(13) #3 Charlie David
Date Of Production
circa 1976
Abstract
William F. Grisham interviews Ebony Film Corporation cinematographer and director, Charles David. David describes his work as a cinematographer and director, namely with Essanay Studios and Ebony Film Corporation. He also outlines the relevant cinematographic practices in Chicago during the silent era. The interview was conducted in relation to Grisham's film The Very Last Laugh (1976).
Run Time
10m 56s
Log
(00:01) Charles David:
Give you a few highlights of some of the things that come to my mind now. In one instance, it was short and sweet. But it’s an incident in itself. A fellow up by the name of Dr. Otto Brinner, B-R-I-Double N-E-R, I met him at the Hamilton Club. And he told me that he knew some people call the American Motion Picture Camera Company, and that he wanted to go on business. So he took me out to his factory. He manufactured medicine for women. And he had a big room in the back and he wanted me to put it in a laboratory. So we went over to American Motion Picture Camera Company, or something like that. They were on Des Plaines and Jackson on the southeast corner. And then it was run by then Captain Benning. He was an army man and a fellow named Sperry, a very clever mechanic. And they made cameras and printers. That was to my surprise. They were crude, but they were workable. The camera was a four-hundred foot metal magazine. This was all in 1913. So they set up this equipment. And I had built a dock and put in some tanks, and they gave me a printer and a camera. Then Brinner got acquainted with Romaine Fielding, F-I-E-L-D-I-N-G. Do you remember him? And he was going to be the star. This was—this factory was at Campbell Avenue, on Campbell Avenue, just north of, well, about Kinsey Street. And everything was going good. I set up the laboratory, all right. And then out come Romaine Fielding, and Brinner made me set up the camera and draw lines.
(02:08) Charles David:
I said, you know, he set up the camera, then you draw the lines of the lens and all of that. And we put some tables and chairs in and Romaine Fielding come out and we had quite a session. And Miley was out there and the woman told—a woman across the street told us that when well, when Fielding went out his car was gone. And the woman across the street told us that a big van had backed up and put it in the truck and drove away. Romaine Fielding admitted that he hadn't paid for the car. That was the end of a Romaine Fielding Photo Place. But Otto Brinner still had the lab. And at that time I heard about Ebony looking for a place to have their film developed. They were having it done by the Franco-American Pictures Company on Madison and, oh about Madison and Western. A little place upstairs. It was run by a guy named Jack Shakleford. F—S-H-A-K-L-E-F-O-R-D. And he was sloppy as could be. So I decided I'd take some of this stuff over to Brinner, see what they had, which was terrible. I'll go into that if f I ever talked to you about Ebony. Another item to show that Chicago was on the ball even—and this was—there’s a Sears Roebuck they reissued in the 1902 catalogue.
(04:00) Charles David:
And it was, you know, it's a souvenir type of antique. Well, anyway, in this 1902 catalogue there was a projector advertised, built by Roebuck. And it tells—it showed you how to go on, how you could go in business and buy chairs and so forth. It'd be a good idea if you could get a look at that. And my daughter has one. Ed can get it for you if you wish. In 1909, I had an experience with the fish market. They wanted—they were losing money. They were going out of business and they wanted to put in a movie house. So they asked me about it and I showed them, told them, how to do it and gave him a folder on, on how to buy this equipment now. And they promised I could be the operator at night, aside from my Essanay job.
(05:05) Charles David:
So they sold out the fish market and cleaned it all up and put in about seventy-five chairs. And then all the relatives run the show. And I never did to get to be the projectionist, but the show went for a little while anyway. In those days, the theaters, quite a few of them, popped up and even in our neighborhood. And they'd get a storefront, a store, and clean it out and put in about, well, a couple of hundred chairs and build a booth. And that would be it. The show would be three reels, three, four reels, and then out you’d go. In those days, there was a law, a Chicago law, that if you had over three-hundred seats, you had to get a license for—an amusement license. So most of the theaters were two-hundred eighty-eight or two-hundred ninety seats just to keep under the limit. There was a number of companies and a number of fellows that brought a projector like Roebucks or—Eastman had a projector for sale. And he’d have seats in the tent and he’d use, what they called a limelight for projection. On the country you couldn’t get electricity. So they used this carbide tanks to spray onto this lime and give a terrifically bright light. Maybe that's where the origin of the limelight come in.
