Thomas Edison Created the Movie Industry and Produced the First Western

When people talk about the film industry, they seldom mention Thomas Edison, yet he filmed the first western at his studio in New York City. In 1903, the Edison Manufacturing Company distributed The Great Train Robbery. The nine minute film set many of the constructs for the genre. Stay till the end to see one of the motion picture industry's most iconic visuals.

I believe this makes Mr. Edison a cowboy at heart, which gives him the right to cavort in a Steve Dancy Tale. In The Return, Steve travels to New York to acquire rights to sell Edison's inventions in the Western states. Needless to say, he runs into trouble. I suppose The Return could be called a mash-up. The Old West conquers another world, one where a cosmopolitan refinement barely disguises a violent underworld run by gangs and overlords.

The Edison and gangland history is accurate. Steve Dancy's participation, not so much.

Honest Westerns filled with dishonest characters
The Return, A Steve Dancy Tale
143 Amazon Ratings for 4.6 stars

James D. Best is arguably one of the best writers of westerns, but his newest novel, The Return, is set in the East. --Alan Caruba, Bookviews

It's the summer of 1880, and Thomas Edison's incandescent bulb is poised to put the gaslight industry out of business. Knowing a good business opportunity, former New York shopkeeper Steve Dancy sets out to obtain a license for Edison's electric lamp. Edison agrees, under one condition: Dancy and his friends must stop the saboteurs who are disrupting his electrification of Wall Street. More worrisome, he has also unknowingly dragged along a feud that began out West. The feud could cost him Edison's backing ... and possibly his life.

Can the Bloody Benders Revive Western Film?

Bender General Store and Inn

In the early 1870s, the Bloody Benders were a family of serial killers on the Kansas prairie. The four members of the family could not be weirder. If they were a family. The only thing known for certain is that there were four of them and they killed over a dozen travelers that ate or stayed at their makeshift general store located along a popular trail to the West. One more thing is known, they escaped.

This is a fascinating story and now The Topeka Capital Journal reports that two Harvard graduates are making an independent film about this grotesque piece of Western lore. There may also be a Hollywood production about the Bloody Benders. I’m rooting for the indie film. 

When the resurgence occurs in Western film, it will come from solid storytelling. My money is on indie films because they can’t afford elaborate computer generated effects, so they have no choice but to concentrate on a great script. Western enthusiasts keep hoping that movies like Cowboys and Aliens or The Lone Ranger will rejuvenate the genre. Small films have a better chance.

Bender Knife

IMDB reports an estimated budget for Open Range of only $26 million, a pittance for a movie with two bankable stars. Dances with Wolves was only $19 million.  Quigley Down Under $20 million. And even the remake of 3:10 to Yuma was only $55 million. On the other hand, films with nine figure budgets have harmed the genre. Big losses sour Hollywood powers-that-be on Westerns and they’re too dumb to figure out they threw away their money on a lousy script because they believe CGI, fast cuts, and a pulsing soundtrack were the key to a blockbuster.

Good storytelling draws audiences into movie houses … and that’s the forte of low budget films. Since Hollywood is blockbuster obsessed, we’ll have to rely on indie films to have an enjoyable night at the movies with a box of hot, buttered popcorn.

Cowboys Gone Wild

A few days ago, I wrote a disparaging post about Western mash-ups. Since I’m not into weird Westerns, I was unaware that many Western mash-ups had become cult films. At least, that's what I've been told. I haven't actually watched any of these films, so I cannot vouch for their Western authenticity or historical accuracy. 

The Phantom Empire (1935) was a Gene Autry serial film, combining the western, musical, and science fiction. The story is about a singing cowboy who stumbles upon an ancient subterranean civilization.

The White Buffalo (1977) is a mystical story about Wild Bill Hickok hunting a white buffalo with an Indian named Crazy Horse. Is this Jaws or Moby Dick?

In Billy the Kid vs. Dracula  (1966), Dracula goes to the Wild West looking for a wife and decides on Billy the Kid’s fiancée. Trouble ensues.

This 2009 TV film is a precursor to Cowboys and Indians. A bad guy about to be hanged, saves the town from nasty bugs from outer space.

Now, if you're into odd blendings of Westerns and lessor genres, you'll like The Return. This Steve Dancy Tale is an honest Western about Thomas Edison and the electrification of Wall Street. It's a fish-out-of-water story about an Easterner who seeks adventure in the Old West and then can't quite fit anymore in his home town of New York City. Try it, you'll like it.

Honest Westerns ... filled with dishonest characters

The First Movie Studio—And a Mea Culpa

Edison's Black Maria, West Orange New Jersey

Edison’s first movie studio was in West Orange, New Jersey. It was nicknamed the Black Maria after the stuffy paddy wagons of the day. According to Wikipedia, “The first films shot at the Black Maria, a tar-paper-covered, dark studio room with a retractable roof, included segments of magic shows, plays, vaudeville performances (with dancers and strongmen), acts from Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, various boxing matches and cockfights, and scantily-clad women.” Let’s see. Edison started the film industry with Westerns, comedy, violence, and soft-porn. Seems that when the movie industry migrated to Hollywood, the moguls in charge adopted the same themes.

This very first studio shows the movie industry's predilection to innovate. Notice that the roof can be lifted to catch the light and the entire building is on a rail to rotate with the sun.

Edison Motion Picture Studio

What was not filmed at Black Maria was The Great Train Robbery mentioned in my last post. The first feature film was actually shot at the Edison Motion Picture Studio in the Bronx, New York City. My error. At the Black Maria, Edison did film acts from Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, so I’ll still award New Jersey honorary Western status.

Speaking of Hollywood, according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the movie industry did not leave New York because of the weather.

“Motion Picture Patents Company, also called Movie Trust, Edison Trust, or The Trust, a trust of 10 film producers and distributors who attempted to gain complete control of the motion-picture industry in the United States from 1908 to 1912. The company, which was sometimes called the Movie Trust, possessed most of the available motion-picture patents, especially those of Thomas A. Edison, for camera and projection equipment. It entered into a contract with Eastman Kodak Company, the largest manufacturer of raw film stock, to restrict the supply of film to licensed members of the company.

The company was notorious for enforcing its restrictions by refusing equipment to uncooperative filmmakers and theatre owners and for its attempts to terrorize independent film producers. It limited the length of films to one and two reels (10 to 20 minutes) because movie audiences were believed incapable of enjoying more protracted entertainment. The company also forbade the identification of actors because popular entertainers might demand higher salaries. By 1912, however, the success of European and independent producers and the violent opposition of filmmakers outside the company weakened the Movie Trust, which, in 1917, was dissolved by court order. The Movie Trust, which was based in New York and other cities of the East Coast, was indirectly responsible for the establishment of Hollywood, Calif., as the nation’s film capital, since many independent filmmakers migrated to the latter town to escape the Trust’s restrictive influence in the East.”