The Adventures of Shorty | |
---|---|
Directed by | Francis Ford, Scott Sidney |
Produced by | Broncho Film Company |
Starring | Shorty Hamilton |
Distributed by | Mutual Film |
Release date | March 18, 1914 |
Running time | 2 reels |
Country | United States |
Languages | Silent English intertitles |
The Adventures of Shorty is the name of a 1914 American short silent Western film featuring Shorty Hamilton, and the general name for the series of similar short films it started.
More than 30 two-reel "Shorty" titles were released between 1914 and 1917. [1] [2] All featured Hamilton as the "Shorty" character, a cowboy with a trained horse —his "remarkably intelligent horse, Beauty." [3]
The films were initially produced by Thomas H. Ince, many were written by the veteran screenwriter C. Gardner Sullivan. [4] The 1915 "Shorty's Ranch" was the last entry from the original producers, and after a year the series was revived by Monogram Pictures in January 1917. Directors in the series included Francis Ford and Jay Hunt. Aside from the trained horse, Hamilton's co-stars in the "Shorty" pictures included Enid Markey, Betty Burbridge, and Charles Ray.
The films placed "Shorty" into a series of improbable comic adventures: inheriting a harem, posing as a judge, joining the Secret Service, going to college, and confronting a wide range of characters including loan sharks, ghosts, and moonshiners.
In March 1917, a newspaper reviewer of the latest "Shorty" film wrote the following about Hamilton:
Shorty Hamilton is a fascinating little chap who makes you want to clasp him by the hand and call him friend. He is a gifted actor who can make you laugh or lift you to the extreme pinnacle of nervous anticipation in the same breath. He never over-does anything and his extreme naturalness is refreshing. 'Shorty in the Tiger's Den,' is with us today and you will shake with laughter as Shorty tries to ride a motorcycle, which proves more uncontrollable to Shorty than a bucking pony. [5]
James Oliver Curwood was an American action-adventure writer and conservationist. His books were often based on adventures set in the Hudson Bay area, the Yukon or Alaska and ranked among the top-ten best sellers in the United States in the early and mid 1920s, according to Publishers Weekly. At least one hundred and eighty motion pictures have been based on or directly inspired by his novels and short stories; one was produced in three versions from 1919 to 1953. At the time of his death, Curwood was the highest paid author in the world.
William Surrey Hart was an American silent film actor, screenwriter, director and producer. He is remembered as a foremost Western star of the silent era who "imbued all of his characters with honor and integrity." During the late 1910s and early 1920s, he was one of the most consistently popular movie stars, frequently ranking high among male actors in popularity contests held by movie fan magazines.
Monogram Pictures Corporation is an American film studio that produced mostly low-budget films between 1931 and 1953, when the firm completed a transition to the name Allied Artists Pictures Corporation. Monogram was among the smaller studios in the golden age of Hollywood, generally referred to collectively as Poverty Row. Lacking the financial resources to deliver the lavish sets, production values, and star power of the larger studios, Monogram sought to attract its audiences with the promise of action and adventure.
Francis Ford was an American film actor, writer and director. He was the mentor and elder brother of film director John Ford. He also appeared in many of the latter's movies, including Young Mr. Lincoln (1939) and The Quiet Man (1952).
Reginald C. Barker was a pioneer film director.
Helen Gibson was an American film actress, vaudeville performer, radio performer, film producer, trick rider, and rodeo performer; and is considered to be the first American professional stunt woman.
Grace Cunard was an American actress, screenwriter and film director. During the silent era, she starred in over 100 films, wrote or co-wrote at least 44 of those productions, and directed no fewer than eight of them. In addition, she edited many of her films, including some of the shorts, serials, and features she developed in collaboration with Francis Ford. Her younger sister, Mina Cunard, was also a film actress.
Joe May was an Austrian film director and film producer and one of the pioneers of German cinema.
