Siakel #1, Siakel #2

That should be okay now.

All right, why don't we...

Come on, Mitch, your questions.

All right, I'll tell you what.

Why don't we just hold it like this? You want to come a little forward so that...

I don't know.

We'll have to make a test for you soon.

All right, you came to the United States after you had talked to your brother.

You'd been in correspondence with your brother who was employed at the time you came at what place? At Shoestake.

At Shoestake.

No, pardon me, at Selig.

And tell me, what was his job? Can you describe his job at Selig? Did he write to you about that and so on? Yes.

He was working partly in a machine shop building the cameras and printers, which are very much like cameras with cinematograph movement.

Plus, he was in charge of a printing department, which was giving Selig a headache because of all that static electricity.

Main reason for that was that film wasn't as fine, as well refined as it is today.

It didn't lay flat.

Therefore, going through the printer with negative, it had to be held down with pressure block.

And pressure block was exactly the thing that caused all the friction and gave him all the headaches.

Finally, after many and many experiments, Dan designed something that a printer, a girl that was printing film, could watch the negative go through and at the same time control the thing so there would be no problem in, well, whatever it was that they had in there.

Okay, you can stop it now.

All right.

Now, he wrote to you then about his work and what did you want to do? You were living in Slovakia.

And tell me about your home, where you were living and why you came to this country.

Well, that's a long story.

I'm not going to go into that.

It was necessary for me because I couldn't get education there.

To go to Germany or Bohemia or somewhere else to get education, we couldn't afford that.

And the local government didn't like our family very well, so we were what they called politically unreliable.

And therefore, my brother was pushed out, my sister was thrown out of high school, and I had no chance to go to a high school.

They just didn't want us to get any education.

And the only thing...

Was this because you had different politics? That's right, because we were Slovaks, see, instead of Magyars.

And that was our biggest problem.

But my parents' background has been that way for many years and everybody knew about it.

But my father wouldn't give up.

He just fought and he worked for a new government that is a new representation in Budapest.

That's what we were working for.

So when my brother said or wrote, I'm going to come to visit you and I'm going to show you something.

I'm going to show you how we make these so -called living pictures in America.

And that's exactly what he did.

By that time, when he came in, in 1912, he brought with him a skeleton projector, which had a cinematograph movement in it.

And he brought in some film, a couple condensers, and that's all he brought with him.

And when we were thinking about light, he said, don't worry about light, we'll use your bicycle lamp.

And that's exactly what we did.

We used carbide lamps and we showed local people what really happens.

That you change pictures gradually, that each picture is a little different.

And because they move through the projector so fast, it becomes an illusion that the things are moving.

So that's what they call living pictures.

The movies were...

This was 1912 when he visited? That's 1912 when he came in there, yes.

And at that time, or prior to that, he already had some sort of understanding with Chustek that they ought to make a cameraman out of me.

But Chustek told them, before you bring him here, get him a job in a photo studio so he can learn something about photography.

That's exactly what my brother did.

He asked Mr.

Sanders of Sanders and Gross, two Germans that had a studio on Mulholland Avenue and in Chicago Avenue, he knew him for some time.

S -A -U -N, S -A -N -D -E -R -S? S -A -N -D -E -R -S, yes, Sanders and Gross.

Uh -huh, G -R -O -S -S.

That's right.

And Mr.

Sanders said, yes, then I'll do that, I'll give him a job, so I'll have a job there.

And that's where I had the basic training.

And what year was that? It was in 1912, in November of 1912.

You came to this country then in 1912, in the winter of 1912, and worked there.

How long did you work there and what did you do? About a year and a half.

Uh -huh.

And how did you feel? Can you describe your feelings as a young man? You came to Chicago, what was it like? What was Chicago like? Well, it was nice because it was different for me, but it was also unfriendly.

We had different nationalities in a different area, and they didn't like greenhorns.

We had all kinds of, they have all kinds of names for us, and that wasn't very pleasant.

But then we had to put up with it, everybody did.

So, in about a year and a half, I learned a little bit about photography, and I ventured into a photographic studio, foolishly, with somebody else, which followed up very soon.

And gradually, Dan took me over to Selig.

What was Dan's first name, his full name? They call him, he's Daniel Jan Seackel, or Jan Daniel Seackel.

Daniel was his first name, and everybody called him Dan, Dan there, right.

Dan was known all over Chicago, just like my name, Jerry, become known in this business for many years.

And he took me over to Selig, and he talked to Gus Selig, who was a manager of their studio, of their plant.

He was Gus' brother? Gus' manager, brother of Selig.

He was the manager, right? That's right.

At the time.

This is in what year now, about 1915 or 14, or what year? Now let me tell you, I don't know the year exactly, but let me tell you what happened at Selig.

My first job was in a shipping room for opening boxes and putting labels on the cans that were going out and so on.

Then the film that came from Kodak was taken over to perforating room.

My second job was in a perforating room.

