Wharton, Inc. was an early silent film production company in Ithaca, New York, from 1914 to 1919. One of the first independent regional centers of early filmmaking, the movie studio was established by brothers Theodore and Leopold Wharton on the shores of Cayuga Lake at the site of what is now Stewart Park. Currently, efforts are underway to create a silent movie museum in the former Wharton movie studio building in Stewart Park. [2]
In late 1912, on his way to visit family in Ludlowville, New York, Theodore filmed a Cornell-Penn football game for Essanay, the Chicago studio that employed him as a director. Impressed with the singular beauty of the area, he convinced Essanay to allow him to return to Ithaca in the spring of 1913 for a full season of filming with a cast and crew that included such stars as Francis X. Bushman and Beverly Bayne.
The following year, Theodore was joined by his older brother Leopold, then a director at Pathé. Together, the two established their eponymous Ithaca studio and began producing short films, serial motion pictures, and eventually a few feature films. Their connections in the industry meant that the brothers were able to attract a number of major stars, many of whom arrived in Ithaca on the overnight train from New York City. Their films were shot on elaborate sets that they created at their studio and in natural sites around Ithaca, including the gorges on the Cornell University campus, and they often used students and local citizens in their casts.
Despite the early popular and critical success of their serial productions, by late 1919 the Whartons were in serious financial trouble. Forced to give up their studio (which was sublet first by Grossman Pictures and then by Cayuga Pictures), the brothers parted ways, never to work together again. Leopold left Ithaca first, joining Macklyn Arbuckle at San Antonio Motion Pictures in Texas. Over the next two years, he produced a few minor films, all of them starring Arbuckle. Theodore did not fare much better. Since the majority of the film industry had by then settled in Southern California to capitalize on year-round shooting and to escape the Edison Trust, [3] he headed to Santa Cruz, where Mayor Fred Swanton [4] was promoting and encouraging film production in the city and offering various concessions to filmmakers. Theodore hoped to establish a new studio there that would rival the former Wharton Studios in Ithaca. After several years, though, he left Santa Cruz without producing a single film. Eventually, he moved to Hollywood, where he assumed minor roles as a screenwriter and assistant director.
Leopold died in New York City in 1927. Theodore died a few years later, in 1931, in Hollywood. The serial films for which the Whartons were renowned in the 1910s had largely fallen out of favor with the moviegoing public; and much of the evidence of the brothers' prolific cinematic career was lost in 1929, when hundreds of their nitrate-based film reels spontaneously combusted in the storage shed at the home of their lawyer. [5] Today, the Wharton Brothers—among the first independent filmmakers to own and operate their own studio—are recognized as pioneers in the early film industry. In 1994, their first and best-known serial The Exploits of Elaine was named to the National Film Registry at the Library of Congress for its cultural and historic significance.
The Exploits of Elaine is a 1914 American film serial in the damsel in distress genre of The Perils of Pauline (1914).
Pearl Fay White was an American stage and film actress. She began her career on the stage at age 6, and later moved on to silent films appearing in a number of popular serials.
Stewart Park is a municipal park operated by the City of Ithaca, New York on the southern end of Cayuga Lake, the largest of New York's Finger Lakes.
Professor Craig Kennedy is a fictional detective created by Arthur B. Reeve.
Beverly Bayne was an American actress who appeared in silent films beginning in 1910 in Chicago, Illinois, where she worked for Essanay Studios.
James Cruze was a silent film actor and film director.
Charlotte E. Burton was an American silent film actress.
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 12 known to survive.
Archer MacMackin was an American silent film director, producer, and screenwriter. McMackin directed over seventy-three films between 1912 and 1916 directing films such as When Empty Hearts Are Filled and The Altar of Ambition in 1915 working with actors such as Harry von Meter, Louise Lester, Vivian Rich and David Lythgoe. His career reached its height in 1916 where in that year alone he directed thirty short films.
Louis Joseph Gasnier was a French-American film director, producer, screenwriter and stage actor. A cinema pioneer, Gasnier shepherded the early career of comedian Max Linder, co-directed the enormously successful film serial The Perils of Pauline (1914), and capped his output with the notorious low-budget exploitation film Reefer Madness (1936) which was both a critical and box office failure.
Maclyn Arbuckle was an American screen and stage actor. He was the brother of actor Andrew Arbuckle and cousin of comedian Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle.
The New Adventures of J. Rufus Wallingford is a 1915–1916 American silent film serial produced by the Wharton Studio in Ithaca, New York, and starring Burr McIntosh and Max Figman. The serial is based on the character J. Rufus Wallingford, originating from the series of stories by George Randolph Chester.
Leopold Wharton was an American film director, producer and writer. He directed 37 films between 1911 and 1922, including the 1915 film The New Adventures of J. Rufus Wallingford, which featured Oliver Hardy. In 1920, Wharton joined The Lambs Club.
Theodore Wharton (1875–1931) was an American film director, producer and writer. He directed 48 films in the 1910s and 1920s, including the 1915 The New Adventures of J. Rufus Wallingford featuring Oliver Hardy.
Patria is a 1917 15-chapter American serial film starring Irene Castle, Milton Sills, and Warner Oland, based on the novel The Last of the Fighting Channings by Louis Joseph Vance. Patria was an independent film serial funded by William Randolph Hearst in the lead-up to the United States' entry into World War I. The film in its original form contained anti-Japanese propaganda and was investigated by a Senate committee. The Argentine title for the film was La Heroina de Nueva York. At least several fragments of the film survive.
The New Exploits of Elaine is a 1915 American action film serial directed by Louis J. Gasnier, Leopold Wharton and Theodore Wharton. It is presumed to be lost.
Beatrice Fairfax is an American silent film serial directed and produced by Leopold Wharton and Theodore Wharton. First released on August 7, 1916, the series consists of 15 weekly episodes and features the character of "Beatrice Fairfax". The character was inspired by the popular newspaper advice column Ask Beatrice Fairfax, which had been the world's first column of its kind when launched in 1898.
Frank D. Williams was a pioneering cinematographer who was active in the early days of the motion picture industry. He developed and patented the traveling matte shot.
Alfred Emory Johnson was an American actor, director, producer, and writer. As a teenager, he started acting in silent films. Early in his career, Carl Laemmle chose Emory to become a Universal Studio leading man. He also became part of one of the early Hollywood celebrity marriages when he wed Ella Hall.
The Dawson Film Find (DFF) was the accidental discovery in 1978 of 372 film titles preserved in 533 reels of silent-era nitrate films in the Klondike Gold Rush town of Dawson City, Yukon, Canada. The reels had been buried under an abandoned hockey rink in 1929 and included lost films of feature movies and newsreels. A construction excavation inadvertently uncovered the forgotten cache of discarded films, which were unintentionally preserved by the permafrost.
