Selig Polyscope News Today

The early days of the movies in Los Angeles inadvertently allowed visitors to experience the largest collection of animals in the western United States. When animals weren't appearing in a movie, they were rented out to other film companies, performed for studio visitors, or in the case of filmmaker William Selig's collection — an opportunity to create one of Los Angeles' first zoos.

Multiple-reel films had appeared in the United States as early as 1907, when Adolph Zukor distributed Pathé’s three-reel Passion Play, but when Vitagraph produced the five-reel The Life of Moses in 1909, the MPPC forced it to be released in serial fashion at the rate of one reel a week. The multiple-reel film—which came to be called a “feature,” in the vaudevillian sense of a headline attraction—achieved general acceptance with the smashing success of the three-and-one-half-reel Les A...

One woman was set to be silent comedy’s next auteur, but first she had to direct a young actor named Charlie Chaplin.

Moviemakers, painters and authors have long opined on the quality of L.A.'s light. A Caltech scientist illuminates on why our light is so remarkable.

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Sunny and mild L.A. winters have long been used to sell our town to frigid Midwesterners and Easterners, attracting the sick, the farmers and the moviemakers.

INDIANAPOLIS -- A film shot in Indianapolis in 1902 that captures a menagerie of Ringling Bros. circus animals parading through the citys downtown has landed a spot on the National Film Registry.

The Northwoods has produced many remarkable people. While many thrive in northern Wisconsin and never want to live anyplace else, others must leave to reach their full potential. Winifred Dunn is undoubtedly one of the most extraordinary women ever to come out of the Northwoods.

Legends & Legacies Silent movie star Mary Pickford filming The Pride of Clan at Marblehead, Mass. In 1916.- Library of Congress/Courtesy Photo Silent movies captivated American audiences around 1910 when film replaced Edison’s single viewer Kinetoscope and movie studios formed and cranked out films. Aspen followed the national trend with three theaters opening early in that decade. The first to open was Dreamland, part of a chain that also opened one in Leadville. The chain featured films fro...

LebTown February 18, 2021 4 min read Betty Harte, born Daisy Mae Light in Lebanon, 1882. (Selig Polyscope Company/Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Library) The silent film era dominated cinema in the late 19 th century into the early 20 th century, producing well-known films such as “Ben-Hur” (the 1925 adaptation) or the original “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.” Actors during this era faced the peculiar task of portraying characters without the key element ...