The Film Parade

In addition to the scenes listed above, footage exists of a short scene showing J. Stuart Blackton in a room filled with photographs of film people. In this scene, Blackton speaks about the coming of sound and then greets actress Mathilde Comont. A number of scenes from early films were re-created for this film, including Fred Ott's Sneeze (copyrighted as Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze, January 7, 1894), A Visit to the Spiritualist (which is called A Visit to the Magician in this film) and His Sister's Beau. The re-creations, however, are not identified as such in the narration and are described as if they are the original films. A 1939 article on the film states that many of the scenes used were once the property of Thomas Edison's son Charles, who willed them to Blackton.
       A February 13, 1933 Los Angeles Times article states that Blackton had finished making the film by that time. Film Daily noted in a February 20, 1933 news item that the film had been shown at a meeting of the Sound Section of AMPAS held the previous week. According to an advertisement in the London Daily Mail, by 1935 the film had shown "at the most important cinemas in the three great metropolises of the world-Covent Garden Opera House, London; the Gaumont Hippodrome, Paris; and the Capitol, New York." Blackton re-issued the film a number of times in various versions and under other titles before his death in August 1941. In many of the showings, Blackton narrated the film in person. Later showings contained additional and reordered scenes. In the biography of Blackton by his daughter Marian, she states that the film was seized by a promoter to whom Blackton owed money, and that Blackton then put together a second version; because it lacked a soundtrack, he narrated it in person at "resorts, lodges, churches, women's clubs, and American Legion halls." According to an ad, the film was shown in San Diego in March 1935 and in Hollywood in April and May 1935, under the title March of the Movies, in a benefit for the Young Women's Christian Association. A print of the film at the Library of Congress, entitled March of the Movies, contains a copyright statement dated 1936, although the film is not listed in the copyright register under this or any other title. The Library of Congress print, which is subtitled, "A Complete and Authentic History of Motion Pictures," lists J. Stuart Blackton Productions, Inc. as the production company. It credits the R-C-A High Fidelity Sound System and contains a different soundtrack than the 1933 release.
       News items from January 1939 state that Blackton presented a ten-minute film in San Francisco, called variously Cavalcade of Motion Pictures and Stars That Live Forever. In March 1939, Blackton showed the film in an eighteen-minute version in Seattle under the latter title, according to Seattle newspapers. In an article in West Los Angeles Independent dated September 29, 1939, the film was called again March of the Movies. In 1940, another version, entitled The Movie Hit Parade, was shown in several states with Blackton narrating, according to his obituary in Hollywood Citizen-News in August 1941. Articles and ads from 1939 and 1940 note that in addition to the scenes listed in the plot summary above, the film at that time included shots of "Little Egypt," the dancing star of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair "at her snake-hippiest, although the number is out of the picture when it is shown for juvenile audiences"; Carmencita; the San Francisco earthquake; Nicholas II, the last czar of Russia; William S. Hart; Marie Dressler; Will Rogers; Wallace Reid; Tess of the Storm Country, with Mary Pickford (Famous Players Film Co., 1914); The Road to Ruin; Mortgage on the Old Farm; The Villain Still Pursued Her; The Glorious Adventure (J. Stuart Blackton, 1922); Franklin Delano Roosevelt; William Powell; Hughie Mack; Walter Hiers; Thelma Todd; Bessie Love; Mae West; Agnes Ayres; Shirley Temple; Eleanor Powell; Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy; Clark Gable; Myrna Loy; Robert Taylor; Jeanette MacDonald; U.S. naval battles; rodeo contests; air stunts; tropical scenes in color; and surfboard riding at Waikiki Beach, Hawaii. A 1940 biographical statement by Blackton, in his file at the AMPAS Library, states that he also had been delivering "Four Lectures (without picture)," entitled "The Inside Story of the Movies," "Stars That Live Forever," "Hollywood Hall of Fame," and "My 'Glorious Adventure' in England."
       According to Daily Variety, this film, under its original title The Film Parade and with a running time of 77 minutes, showed at the Moulin Rouge nightclub in Hollywood on August 22, 1957 before going into a regular run at the El Rey Theatre. That version was presented by Henry Sonnenshine through an arrangement with Blackton's widow, the former actress Evangeline Russell, who, according to a 1939 article, had assisted Blackton in the exhibition of the film. She since had married Blackton's former colleague, Vitagraph director William P. S. Earle.
       A 1963 Hollywood Citizen-News article on Earle credits him with making this film: "Blackton tried hard to make a comeback and Earle put a movie together to enable him to do so. It was The Film Parade." Marian Blackton Trimble, in her biography of her father, states that Blackton approached Earle with the idea for the film and that Earle did the camera work. A modern source states that Earle, in an interview, said the idea for the film was his own. Trimble relates that she herself worked on the film, as did her brothers Charles S. Blackton and James Stuart Blackton, Jr., and that Paula Goldner was the editor. Trimble also states that she and Ben Hendricks, Jr. played in the re-creation of the early Vitagraph film His Sister's Beau and that her brother Charles played Leonardo da Vinci and a number of other roles. The footage in the film's beginning depicting ancient Egypt was taken from the 1923 The Dancer of the Nile, produced by William P. S. Earle Productions, directed by Earle and starring Carmel Myers and Malcolm McGregor. Modern sources state that Earle impersonated Fred Ott in the film's re-creation of the early short film Fred Ott's Sneeze and that Blackton himself impersonated Al Jolson in blackface during the segment devoted to the coming of sound.
       In a 1935 ad for the film, President Franklin Roosevelt is quoted, "You are doing a really great work and as an AMERICAN I congratulate you." Thomas Edison, to whom the film is dedicated, is also quoted in the ad as stating, "I am indeed proud of the very fine history of motion pictures compiled by my friend Blackton." Portions of this film have been used in a number of later compilations. According to a modern source, Bell and Howell released a twenty-minute version of the film, entitled Silver Shadows, in the 1940s. In August 1956, Blackton's widow enacted a damage suit for $500,000 against Cinerama Productions and a number of other defendants, charging that scenes from The Film Parade were used in Cinerama's film of the same title after the Independent Film Library, with whom she had placed the footage for rental purposes, turned it over to Cinerama without her permission and without compensating her. No information has been located concerning the outcome of the suit.