Jump to content

Draft:Wilbert Melville (old)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Captain Wilbert Melville

Wilbertt Melville was a photographer and early filmmaker in the United States. Actor? He wrote, produced, and directed films. He worked for the Lubin Manufacturing Company studio.

https://classicfilmaficionados.wordpress.com/2016/09/17/wilbert-melville-photographer-journalist-director-writer-producer-innovator-1873-1937-2/

He directed several films with Adelaide Bronti in them.

Filmography

[edit]

References

[edit]

Wilbert Melville (1872-1937) was a stage actor, vaudeville performer, and first-generation motion-picture director originally based in Washington DC. He assumed the name Wilbert Melville at the beginning of his career. Melville achieved prominence as a film writer, director, and producer, mainly while associated with the Philadelphia-based Lubin Manufacturing Company. Though Melville made scores of films in the early silent era, most of them were later lost, making his impact as an early film pioneer hard to assess.

Early years in the theater

[edit]

According to a 1930s passport, Wilbert Melville was born in Washington DC, on July 31, 1872.[1] By age 20, he was working as a member of the Clarence Bennett vaudeville company in New York City.[2] In November 1893,[3] he married Constance M. Davenport,[4] an actress, with whom he often appeared on stage.[5] Melville continued to be active in vaudeville and the live theater for the next 15 years, appearing in, and sometimes organizing, performances in New York, Virginia, and Washington DC.

Professional Photographer

[edit]
Photo of William Jennings Bryan and Mr. Jones (Scooes Trial
May 1899 photo of John Hay presenting Jules Cambon with $20 million (Treaty of Paris)

Brothers in 1899. Date 1 May 1899 Around 1897, Melville became active in the field of photography.[6] From 1901 to roughly 1905, he managed the art department of the National Press Association (alternately, the Illustrated News Syndicate), a DC-based organization that syndicated the work of photojournalists.[7]

In 1907, Melville's wife sued for divorce,[8] charging desertion;[9] soon afterward, he married Perle (or Pearle) Shepherd Cook of Virginia.[10]

Movie-Making: The East Coast Years

[edit]

In 1909, Melville became general manager of a 'moving picture stock company' called the Capitol Producing Company, based in Washington DC.[11]. He then came to the attention of Herbert and Alice Guy-Blaché, who hired him to direct pictures for their Solax Film Company.[12] Melville directed at least three films for Solax, all with a military theme: The Mascot of Troop 'C', An Enlisted Man's Honor, and The Stampede.[13] All of the films were shot at Fort Myer, VA.[14] In September 1911, Billboard reported that, after a little more than a year on the job, Melville was resigning to go to work for Siegmund Lubin, whose Philadelphia-based film company was rapidly growing.[15]

In the same year, while still at Solax, Melville made a polemical film called The Truth About The Pole[16], which took the side of Frederick Cook in his controversy with Robert Peary over which of them had reached the North Pole first.[17] Cook appeared in the film personally. The film, which Melville produced independently under the aegis of the North Pole Picture Company, capitalized on public curiosity about the explorers and their adventures. The film was seen by some 50,000 people in New York City[18] and was shown in Europe and South America.[19]

Moving West

[edit]

By the time Lubin hired Melville as a director, the latter had a reputation for making military and western pictures, even though these 'westerns' had all been shot in the east. Lubin now dispatched Melville to the Southwest, where he filmed on location in Arizona and New Mexico.[20]

At the end of 1912, Lubin sent Melville to Los Angeles to set up a permanent studio there. After a junket to New York City to round up the necessary personnel, Melville arrived in California in January 1913. His studio, like others going up around it at the time, included everything needed for efficient production in one location. Its opening on September 25, 1915, was attended by former US president William H. Taft.[21]

While the Los Angeles studio produced many films (as many as 10 a month),[22] Melville's job and the entire studio soon fell victim to corporate infighting. The Lubin company itself went out of business in 1916.

Melville tried to partner with one or two lesser concerns after that, but by 1920 he was without an occupation.[23] He continued living in Los Angeles, where he died on October 21, 1937.[24]

Yachting

[edit]

A yachtsman, Melville belonged to the Los Angeles Yacht Club and, before that, the Corinthian Yacht Club on Chesapeake Bay. Vessels he owned included the Isabella,[25] christened in 1903; the Vergana, which was acquired by the US Navy in World War I; the Lucero; [26] and the Hawaii.[27][28]

Beginning in the 1910s, Melville was referred to as Captain Melville in the press, but whether he was ever a military man requires substantiation. The honorific may have been a conceit that sprang from yachting.

Partial Filmography

[edit]

In alphabetical order by year.

