Representations of Ireland through the silent movies of the early 1900’s.
James Joyce was instrumental in establishing the first cinema in Ireland. The Volta opened in Dublin in December of 1909 to much acclaim. Prior to this Dubliners would have watched silent films which had been incorporated into the variety shows of the time. Following the success of The Volta, there was a cinema building boom across Ireland between 1911 and the First World War. Going to the cinema, or Picture House as it was sometimes called, became a popular pastime for Irish people.
In 1910 American film-makers called The Kalem Company, arrived in Cork. Their mission was to be the first movie company in the world to film on location outside of the United States. They chose Ireland as their setting. They would return to Ireland each year until the outbreak of World War One and their presence coincided with the social and political unrest facing the people of Ireland at that time. The arrival of The Kalem Company would not only impact the lives of local people and the cinema going public in Ireland, but also the Irish in America who had left their homeland in search of a better life.
Prior to the arrival of The Kalem Company Irish people featured in the early silent movies and Vaudeville Theatres in America as figures of fun. Irish Maids in particular were portrayed as dim-witted and lacking in the social graces. Often the maids were played on stage by men who portrayed them as pantomime caricatures. The Russel Brothers were a popular Vaudeville act who performed under the name of ‘The Irish Serving Girls’.
Films such as ‘How Bridget made Fire” produced by Biograph Studios in 1900, has as its’ plot Bridget the dim-witted maid who lights a stove with kerosene and blows herself sky high in the process! Many other films were made along the same theme and these became known as ‘The Bridget Films’. Kevin Rockett, an Irish Film Historian, in his book ‘The Irish Filmography’ lists 109 Irish themed films and of those 28 feature ‘Bridget’ which indicates the popularity of her character in early American cinemas.
The Kalem Company was formed in New York in 1907 by George Kleine, Samuel Long and Frank Marion. The company name was taken from their initials. They began in a small loft studio in New York and, due to a lack of indoor studio space, they moved production facilities first to Florida and then California. They were then able to both shoot on location and make films all year round due to the more favourable weather. They were the first film company to work in this way. Kalem had a very successful first year and were able to lure the pioneering director Sidney Olcott away from Biograph studios. The arrival of Olcott led to even further success for the company.
Sidney Olcott was a Canadian born to Irish parents. In 1910 Kalem asked Olcott to take a team with him to Ireland to film what would be the first on-location film outside of America. Olcott, keen to see the land of his parents’ birth, took with him Kalem’s leading lady Gene Gauntier, who was also a talented screenwriter, and cameraman George Hollister. Gauntier recalled later in her memoirs that they left for Ireland immediately with no plan as to what would be filmed when they got there. Each day on the boat, she said, was put to good use writing and filming onboard scenes for use in their newly written scripts.
On arrival in Cork, The Kalem Players were ready to start filming ‘The Lad from Old Ireland’. They visited the Old Clothes Market in Cork City to find costumes which could be worn by the various characters and set about finding local people willing to participate in the movie. Gauntier recalled that upon asking an elderly lady if she would play the role of her grandmother, she was only too keen saying that her family in America would be able to see her and the old homestead. Filming took place in the countryside of County Cork.
A Film Restoration Project carried out by the Irish Film Archive and Trinity College, Dublin resulted in some of the original Kalem Films being tracked down and restored. This copy of The Lad from Old Ireland was tracked down in Germany.
In the opening scene of The Lad from Old Ireland, we see Sidney Olcott in character as Terry. He is standing in the foreground while the local people behind are going about their usual work. In contrast to the Bridget Films we see how real Irish people lived, dressed and worked. The plot develops with Terry deciding to emigrate to America leaving his sweetheart Aileen behind.
Terry’s life in America as a labourer is at first contrasted with Aileen’s life back in Ireland and it seems their lives are not too dissimilar. In America, however, we see Terry rise from labourer to successful politician. Ireland is far from his mind until a letter arrives from the local priest telling him that Aileen is about to be evicted from her home upon the death of her grandmother. Terry returns home to Ireland and we see him recalling the life he left behind. Dressed in his fine clothes the film perhaps reflects upon the immigrant question of whether we are made by the land left behind or the new life in America. By the time this film was made in 1910, Irish people in America were beginning to move up the social ladder and many of them would have been able to relate to Terry’s journey to success.