I worked there for a little while, and during that time that I was in a perforating room, there was a naturally perforating room is noisy, and so was the printing room next door to it.

Did you use your own perforator, Mr.

Sztek's perforator, or whose was it? I don't know who designed it, but it was the perforator that punched two hell holes instead of four holes.

However, they had two Bell and Howell perforators already in the separate room where negative was being perforated.

That four - Four -frame.

Now you understand negative perforation is different from positive.

Tell us about that.

Well, the reason for that is because when film is processed, there is certain shrinkage.

Therefore the holes from shrunk negative have to match the holes of positive when they go through the printing room, no matter what kind it is, or printing equipment.

So I don't know the year when I was there, but I remember this, and you can verify this sometime.

While I was worried and working in a perforating room, there was a big commotion.

I don't know what happened.

I asked a man, an electrician that was in charge, Mr.

So -and -so, what's wrong? And he told me there was a big disaster.

And I said, what does it mean? And my English was very limited at the time, too.

He says, a boat capsized with electricians.

I said, electricians? Well, I didn't know anything about that either.

But later on, the cameraman were coming in with film, bringing negatives, and it was rush, rush for the Seelig Hearst Weekly to go out.

So somebody there in the department asked him, go and help the people in the title room, where we were taking the cards as they were printed on Gordon Press, and dust them with silver, and then put them before camera, and made titles.

Alright, tell me about this.

You said Gordon Press.

Ordinary Gordon Press, you know, that's fed by individual card was fed in, and ordinary ink was applied to the card, and then it was dusted with silver or aluminum dust.

To what for? Oh, to give white lettering.

See, that's the one that we photographed, and we already shoot the camera.

And there was such a demand for those negatives and all that necessary material that had to go into these weekly, so one man said to me, why don't you try your hand on cranking? And I did, and he was surprised that I would crank at a certain speed and crank steady.

And he said to me, what the hell did you learn this? I said, well, I've been practicing at home.

At home, I said, yes, my brother brought one of these ceiling projectors home, and they operated same way by hand, they run the same speed, and that's what they told me, keep on practicing, someday you'll be a camera.

Well, that got me started in projection then.

Then later on, I got into an inspection room where they had half a dozen or more projectors going continuously, inspecting for defects, positive inspection.

Then in between time, sometime myself, sometime another projectionist in the inspection room was asked to go into the projection room where they had meetings, where they were projecting negatives.

Did they always look at the rushes, the dailies in negative form? No, I'm not positive that they always did that, but that's where I saw the negatives being projected, that's where I projected negatives.

And you could read them then after a while.

That's right.

You get so familiar with that.

But what was most interesting is after they finished the scene, and they talked about the scene, and they talked about this is no good, and this is no good, and we'll cut this out, or we got to change the scene, and so on.

So I was all ears, and it was kind of educational procedure for me.

But I have a picture of that.

That's the only other picture I have of ceiling in the projection room.

Marvelous.

Yeah.

That is excellent description of all of this.

And then may I ask you now a few questions? Yeah, go ahead.

Where did you live in Chicago? Did you live with your Czech community, or rather the Slovakian community? Where was that? What neighborhood was that? Well, it was around Milwaukee and Chicago, I have known.

There was an Atlantic organization there that had their own building which is still standing there.

Well, the name don't make any difference.

Yes, it does, if you remember the name.

It's so -called Slavia.

It was an independent kind of an organization.

Anybody could belong to that.

So later on we got Serbs, and we got Poles, and whoever was in the neighborhood and want to practice in athletics because so -called is something like German Turner Association.

Turner Association, yeah.

That's right, same thing, yeah.

There, then they had little stage there, and they had few place, and so on.

And that's where I got to know Shustek a little bit better, because Shustek kind of looked after me too, just like my brother.

They kept on pushing me.

How much older was he then? Can you estimate then you were about? My brother? No, Shustek.

I don't know that.

How much older was your brother then you? Ten years.

Ten years older.

Yeah, he was born in January, and I was born in January.

Ten years after.

Interesting.

My brother had education.

Not only the mechanical education, which he got in Budapest, which must have been very good, because in a night school that he went to, they gave him a first prize after four years of study.

He brought those things home.

He was, he had training, some kind of a training in instrument work.

Now I didn't understand mechanics at that time, and I couldn't tell you just what he was doing, but he was able to join Selig.

And if I understand it correctly, they were repairing optical things too.

And my brother talked about Peck Court.

I didn't know what that was, but I know it was a street called Alley.

He had worked at Peck Court.

Yeah, it was an alley somewhere downtown.

And he went with Selig, and he stayed with Selig until Selig closed out.

Very good.

Now, Selig, did you stay with Selig until the studio was closed, or how did you go somewhere else? No, in 1917, the war was on, and Selig was already moving to California, moving quite fast.

I think most of the plant was already closed, but my brother, Selig had a contract to build a processing outfit for government.