1911 An Enlisted Man's Honor | The Immortal Alamo (writer) | The Mascot of Troop 'C' | The Stampede | The Truth About the Pole (extant) |
1912 The Blacksmith | Juan and Juanita (extant) | A Mexican Courtship | The Revolutionist |
1913 An Actor's Strategy | Back To Primitive | The Birthmark | The Camera's Testimony | A False Friend | Her Atonement | Her Boy | Love and War in Mexico[29] | Melita's Sacrifice | The Message of the Rose | The Mexican Spy | The Padre's Strategy | A Perilous Ride | Playing With Fire || The Price of Jealousy (extant) | Private Smith | The Split Nugget
1914 The Downward Path | A Girl of the Cafes | The Quack |
1915 As The Twig Is Bent (producer) | Beneath the Sea (with S Rowland White Jr; lost) | The Dead Soul | The Emerald God (writer and producer) | The Inner Chamber (producer) | Jealousy | Jim West, Gambler | The Lonely Fisherman (writer and producer) | Margie of the Underworld (producer) | The Moment before Death (producer) | Nell of the Dance Hall (writer and producer) | Night in Old Spain (producer) | The Power of Prayer | The Sacred Bracelet (writer and producer) | Saved from the Harem (with Julian Louis LaMothe; producer) | The Spark and the Flame (writer and producer) | The Strange Unknown (producer) | The Vengance of the Oppressed (with Julian Louis LaMothe) | With Stolen Money (producer) | Wonder Cloth (producer) |[30]
1916 The Beggar King (writer and director) | The Crash (writer and director) | The Code of the Hills (producer) | The Half-Wit (director) | A Lesson in Labor (writer) | Love's Law (producer) | Out of the Flotsam (director) | None So Blind (producer) | Playthings of the Gods (director) | The Price of Dishonor (writer and director) | Prisoners of Conscience (producer) | The Return of the James Jerome[31] | The Scapegrace (producer) | Scarlet Chastity (writer and director) | Soldier Sons (writer and director) | Sons of the Sea (producer) | The Stolen Master (producer) |The Usurer's Due (writer) | The Wheat and the Chaff (producer)[32]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "Wilbert Melville, "New York, New York Passenger and Crew Lists, 1909, 1925-1957"". FamilySearch.org. Retrieved 7 February 2016.
  2. ^ "New York Dramatic Mirror". Oct 1, 1892.
  3. ^ ""District of Columbia Marriages, 1811-1950",".
  4. ^ "Marriage Licenses". The Evening Star (Washington, DC). November 3, 1893. Retrieved 9 February 2016.
  5. ^ "Amusements [and display ad same page]". Washington Evening Star. January 23, 1897. p. 24. Retrieved 12 February 2016.
  6. ^ Melville, Wilbert. "Class of 1897: Spring and summer graduates of the Maryland Agricultural College (photograph)". University of Maryland Collections. College Park, MD. {{cite web}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Missing or empty |url= (help)
  7. ^ Boyd's City Directory.
  8. ^ "Files Suit for Divorce". The Washington Evening Star. April 10, 1907. p. 6. {{cite news}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  9. ^ "Decrees of Divorce". The Washington Evening Star. May 16, 1907. p. 9. {{cite news}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  10. ^ "1910 US Census". FamilySearch.org.
  11. ^ "Wanted for Moving Picture Stock Company [Display ad]". Billboard. December 4, 1909. p. 2.
  12. ^ "Studios and Films". Fort Lee Film Commission. Retrieved 12 February 2016.
  13. ^ McMahan, Alison (2014). Alice Guy Blaché: Lost Visionary of the Cinema. New York: Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-0826451576. Retrieved 12 February 2016.
  14. ^ "Bandits Reign in Sight of Capitol". Ghosts of DC. Retrieved 16 March 2016.
  15. ^ "Melville Joins Lubin Forces". Billboard. No. 23 September 1911. p. 14. Retrieved 16 March 2016.
  16. ^ Fagin, Charles F. (March 11, 1911). "'North Pole' Cook in Pictures". The Nickelodeon. 5 (10): 277. Retrieved 12 February 2016.
  17. ^ "Wilbert Melville's Success". New York Dramatic Mirror. April 26, 1911. p. 32. Retrieved 12 February 2016.
  18. ^ "That Doc Cook Picture". The Nickelodeon. 5 (11): 309. March 18, 1911. Retrieved 12 February 2016.
  19. ^ Eckhardt, Joseph P. (1997). The King of the Movies: Film Pioneer Siegmund Lubin. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. p. 104. Retrieved 13 February 2016.
  20. ^ Brégent-Heald, Dominique (1915). Borderland Films: American Cinema, Mexico, and Canada during the Progressive Era. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-8032-7673-4.
  21. ^ "Gaiety reigns as tribute to Sigmund Lubin". San Diego Union. San Diego History Center. 25 September 1915. pp. 2: 5-6. Retrieved 16 March 2016.
  22. ^ Williams, Gregory L. (Spring 2002). "Filming San Diego: Hollywood's Backlot, 1898-2002". San Diego History. 48 (2).
  23. ^ Williams, C.S. "Wilbert Melville". Classic Film Aficianados. Retrieved 15 March 2016.
  24. ^ "California Death Index, 1905-1939". FamilySearch.org. Retrieved 8 February 2016.
  25. ^ "Christening of the Isabella". Washington Evening Star. August 26, 1903. p. 15.
  26. ^ "News of Yachts and Yachtsmen". Pacific Motor Boat. 8: 33. 1915. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  27. ^ ""Pacific Coast Marine"". The Seamen's Journal: 5. Retrieved 15 March 2016.
  28. ^ Sawyer, W. C. (December 1920). "Motor Boat Boom". Pacific Marine Review. 17: 55. Retrieved 15 March 2016.
  29. ^ "Summer Show Talk". The Auburn [NY] Citizen. June 7, 1913. p. 11. Retrieved 13 February 2016.
  30. ^ Catalog of Copyright Entries: Works of Art (Vols 9-10). Washington, DC: Library of Congress Copyright Office. 1915. pp. 587–9. Retrieved 8 March 2016.
  31. ^ "The Movie Screen". St Helen's Mist. No. 9 June 1916. p. 5. Retrieved 15 March 2016.
  32. ^ Catalogue of Copyright Entries: Pamphlets, leaflets (Vol 13, no 1 ed.). US GPO. 1916. p. 529. Retrieved 8 February 2016.
[edit]

The Autry Museum of the American West has a photograph of Wilbert and Mrs Melville with Edna Payne and other actors on an unidentified movie set, as well as stills from Melville's films A Mexican Courtship and one or more from The Revolutionist.


Category:Articles created via the Article Wizard

Retrieved from "https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Draft:Wilbert_Melville_(old)&oldid=1267182314"