The First Hollywood
eBook - ePub

The First Hollywood

Florida and the Golden Age of Silent Filmmaking

  1. English
  2. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

The First Hollywood

Florida and the Golden Age of Silent Filmmaking

About this book

Florida Book Awards, Gold Medal for Florida Nonfiction



Inside the filmmaking industry in Jacksonville before the rise of Hollywood

Jacksonville, Florida, was the center of the infant film industry. Devastated by fire in 1901, rebuilt in a wide variety of architectural styles, sharing the same geographic and meteorological DNA as southern California, the city was an ideal location for northern film production companies looking to relocate.

In 1908, New York-based Kalem Studios sent its first crew to Jacksonville. By 1914, fifteen major companies—including Fox and Metro Pictures—had set up shop there. Oliver Hardy, D. W. Griffith, Mary Pickford, and the Barrymores all made movies in the Florida sunshine. In total, nearly 300 films, including the first Technicolor picture ever made, were completed in Jacksonville by 1928.

But the city couldn't escape its past. Even as upstart Hollywood boosters sought to discredit Jacksonville, the city's influence diminished from a combination of political upheaval, simmering racial tensions, disease, and World War I. Shawn Bean uses first-person accounts, filmmaker biographies, newspaper reports, and city and museum archives to bring to light a little-known aspect of film history. Filled with intrigue, backroom shenanigans, and missed opportunities, The First Hollywood is just the kind of drama we've come to expect from the big screen.

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Yes, you can access The First Hollywood by Shawn C Bean in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & North American History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Dedication
  5. Contents
  6. Acknowledgments
  7. Epigraph
  8. Introduction
  9. Chapter 1: New Year’s Day, Twentieth Century
  10. Chapter 2: A City Burns
  11. Chapter 3: Kalem Comes to Town
  12. Chapter 4: Meanwhile, on the West Coast . . .
  13. Chapter 5: A Film Town Is Born
  14. Chapter 6: The Movie Mayor
  15. Chapter 7: The Boom Goes Boom
  16. Chapter 8: Reel People
  17. Chapter 9: The Industry Moves On
  18. Chapter 10: Jacksonville: Act Three
  19. Film Listing
  20. Notes
  21. Bibliography
  22. Index
  23. About the Author