The Gulf Between

Last updated
The Gulf Between
The-gulf-between-surviving-cell.jpg
A surviving frame of the film from a subtractive printing test, approximating the appearance of the original additive two-color projection
Directed by Wray Physioc
Written byAnthony Paul Kelly
J. Parker Read Jr.
Starring Grace Darmond
Niles Welch
Cinematography Carl Gregory
Distributed byTechnicolor Motion Picture Corporation [1]
Release date
  • September 13, 1917 (1917-09-13)
Running time
≤ 58 minutes at 32 frame/sec. (seven reels [1] ) [lower-alpha 1]
CountryUnited States
LanguageSilent (English intertitles)

The Gulf Between is a 1917 American comedy-drama film that was the first motion picture made in Technicolor, the fourth feature-length color film, [lower-alpha 2] and the first feature-length color film produced in the United States. A copy of the film was destroyed in a fire on March 25, 1961 and the film is considered a lost film, with only very short fragments known to survive. These fragments are in the collections of the Margaret Herrick Library, George Eastman House Motion Picture Collection, and the Smithsonian National Museum of American History Photographic History Collection. [2]

Contents

The Gulf Between, which had a running time of approximately 58 minutes, [3] was directed by Wray Physioc. The lead roles were played by Grace Darmond and Niles Welch.

Plot

As described in the film magazine Exhibitors Herald , [4] little Marie Farrell (Axzelle), through the carelessness of her nurse, is lost and believed drowned. She has wandered upon the ship of the smuggler Captain Flagg (Brandt), who finds her and brings her up as his own. Her parents adopt a boy to help them forget their grief.

The girl grows up with no memory of her former life. The adopted boy moves in the smart set in Mayport, and his parents try to make a match between him and a society girl. Marie (Darmond) is brought to her adoptive father's sister, as the old captain believes she should have the care of a loving woman. She meets young Richard Farrell (Welch) and the two come to love each other. The Farrells do everything they can to break up the couple, but with the help of the captain a marriage is accomplished. There is a stormy meeting between the bridal pair and the parents, during which the captain sees a portrait of Marie as a baby and, realizing the truth, tells the story of her life. The family is reunited and Marie and Richard spend their honeymoon on the captain's ship.

Cast

Production

The Gulf Between was filmed on location in Jacksonville, Florida in 1917 by the Technicolor Motion Picture Corporation, using its two-color "System 1", in which, by means of a prism beam splitter, two consecutive frames of a single strip of black-and-white film were photographed simultaneously, one behind a red filter and the other behind a green filter.

Release

After private trade showings in Boston on September 13, 1917, [5] and at Aeolian Hall in New York City on September 21, 1917, [6] it was released on February 25, 1918, to play one-week engagements on a tour of a few major Eastern cities, accompanied by the special two-aperture, two-lens, two-filter projector required to exhibit it. Because of the technical problems in keeping the red and green images aligned by prism during projection, it was the only motion picture made in Technicolor's System 1. Technicolor abandoned the additive color process of System 1, and began work on subtractive color processes that did not require a special projector.

Critical reception

Photoplay magazine complained that all colors were reduced into terms of reds and greens, and that "the story is dull, trite, and drawn out interminably." [7]

See also

Notes

  1. System 1 was photographed and projected at 32 frames per second, twice the normal speed. Thus, seven reels of a Technicolor film were equal to 3.5 reels of a normal film.
  2. The first three color features were the documentary With Our King and Queen Through India (also known as The Durbar at Delhi, 1912) and the dramas The World, the Flesh and the Devil (1914), and Little Lord Fauntleroy (1914), all filmed in the Kinemacolor process.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Film stock</span> Medium used for recording motion pictures

Film stock is an analog medium that is used for recording motion pictures or animation. It is recorded on by a movie camera, developed, edited, and projected onto a screen using a movie projector. It is a strip or sheet of transparent plastic film base coated on one side with a gelatin emulsion containing microscopically small light-sensitive silver halide crystals. The sizes and other characteristics of the crystals determine the sensitivity, contrast and resolution of the film. The emulsion will gradually darken if left exposed to light, but the process is too slow and incomplete to be of any practical use. Instead, a very short exposure to the image formed by a camera lens is used to produce only a very slight chemical change, proportional to the amount of light absorbed by each crystal. This creates an invisible latent image in the emulsion, which can be chemically developed into a visible photograph. In addition to visible light, all films are sensitive to X-rays and high-energy particles. Most are at least slightly sensitive to invisible ultraviolet (UV) light. Some special-purpose films are sensitive into the infrared (IR) region of the spectrum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">35 mm movie film</span> Standard theatrical motion picture film gauge