The film was a box-office hit, especially in the United States. Irish people in America could identify with the theme of emigration and at the same time see the land of their birth and life as they remembered it. The Irish Maid Bridget had been replaced by the story of the emigrant in more realistic terms.
Such was the success of The Lad from Old Ireland that Kalem increased the budget for the following year and Olcott took a bigger crew with him. This time Olcott decided to base the company in County Kerry and settled on the small village of Beaufort as a base. The company booked out a local hotel owned by the O’Sullivans for the whole of the summer. The arrival of the Americans drew little attention from the press and, when it was mentioned, it was with regard to it possibly being good for tourism. At this time, it does not seem that the people of Ireland see their presence as something which would benefit them in any other way.
The locals in Beaufort were keen to work as extras or indeed to play a part in some of the scenes. They were paid 5 shillings a day plus lunch which was a handsome day’s pay especially as farm labourers were paid just £12 a year at that time. Annie O’Sullivan, the young teenage daughter of the hotel owner, recalled in later years that ‘there was fierce excitement dressing up in the fancy clothes”. She recalled that “Olcott used to say that he had no trouble at all directing the Irish – they were natural actors and actresses.” Indeed Lewis Jacobs, film historian, points out that “Sidney Olcott’s particular flair appears to have been to use dramatically the people, local colour and history of the territory in which he worked.”
The Colleen Bawn in 1911 was one of the Kalem Company’s most successful films. Already a big stage success, the Kalems were keen to remind the viewer that they were telling the story from the exact locations mentioned in the play. The intertitles inform the viewer of the historical aspects of the movie and the authenticity of the locations.
Upon release in America the cinema audience even had the opportunity to walk on Irish soil, as is explained in this newspaper advert for the movie.
The presence of the movie making company was welcomed by the locals living in Beaufort. However, their visits were not without their issues especially when the local priest Fr Daly in 1911 took issue with the actors wearing priestly clothing. One Sunday from the pulpit, in front of four members of the Kalem Company, he declared them to be Tramp Photographers and warned the local people that they should not have anything to do with them. A stand-off ensued and the people of Beaufort kept their distance. Attempts by Sidney Olcott to smooth things over came to nothing and Mr O’Sullivan, the hotel owner, told his daughter ‘I suppose I’ll have to send them away’. Olcott eventually had to ask the American Ambassador to intervene. He met with the Bishop who then over-ruled the priest, telling him to apologise to the Kalems, much to the relief of the local people who wanted to continue their association with the movie makers.
Living and mixing with the locals in Beaufort, the Kalems would hear stories of Irish oppression and the hard times experienced by generations past. These stories began to feed into their film making. They made a number of films which were sympathetic to Ireland’s plight such as ‘All for Old Ireland’ and ‘Rory O’More’, a fictional hero from the 1641 rebellion. These movies were made at a time of political and social unrest in Ireland and they seemed to instill in people a sense of pride and patriotism, both in Ireland and America. A review of the film ‘All for Old Ireland’ in an American Newspaper says that, if you have a love for old Erin then this film will make you want to shout “I’m Irish!”
The Kalems made almost thirty Irish themed films over the four summers that they spent in Ireland. Sadly, only eight of the films have been recovered to date. They are available to view on YouTube.
The final words should go to Annie O’Sullivan, just a young teenager at the time the Kalems arrived in her village of Beaufort Co Kerry. In an interview in 1976 she recalled that the Kalems were “people from a world so strange to a rural village in the 1910’s that they might have come from outer space.”
There was a mutual affection between the Kalem Players and the people they met in Beaufort. They even affectionately called themselves The O’Kalems. Annie’s family kept in touch with Olcott and Gauntier all of their lives. Annie died in 1982 aged 90. She reflected on her time with the movie makers from America in an interview late in life. “It’s a strange thing” she said “but I believe the people from over the water made us more aware of what being Irish meant. We saw ourselves from a different angle…”.