Where to See Them

Appendix C: Some Censored Scenes of Chicago Films Noted in Local Newspapers

Endnotes

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 08. Jul 2019)

ISBN:

9780231850797

0231850794

OCLC:

1002242691