thousand dollars, and he found it difficult to stage this lavish production in a foreign country. When he came back from Rome he sat down and talked over his problem with my father. He had been a poor boy with little education, though with a strong social conscience in the tradition of his contemporaries, novelists like Frank Norris, Stephen Crane, and Jack London. His mechanical inventiveness and sense of social realism had enabled him to make his ground-breaking films. But now he felt that the art form he had originated was passing him by. His cinematic inventions looked crude alongside D. W. Griffith’s, J. Stuart Blackton’s, Allan Dwan’s…
Though he was only middle-aged, and could have remained as Director-General of Famous Players, Porter told my father that he thought it was time for him to quit. He did not feel equipped to direct talented actors in the subtleties of the craft. In another few years, he predicted, other Griffiths would come along who would put his efforts to shame. Porter was proud of his position as the father of the American story-film. In a single decade he had seen the American “moving picture show” develop from the primitive Life of an American Fireman to the complexity of The Birth of a Nation, followed by an even more ambitious Griffith project, Intolerance, telling the story of man’s intolerance to man on four different historical levels, from Rome to modern times, with sets as grandiose as the ones which would soon become synonymous with the prototypical megaphone-wielder C. B. DeMille. “I know when I’m licked,” Porter told my father. “I can’t compete with these new fellers D.W. and C.B. I’ve had my day.”
Whereupon Mr. Porter sold all of his stock back to Famous Players, and returned to his first love, tinkering with machines. Joining the Precision Machine Company, he continued to perfect cameras and projection machines. He was a wealthy man, although he would have been considerably wealthier if he had grown with Famous Players as it expanded in partnership with the Jesse Lasky Film Company, which in time would become Paramount Pictures.
B.P. never saw him again—was never able to track him down. Mysteriously, he dropped completely out of sight. None of the notables he had worked with, Zukor, Pickford, or Griffith, ever heard from him. The only rumor was that he prospered until the crash of 1929, when he lost the savings of a lifetime. When he died in 1941 he was working as anobscure mechanic, still tinkering, totally forgotten by the industry he had virtually created.
Fifty years later I happened to mention Porter’s name to one of this country’s most famous directors. “Edwin S. Porter?” he said. “I never heard of him.” “Pal,” I said, “if there hadn’t been an Edwin S. Porter, there might never have been a you.” One of these days the motion-picture industry, which never has had much respect for its history, failing to set up a museum, burning historic negatives, and neglecting its founders, will suddenly have an attack of conscience and offer a posthumous award to the first American filmmaker. But until that moment, this tribute from the son of his scenario editor: To the Granddaddy of us all.
4
O NCE THE TRUST WARS WERE behind us and Zukor's policy of big stars in big pictures had put the old giants of the one-reel days out of business, the growth of Famous Players was reflected in the personal geography of the Schulbergs. Starting from 120 th Street and Mt. Morris Park and moving to the larger apartment on 110 th Street overlooking Central Park, we advanced to an even grander apartment near Zukor’s and Pickford’s on Riverside Drive, with a balcony where I could play and watch the ships go up and down the Hudson.
My memories of those New York days before the move to Hollywood are haphazard and piecemeal, the chance groupings and color patterns a child sees in his kaleidoscope. I remember that balcony on the river, remember making paper
Though he was only middle-aged, and could have remained as Director-General of Famous Players, Porter told my father that he thought it was time for him to quit. He did not feel equipped to direct talented actors in the subtleties of the craft. In another few years, he predicted, other Griffiths would come along who would put his efforts to shame. Porter was proud of his position as the father of the American story-film. In a single decade he had seen the American “moving picture show” develop from the primitive Life of an American Fireman to the complexity of The Birth of a Nation, followed by an even more ambitious Griffith project, Intolerance, telling the story of man’s intolerance to man on four different historical levels, from Rome to modern times, with sets as grandiose as the ones which would soon become synonymous with the prototypical megaphone-wielder C. B. DeMille. “I know when I’m licked,” Porter told my father. “I can’t compete with these new fellers D.W. and C.B. I’ve had my day.”
Whereupon Mr. Porter sold all of his stock back to Famous Players, and returned to his first love, tinkering with machines. Joining the Precision Machine Company, he continued to perfect cameras and projection machines. He was a wealthy man, although he would have been considerably wealthier if he had grown with Famous Players as it expanded in partnership with the Jesse Lasky Film Company, which in time would become Paramount Pictures.
B.P. never saw him again—was never able to track him down. Mysteriously, he dropped completely out of sight. None of the notables he had worked with, Zukor, Pickford, or Griffith, ever heard from him. The only rumor was that he prospered until the crash of 1929, when he lost the savings of a lifetime. When he died in 1941 he was working as anobscure mechanic, still tinkering, totally forgotten by the industry he had virtually created.
Fifty years later I happened to mention Porter’s name to one of this country’s most famous directors. “Edwin S. Porter?” he said. “I never heard of him.” “Pal,” I said, “if there hadn’t been an Edwin S. Porter, there might never have been a you.” One of these days the motion-picture industry, which never has had much respect for its history, failing to set up a museum, burning historic negatives, and neglecting its founders, will suddenly have an attack of conscience and offer a posthumous award to the first American filmmaker. But until that moment, this tribute from the son of his scenario editor: To the Granddaddy of us all.
4
O NCE THE TRUST WARS WERE behind us and Zukor's policy of big stars in big pictures had put the old giants of the one-reel days out of business, the growth of Famous Players was reflected in the personal geography of the Schulbergs. Starting from 120 th Street and Mt. Morris Park and moving to the larger apartment on 110 th Street overlooking Central Park, we advanced to an even grander apartment near Zukor’s and Pickford’s on Riverside Drive, with a balcony where I could play and watch the ships go up and down the Hudson.
My memories of those New York days before the move to Hollywood are haphazard and piecemeal, the chance groupings and color patterns a child sees in his kaleidoscope. I remember that balcony on the river, remember making paper
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