35 mm film is a film gauge used in filmmaking, and the film standard. In motion pictures that record on film, 35 mm is the most commonly used gauge. The name of the gauge is not a direct measurement, and refers to the nominal width of the 35 mm format photographic film, which consists of strips 1.377 ± 0.001 inches (34.976 ± 0.025 mm) wide. The standard image exposure length on 35 mm for movies is four perforations per frame along both edges, which results in 16 frames per foot of film.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Polarized 3D system</span> Using polarized light to create a 3D image

A polarized 3D system uses polarization glasses to create the illusion of three-dimensional images by restricting the light that reaches each eye.

<i>The Toll of the Sea</i> 1922 film by Chester M. Franklin

The Toll of the Sea is a 1922 American silent drama film directed by Chester M. Franklin, produced by the Technicolor Motion Picture Corporation, released by Metro Pictures, and featuring Anna May Wong in her first leading role. The film was written by Frances Marion and directed by Chester M. Franklin, with the lead roles played by Wong and Kenneth Harlan. The plot was a variation of the Madama Butterfly story, set in China instead of Japan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marion Fairfax</span> American actress, playwright and producer (1875–1970)

Marion Fairfax was an American screenwriter, playwright, actress, and producer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Color motion picture film</span> Photographic film type

Color motion picture film refers both to unexposed color photographic film in a format suitable for use in a motion picture camera, and to finished motion picture film, ready for use in a projector, which bears images in color.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grace Darmond</span> Canadian-American actress

Grace Darmond was a Canadian-American actress.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cue mark</span> Visual indicator on motion picture films

A cue mark, also known as a cue dot, a cue blip, a changeover cue or simply a cue, is a visual indicator used with motion picture film prints, usually placed in the upper right corner of a film frame. Cue dots are also used as a visual form of signalling on television broadcasts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Niles Welch</span> American actor

Niles Eugene Welch was an American performer on Broadway, and a leading man in a number of silent and early talking motion pictures from the early 1910s through the 1930s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prizma</span> Color motion picture process

The Prizma Color system was a color motion picture process, invented in 1913 by William Van Doren Kelley and Charles Raleigh. Initially, it was a two-color additive color system, similar to its predecessor, Kinemacolor. However, Kelley eventually transformed Prizma into a bi-pack color system that itself became the predecessor for future color processes such as Multicolor and Cinecolor.

<i>Spite Marriage</i> 1929 film

Spite Marriage is a 1929 American silent comedy film co-directed by Buster Keaton and Edward Sedgwick and starring Keaton and Dorothy Sebastian. It is the second film Keaton made for MGM and his last silent film, although he had wanted it to be a "talkie" or full sound film. While the production has no recorded dialogue, it does feature an accompanying synchronized score and recorded laughter, applause and other sound effects in some scenes. Keaton later wrote gags for some up-and-coming MGM stars like Red Skelton, and from this film recycled many gags, some shot-for-shot, for Skelton's 1943 film I Dood It.

<i>Her Countrys Call</i> 1917 American film

Her Country's Call is a 1917 American silent drama film directed by Lloyd Ingraham and starring Mary Miles Minter, along with George Periolat and Allan Forrest. The film is the final instalment in a series a films written by Abraham Lincoln impersonator Benjamin Chapin, who also appeared in the film as Lincoln. It was one of many films of the time that catered to the vogue for patriotic pictures after America joined World War I, with ample shots of soldiers and the American flag. As with many of Minter's features, it is thought to be a lost film.