(06:59) Charles David:
One of the occupational hazards was brought to my attention coming home on the trolley car one night. They were always crowded. And the fellow next to me began to sniff and asked me what that peculiar odor was. And I realized, didn't realize until then that we used entirely nitrate film. It gave off a terrific odor. Of course, we didn't notice it. But from then on I was very conscious of the fact. And every time I went any place, I had to change clothes immediately. But it was really something. That odor was really awful for everybody. Did I mention that in 1914, Bob Spoor became the studio manager and he was kind of a tough guy to get along with, kind of a heavy drinker and all. And he stayed with the organization even after they went broke. And he was a sort of a nightwatchman. And they told me he accidentally fell three floors in the big studio one night and was killed instantly. Mage, on the other hand, he'd come in about the time Chaplain came in and he was a pretty nice guy and everybody just loved him. And he carried on and he stayed with it until the whole thing was finished. And he went in business with the Abvi brothers. And Spoor probably paid the rent, but that didn't get much—didn’t get off very good. Then came the high, the wide film, the seventy millimeter [inaudible]. And Abvi and Spoor, Bob—Mage and the Abvis where the cameraman on that. Spoor had a theater built for the 1933 Pageant of Progress on the lake front. And he run his—he called it the Spoor Spectacular. But it bumped its head and kind of faded out. It was wonderful pictures.
(09:06) Charles David:
I don't remember whether I mentioned Louella Parson in connection with Essanay. When I met her, when I saw her, she was only a teener herself. And she got fooling around a miniature out in the lab part that Luperti was working on. And he almost threw her out on her face. So she was never in the laboratory after that and very seldom in the studio. She wasn't too well-liked. She operated mostly out of the main office down in Clark Street. I mentioned Billy West and connection with the Emerald Studio on LaSalle street. Billy West was that character. He is quite well-known and he more or less imitated. Chaplain. He did pretty well. I—he faded out and went back into vaudeville, but that was that. We talked of Daisy films when I was talking to you. Daisy films. That was a couple of actors got together and they were going to make rural comedies, one reel rural comedies. And we did make three of them out around Bellwood and that neighborhood. Bellwood, Illinois is a—it's a short distance out of Chicago. And at that time it was an absolute wilderness. And a creek runs through and we had some backwoods farmhouse there. The farmer and his wife were trying to make a living with a bunch of kids. So we had complete use of that farmhouse for weeks. But the thing was short lived and he couldn't pay his bills. And one day he ran off with all my negatives when I wasn't around. So that settled that.
Give you a few highlights of some of the things that come to my mind now. In one instance, it was short and sweet. But it’s an incident in itself. A fellow up by the name of Dr. Otto Brinner, B-R-I-Double N-E-R, I met him at the Hamilton Club. And he told me that he knew some people call the American Motion Picture Camera Company, and that he wanted to go on business. So he took me out to his factory. He manufactured medicine for women. And he had a big room in the back and he wanted me to put it in a laboratory. So we went over to American Motion Picture Camera Company, or something like that. They were on Des Plaines and Jackson on the southeast corner. And then it was run by then Captain Benning. He was an army man and a fellow named Sperry, a very clever mechanic. And they made cameras and printers. That was to my surprise. They were crude, but they were workable. The camera was a four-hundred foot metal magazine. This was all in 1913. So they set up this equipment. And I had built a dock and put in some tanks, and they gave me a printer and a camera. Then Brinner got acquainted with Romaine Fielding, F-I-E-L-D-I-N-G. Do you remember him? And he was going to be the star. This was—this factory was at Campbell Avenue, on Campbell Avenue, just north of, well, about Kinsey Street. And everything was going good. I set up the laboratory, all right. And then out come Romaine Fielding, and Brinner made me set up the camera and draw lines.
(02:08) Charles David:
I said, you know, he set up the camera, then you draw the lines of the lens and all of that. And we put some tables and chairs in and Romaine Fielding come out and we had quite a session. And Miley was out there and the woman told—a woman across the street told us that when well, when Fielding went out his car was gone. And the woman across the street told us that a big van had backed up and put it in the truck and drove away. Romaine Fielding admitted that he hadn't paid for the car. That was the end of a Romaine Fielding Photo Place. But Otto Brinner still had the lab. And at that time I heard about Ebony looking for a place to have their film developed. They were having it done by the Franco-American Pictures Company on Madison and, oh about Madison and Western. A little place upstairs. It was run by a guy named Jack Shakleford. F—S-H-A-K-L-E-F-O-R-D. And he was sloppy as could be. So I decided I'd take some of this stuff over to Brinner, see what they had, which was terrible. I'll go into that if f I ever talked to you about Ebony. Another item to show that Chicago was on the ball even—and this was—there’s a Sears Roebuck they reissued in the 1902 catalogue.