Ann Little, also known as Anna Little, was an American film actress whose career was most prolific during the silent film era of the early 1910s through the early 1920s. Today, most of her films are lost, with only twelve known to survive.
Pathé Exchange was an independent American film production and distribution company from 1921 through 1927 after being established in 1904 as an American subdivision of French firm Pathé.
Charles Gardner Sullivan was an American screenwriter and film producer. He was a prolific writer with more than 350 films among his credits. In 1924, the magazine Story World selected him on a list of the ten individuals who had contributed the most to the advancement of the motion picture industry from its inception forward. Four of Sullivan's films, The Italian (1915), Civilization (1916), Hell's Hinges (1916), and All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), have been listed in the National Film Registry.
Thomas Harper Ince was an American silent film - era filmmaker and media proprietor. Ince was known as the "Father of the Western" and was responsible for making over 800 films. He revolutionized the motion picture industry by creating the first major Hollywood studio facility and invented movie production by introducing the "assembly line" system of filmmaking. He was the first mogul to build his own film studio dubbed "Inceville" in Palisades Highlands. Ince was also instrumental in developing the role of the producer in motion pictures. Two of his films, The Italian (1915), for which he wrote the screenplay, and Civilization (1916), which he directed, were selected for preservation by the National Film Registry. He later entered into a partnership with D. W. Griffith and Mack Sennett to form the Triangle Motion Picture Company, whose studios are the present-day site of Sony Pictures. He then built a new studio about a mile from Triangle, which is now the site of Culver Studios. Ince's untimely death at the height of his career, after he became severely ill aboard the private yacht of media tycoon William Randolph Hearst, has caused much speculation, although the official cause of his death was heart failure.
Shorty Hamilton was an American actor and silent film comedian who appeared in more than 80 films, mostly westerns, from 1909 to 1925. His birth name was William John Schroeder, and he was also known as "Jack Hamilton." He had served in the United States Cavalry for several years and worked as a cowboy in Montana and Texas. He was best known for the "Adventures of Shorty" series of two-reel silent films that were released from 1912 to 1917.
Arthur Rolette Berthelet was an American actor, stage and film director, dialogue director, and scriptwriter. With regard to screen productions, he is best remembered for directing the 1916 crime drama Sherlock Holmes starring William Gillette, an actor who since 1899 had distinguished himself on the Broadway stage and at other prominent theatrical venues with his numerous, "definitive" portrayals of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's great fictional detective. In 1918, Berthelet also directed the controversial author and feminist Mary MacLane in Men Who Have Made Love to Me, a production notable for being among the first cinematic dramas to break the "fourth wall" and among the earliest American film projects to bring together on screen a woman's work as a published author, "scenarist", actor, and narrator through the use of intertitles.
A serial film,film serial, movie serial, or chapter play, is a motion picture form popular during the first half of the 20th century, consisting of a series of short subjects exhibited in consecutive order at one theater, generally advancing weekly, until the series is completed. Generally, each serial involves a single set of characters, protagonistic and antagonistic, involved in a single story, which has been edited into chapters after the fashion of serial fiction and the episodes cannot be shown out of order or as a single or a random collection of short subjects.
Kay-Bee Pictures was a film company. Its executives included Thomas Ince. The company's mottos included "Every picture a headliner" and "Kay-Bee stands for Kessel and Baumann and Kessel and Baumann stands for quality", referring to Adam Kessel and Charles Baumann. It was party of the New York Motion Picture Company and was used after a settlement with rival Universal Pictures to end the film division named 101 Bison. Anna Little was one of its stars.
Bison Film Company is an American film studio established in 1909 and disestablished in 1917.
John Gerald Hawks was an American screenwriter. He wrote several scripts for Thomas H. Ince's Kay-Bee Pictures. His career ended with the transition to talking pictures requiring scripted dialogue.
William H. Clifford was a writer, director, and film company head during the silent film era. He was a production manager for Monogram Film Company. He worked for Marcus Loew and Thomas Ince.