Kalem Company

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The Kalem Company was in 1907 in New York by businessman George Little and former biographer 'employees Samuel Long and Frank J. Marion founded film production company . The most important collaborator was director Sidney Olcott , who belonged to Kalem from 1908 to 1915. In 1917, Kalem was taken over by Vitagraph .

history

The first production - The Sleigh Belle - was made in February of the year it was founded. Like most productions of this and the following years, it was a " one-reeler ", a one-act short film . Since Kalem did not have its own film studios, his films were made outdoors or in halls that were rented at short notice. The production process in those years provided that several of these one-act plays were produced and sold to cinemas or film distributors every week. Kalem had a successful first financial year, so that Long and Marion were soon able to buy back the shares of Kleine, who supported the foundation as financier.

Kalem's success was based in large part on employees of Long and Marion's former employer, the Biograph Company, from whom Kalem was able to attract good staff. Among them was director Sidney Olcott in 1908, who was hired for $ 10 a week and was responsible for some of the company's great successes.

As one of the first film companies, Kalem established its own studios in a sunnier area of ​​the USA during the winter months, which in this case was Florida, but later almost exclusively California ( Hollywood ). At the end of 1910, Kalem began to shoot Western films, which were in high demand at the time, in California, and for this purpose acquired a plot of land in Glendale near Los Angeles . Due to the successful production at this location and the ongoing demand for western films, another studio was opened in 1911, a little further south, in the city of Santa Monica , located on the coast and surrounded by Los Angeles . However, production in Santa Monica was abandoned in October 1913 when Kalem acquired the Essanay studios in East Hollywood .

The studio's greatest successes between 1914 and 1917 included the "Ham and Bud" comedies starring Lloyd Hamilton and Bud Duncan as a subversive, shabby tramp duo, and the action film series The Hazards of Helen starring Helen Holmes. Allan Dwan and Mary Pickford also worked temporarily for Kalem. In 1915, Olcott left Kalem to independently direct films. In 1917 it was taken over by Vitagraph .

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