(04:00) Charles David:
And it was, you know, it's a souvenir type of antique. Well, anyway, in this 1902 catalogue there was a projector advertised, built by Roebuck. And it tells—it showed you how to go on, how you could go in business and buy chairs and so forth. It'd be a good idea if you could get a look at that. And my daughter has one. Ed can get it for you if you wish. In 1909, I had an experience with the fish market. They wanted—they were losing money. They were going out of business and they wanted to put in a movie house. So they asked me about it and I showed them, told them, how to do it and gave him a folder on, on how to buy this equipment now. And they promised I could be the operator at night, aside from my Essanay job.
(05:05) Charles David:
So they sold out the fish market and cleaned it all up and put in about seventy-five chairs. And then all the relatives run the show. And I never did to get to be the projectionist, but the show went for a little while anyway. In those days, the theaters, quite a few of them, popped up and even in our neighborhood. And they'd get a storefront, a store, and clean it out and put in about, well, a couple of hundred chairs and build a booth. And that would be it. The show would be three reels, three, four reels, and then out you’d go. In those days, there was a law, a Chicago law, that if you had over three-hundred seats, you had to get a license for—an amusement license. So most of the theaters were two-hundred eighty-eight or two-hundred ninety seats just to keep under the limit. There was a number of companies and a number of fellows that brought a projector like Roebucks or—Eastman had a projector for sale. And he’d have seats in the tent and he’d use, what they called a limelight for projection. On the country you couldn’t get electricity. So they used this carbide tanks to spray onto this lime and give a terrifically bright light. Maybe that's where the origin of the limelight come in.
(06:59) Charles David:
One of the occupational hazards was brought to my attention coming home on the trolley car one night. They were always crowded. And the fellow next to me began to sniff and asked me what that peculiar odor was. And I realized, didn't realize until then that we used entirely nitrate film. It gave off a terrific odor. Of course, we didn't notice it. But from then on I was very conscious of the fact. And every time I went any place, I had to change clothes immediately. But it was really something. That odor was really awful for everybody. Did I mention that in 1914, Bob Spoor became the studio manager and he was kind of a tough guy to get along with, kind of a heavy drinker and all. And he stayed with the organization even after they went broke. And he was a sort of a nightwatchman. And they told me he accidentally fell three floors in the big studio one night and was killed instantly. Mage, on the other hand, he'd come in about the time Chaplain came in and he was a pretty nice guy and everybody just loved him. And he carried on and he stayed with it until the whole thing was finished. And he went in business with the Abvi brothers. And Spoor probably paid the rent, but that didn't get much—didn’t get off very good. Then came the high, the wide film, the seventy millimeter [inaudible]. And Abvi and Spoor, Bob—Mage and the Abvis where the cameraman on that. Spoor had a theater built for the 1933 Pageant of Progress on the lake front. And he run his—he called it the Spoor Spectacular. But it bumped its head and kind of faded out. It was wonderful pictures.
(09:06) Charles David:
I don't remember whether I mentioned Louella Parson in connection with Essanay. When I met her, when I saw her, she was only a teener herself. And she got fooling around a miniature out in the lab part that Luperti was working on. And he almost threw her out on her face. So she was never in the laboratory after that and very seldom in the studio. She wasn't too well-liked. She operated mostly out of the main office down in Clark Street. I mentioned Billy West and connection with the Emerald Studio on LaSalle street. Billy West was that character. He is quite well-known and he more or less imitated. Chaplain. He did pretty well. I—he faded out and went back into vaudeville, but that was that. We talked of Daisy films when I was talking to you. Daisy films. That was a couple of actors got together and they were going to make rural comedies, one reel rural comedies. And we did make three of them out around Bellwood and that neighborhood. Bellwood, Illinois is a—it's a short distance out of Chicago. And at that time it was an absolute wilderness. And a creek runs through and we had some backwoods farmhouse there. The farmer and his wife were trying to make a living with a bunch of kids. So we had complete use of that farmhouse for weeks. But the thing was short lived and he couldn't pay his bills. And one day he ran off with all my negatives when I wasn't around. So that settled that.
Language Of Materials
English
Reel/Tape Number
1/1
Has Been Digitized?
Yes
Format/Extent
Cassette Tape ➜ C60
Genre
Form
Subject
Related Places
Participants And Performers
David, Charles (is interviewee)
Grisham, William Franklin (is interviewer)
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