Kalem Company - Olcott Leadership

Olcott Leadership

Under the direction of Sidney Olcott, Kalem made a number of significant films, including the first adaptation of Ben Hur and the following year, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In 1910 Olcott gave actress Alice Joyce her first acting job in his production of The Deacon's Daughter.

The one-reel version of Ben Hur – in which Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn was used as the location for the Holy Land – was made without obtaining the rights to the book, the usual procedure in the industry at the time, and Kalem was sued by the estate of the author, Lew Wallace. The parties reached an out-of-court settlement in 1911, in which Kalem paid the estate $25,000 – an extremely large amount for the time. The action helped to establish the necessity of film studios obtaining motion picture rights to the properties they used for their stories.

In 1910 the company shot a film in Ireland, making Kalem the first movie studio to travel outside the United States to film on location. As director, Olcott headed the team in Ireland and among those he brought with him were Kalem's leading lady and principal screenwriter, Gene Gauntier, actor Robert Vignola and cameraman, George Hollister. There, they notably filmed A Lad from Old Ireland plus they made a number of film shorts in Blarney Castle, Glengarriff and the Lakes of Killarney. Olcott and Valentine Grant, his future wife, and others from the studio returned to Ireland for most of the summer in the next two years. The O'Kalems, as the American entourage were affectionately dubbed, made such Irish films as Rory O'Moore, The Gypsies of Old Ireland, You Remember Ellen, The Colleen Bawn, plus more than a dozen others. Later on, only the outbreak of World War I prevented Olcott from following through with his plans to build a permanent studio in Beaufort, County Kerry.

The Irish films led to Olcott taking a crew to Palestine in 1912 to make the first five-reel film. Titled From the Manger to the Cross, it told the life story of Jesus. According to Turner Classic Movies, it is considered the most important silent film to deal with the life of Christ. In 1998 the film was selected for the National Film Registry of the United States Library of Congress.

Kalem was also one of the first studios to regularly film year-round by setting up facilities in Florida during the winter. The Florida company consisted of Sidney Olcott, George Hollister, camera man; Allen Farnham, scenic artist; Arthur Clough, property man; Gene Gauntier scenarist and leading actress; Jack J. Clark, leading male actor; Robert Vignola and Ethel Eastcourt.