Wallace McCutcheon sr.
Wallace "Old Man" McCutcheon sr. (born 1862 in New York City ; died on October 3, 1918 in Brooklyn , New York City) was an American film director .
Career
As a child, Wallace McCutcheon was a ticket seller and later a cashier for theaters in Brooklyn . Around 1893 he rented the Grand Opera House in Brooklyn, which ran well until a railroad strike that paralyzed public life. Since McCutcheon did not have enough reserves to bridge the game-free time, he had to give up the theater. When the American Mutoscope Company was left in 1897 by its co-founders William KL Dickson and Elias Koopman, who founded the British Mutoscope and Biograph Company in London , a production manager was needed. Wallace McCutcheon took on the task and worked for the Biograph Company until 1905. His real job was to oversee and coordinate the work of others. However, he also found time to write scripts, directing and camerawork, and is considered one of the pioneers of the film chase. He worked intensively with Frank J. Marion at times, for example in 1902 and 1903, when the original 68 mm wide film was the biographer, which was not compatible with the formats of other producers and required special equipment for recording and further processing 35mm film was replaced. During these years, the Foxy Grandpa series emerged as a comic adaptation and the technically outstanding early westerns Kit Carson and The Pioneers .
After years of successful work at Biograph, Wallace McCutcheon was recruited from Edison Studios with cameraman AE Weed in May 1905 , where he worked with Edwin S. Porter . However, Porter and McCutcheon never became such a well-established team as Marion and McCutcheon at Biograph.
In October 1907, McCutcheon returned as a director to the economically troubled Biographer. He continued to be extremely creative. In 1908, for example, he created The Sculptor's Nightmare, one of the first films to use clay animation , with most of the plot being represented by real actors. In the same year he shot one of his last films for the biographer Old Isaacs, the Pawnbroker , in which he cleverly uses the parallel montage for a flashback. His most important contribution to saving the Biograph Company , however, was the recruitment of David W. Griffith, unknown in the film business, as an actor and the purchase of some of his scripts.
Wallace McCutcheon sr. had eight children. His eldest son Wallace "Wally" McCutcheon Jr. was a theater and film actor and was given small roles in his films by his father as a child. His other children, such as his daughter Marie and his wife, also played occasionally in McCutcheon's films. When his father fell ill in the spring of 1908, "Wally" stepped in for him temporarily as director of the Biograph Company. Wallace jr. could not meet expectations and was replaced after a few films by David W. Griffith, who began his career as the most important American film director of the silent film era .
After the temporary improvement in his health, McCutcheon's next professional position was the newly founded company of Gaston Méliès . He had managed the branch of his brother Georges Méliès ' company, the American Star Company. After they founded the Motion Picture Patents Company with all the major film producers , payments to France were discontinued. Gaston Méliès founded his own company, The Star Film Company, for which he embezzled the funds of his brother's company and the films he had left. The firm's studios were in south Brooklyn and Wallace McCutcheon became its director in August 1909. The Stolen Wireless was the first film from the Star Film Company to hit theaters in November 1909 . In 1910 McCutcheon played a leading role in the establishment of the "Star Film Ranch" in San Antonio, Texas .
Wallace McCutcheon's state of health, he suffered from heart disease, did not enable him to work in the last years of his life. He died on October 3, 1918, at his sister-in-law's Brooklyn home. He left behind his wife, three sons and two daughters.
Filmography
- 1897: Fastest Wrecking Crew in the World
- 1899: An Intrigue in the Harem
- 1899: How the Tramp Lost His Dinner
- 1899: A Gay Old Boy
- 1899: The Fire Boat 'New Yorker'
- 1899: Topsy-Turvy Quadrille
- 1899: Where There's a Will, There's a Way
- 1899: Wonderful Dancing Girls
- 1899: The X-Ray Mirror
- 1900: How They Rob Men in Chicago
- 1900: Caught
- 1900: I Had to Leave a Happy Home for You
- 1900: Necessary Qualifications of a Typewriter
- 1900: The Perfect Woman Wanted Her Picture in the Altogether
- 1902: Foxy Grandpa (series of comic book adaptations)
- 1903: Kit Carson
- 1903: The Pioneers
- 1904: The Escaped Lunatic
- 1904: The Moonshiner
- 1904: The Lost Child
- 1904: The Chicken Thief
- 1905: personnel
- 1905: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
- 1907: Wanted, a Woman
- 1908: Bobby's Kodak
- 1908: Falsely Accused!
- 1908: Her First Adventure
- 1908: The Sculptor's Nightmare
- 1908: Ostler Joe
- 1908: Professional Jealousy
- 1908: The Kentuckian
- 1908: Old Isaacs, the Pawnbroker
- 1908: When Knights were Bold
- 1909: The Stolen Wireless
Web links
- Wallace McCutcheon sr. in the All Movie Guide (English)
- Wallace McCutcheon sr. in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Paul Spehr: McCutcheon, Wallace In: Richard Abel (ed.): Encyclopedia of Early Cinema . Routledge, London and New York 2005, ISBN 0-415-23440-9 , p. 598.
- ↑ a b c d Luke McKernan: Wallace ('Old Man') McCutcheon . Who's Who of Victorian Cinema: A Worldwide Survey website , May 2013, accessed January 11, 2019.
- ↑ a b Dies After Long Illness. Wallace McCutcheon, Prominet Theatrical Man, Ill for Ten Years . In: The Billboard , October 12, 1918, p. 4, digitized .
- ↑ Eileen Bowser: Marion, Frank J. In: Richard Abel (ed.): Encyclopedia of Early Cinema . Routledge, London and New York 2005, ISBN 0-415-23440-9 , p. 592.
- ↑ News of the Nickolets . In: The Moving Picture World , October 12, 1907, Volume 1, No. 32, p. 502, digitized .
- ^ A b American Mutoscope and Biograph Company . In: The Moving Picture World , November 16, 1907, Volume 1, No. 37, pp. 597-598, digitized .
- ^ A b Eileen Bowser : The Transformation of Cinema, 1907-1915 (= History of the American Cinema , Volume 2). Charles Scribner's Sons, New York City 1990, ISBN 0-684-18414-1 , p. 30.
- ^ Texas now the Stamping Ground for Moving Pictur Artists . In: The Moving Picture World , January 22, 1910, Volume 6, No. 3, pp. 93-94, digitized .
- ↑ A Gay Old Boy in the Internet Movie Database , accessed January 10, 2019.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | McCutcheon, Wallace Sr. |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | McCutcheon, Old Man senior (nickname) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American film director |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1862 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | New York City |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 3, 1918 |
| Place of death | Brooklyn , New York City |