<i>The Secret of the Storm Country</i> 1917 American film

The Secret of the Storm Country was a 1917 American silent drama film directed by Charles Miller and starring Norma Talmadge. The film is described as not a direct sequel but a "continuation" of the 1914 film Tess of the Storm Country, starring Mary Pickford. The film is now considered lost.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Film</span> Visual art consisting of moving images

A film – also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick – is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere through the use of moving images. These images are generally accompanied by sound and, more rarely, other sensory stimulations. The word "cinema", short for cinematography, is often used to refer to filmmaking and the film industry, and the art form that is the result of it.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Technicolor</span> Color motion picture process

Technicolor is a series of color motion picture processes, the first version dating back to 1916, and followed by improved versions over several decades.

<i>Whos Your Neighbor?</i> 1917 film

Who's Your Neighbor? is a 1917 silent American propaganda and drama film directed by S. Rankin Drew. The film's plot focuses around reformers who pass a law to force prostitutes, including Hattie Fenshaw, out of the red light district. Fenshaw becomes Bryant Harding's mistress and lives in an apartment next door to a reformer, and continues to ply her trade. After Fenshaw becomes familiar with Harding, his son, daughter and the daughter's fiancé, the climax of the film occurs as the cast assembles at Fenshaw's apartment. Harding returns and a fight breaks out that results in the reformers' arrival and concludes with the presumption that Fenshaw returns to a place of "legalized vice". The drama was written by Willard Mack and was his first foray into screen dramas. The film proved controversial, but is noted as a great success. The film originally debuted on June 15, 1917, but it was rejected by the National Board of Review and was later approved after a revision, but the film continued to be labeled as an immoral production. The film is presumed to be lost.

<i>The Savage</i> (1917 film) 1917 American film

The Savage is a 1917 American silent drama film starring Colleen Moore and Monroe Salisbury that is set in Canada and was directed by Rupert Julian. The film is presumed to be lost.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of film technology</span> Aspect of motion picture history

The history of film technology traces the development of techniques for the recording, construction and presentation of motion pictures. When the film medium came about in the 19th century, there already was a centuries old tradition of screening moving images through shadow play and the magic lantern that were very popular with audiences in many parts of the world. Especially the magic lantern influenced much of the projection technology, exhibition practices and cultural implementation of film. Between 1825 and 1840, the relevant technologies of stroboscopic animation, photography and stereoscopy were introduced. For much of the rest of the century, many engineers and inventors tried to combine all these new technologies and the much older technique of projection to create a complete illusion or a complete documentation of reality. Colour photography was usually included in these ambitions and the introduction of the phonograph in 1877 seemed to promise the addition of synchronized sound recordings. Between 1887 and 1894, the first successful short cinematographic presentations were established. The biggest popular breakthrough of the technology came in 1895 with the first projected movies that lasted longer than 10 seconds. During the first years after this breakthrough, most motion pictures lasted about 50 seconds, lacked synchronized sound and natural colour, and were mainly exhibited as novelty attractions. In the first decades of the 20th century, movies grew much longer and the medium quickly developed into one of the most important tools of communication and entertainment. The breakthrough of synchronized sound occurred at the end of the 1920s and that of full color motion picture film in the 1930s. By the start of the 21st century, physical film stock was being replaced with digital film technologies at both ends of the production chain by digital image sensors and projectors.

One of Many is a 1917 American film written and directed by Christy Cabanne, starring Frances Nelson with Niles Welch, Mary Mersch, Caroline Harris and Harold Entwistle.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wray Physioc</span> American silent-film director (1890–1933)

Wray Bartlett Physioc was an American film director, producer and artist. His film The Gulf Between (1917) was the first Technicolor film ever produced.

References

  1. 1 2 "The Gulf Between - 1918". Buffalo International Film Festival. Archived from the original on January 26, 2012. Retrieved March 28, 2013.
  2. "The Gulf Between". Deutsche Kinemathek . Retrieved March 28, 2013.
  3. "The first Technicolor film was a total disaster a century ago". CNET. 2017-09-09. Retrieved 2018-06-27.
  4. "Reviews: The Gulf Between". Exhibitors Herald. 5 (15). New York: Exhibitors Herald Company: 27. October 6, 1917.
  5. "Photoplay in Colors of Nature Exhibited", Christian Science Monitor , September 14, 1917, p. 4.
  6. Progressive Silent Film List: The Gulf Between at silentera.com
  7. "The Shadow Stage", Photoplay, December 1917, p. 118.