Can you tell us about that? Well, I got a picture of that to show you.

Was this a continuous printer? A continuous processing outfit.

Processing.

Yeah, developing, washing, and drying.

I don't know what they were going to do about printing, probably process the same way.

Those things were new to me at that time.

So while I was still at, my brother was at Selig, and I was still at Selig, my brother said to a man, an engineer from Washington, that my little brother is going to be drafted, and if you want to put him, try to get him into a photographic division.

And he said yes, then I would.

Of the Army.

Of the Army, yes.

And he did that.

Great.

He assigned me to it.

And you went where? Where did you go then? I went to Cornell.

Cornell, yeah.

But first I spent six weeks with infantry, two weeks with Signal Corps, then I don't know how many weeks on Bedloz Island in New York, waiting to get a group of people together.

And when they got, I think, a hundred of us, maybe not that many, then they shipped us to Cornell University, where they had a section ready for us.

Part of Rockefeller Hall was assigned to Army.

And how long were you there at Cornell? Just to finish the course, and then a few weeks to teach new recruits that come in there.

So you were a teacher there then? Well, that's not teaching.

They're just showing me.

They're nothing to teaching.

I see.

No, they were, that's where I met a man about whom I'm going to tell you quite a bit, a fellow that was with Ansco Company, a fellow by the name Thompson, that was a very good chemist that I later was in contact with when we were trying to develop a direct positive or direct negative.

But I have to show you letters on that.

Did he develop a continuous printer called the Spur Thompson? Oh, no, no.

It was not the same Thompson? No, no.

This fellow was a trouble shooter for Ansco Company.

I see.

He was in Binghampton.

All right.

No, I don't know who developed that, but after I got back from service, when I went to, well, Shustegh again was working on...

Was he still with Selig, Mr.

Shustegh? No, he has his own shop.

All right.

Tell me about that.

What was it called? The Shustegh what? I don't know what they'd call it, sir.

All I knew is that once in a while we would go and visit Shustegh.

Now, he had about half a dozen machinists working for him.

One of them, a man is still working, still living.

He's in a Bohemian old people's home, and I was trying to get in touch with him to tell me something about Selig.

Dan worked there, and also fellow by the name Lovati worked there that designed and patented a new viewfinder for motion picture camera.

I'll tell you about that later.

Was a reflexive viewfinder.

That's right.

Interesting.

That's being used today on all cameras.

All right.

Then you...now tell me, at Selig, were there a number of Germans working for him and Bohemians? Not that many Bohemians.

But Germans.

Germans, yes.

Great number of Germans.

Germans and Swedes, yes.

Did you ever hear of the Schiller Theater in Chicago, a German theater at all? Did you ever go to any of the storefront Nickelodeons? Yes.

How were they run? Can you describe them? I can't tell you that.

That was...I remember that while at Selig, someone was already working on talking pictures where they had that contact with phonograph and so on.

Dan took me to McVicker's Theater where they had one part of a World of Will program where they showed those movies and also talking.

Later Dan got into that talking picture equipment quite extensively.

Then did you...after Selig, where did you go after Selig then? After Selig, I went to service.

After service, I went to Rotheker Film Company.

And where was it located at the time? Rotheker Film? There were two locations.

One was on Erie Street.

That's Industrial Motion Pictures.

That was not the same Rotheker that I worked for.

See, Rotheker...Watterson Rotheker started as a industrial movies which were also advertising movies.

Right.

Then there was...this is kind of interesting because it has some connection with ordinary motion pictures and some is purely an advertising shorts like.

Rotheker had a department that they call Dealer Service Department and a fellow by name Dewey was in charge of it.

They made shorts for motion picture theaters at 25 foot, 50 feet, 100 feet.

Advertising shorts? Advertising shorts which were stock stories and they attached titles or names of advertisers to the end.

Well, that become kind of monotonous to many people.

They had dealers all over the United States.

They bought those things 10, 15, 20 of these things and they used them over and over again.

Then it become kind of monotonous to attach those titles to the shorts.

So one man from Oklahoma approached Rotheker or rather Dewey if he would kind of work in the advertisers name right into the scene.

And Dewey thought, well, we'll have to ask somebody that will design something like that.

So they approached Shustek and Shustek, he always was willing to listen.

So he said, well, we'll work out something.

So he built a special printer which you could stop on a frame and start.

And naturally when we were printing these shorts, we were printing them slowly.

They didn't go through like Bell and Howell and so on.

They were not that important.

They were not that good either.

But he designed a printer, probably 36 or maybe 4 feet long, large condensers, light inside and a slight carrier similar to that in there but with the length, I'd have to kind of make a sketch of the thing, how the thing worked.

But after the scene was, while the scene was being printed, we could stop on a frame, insert this slide, throw it out of focus and then we did not bring it gradually into focus.

So we brought in a title into focus.

That required kind of tricky operation.

And Shustek told Ratlik or Dewey, Shustek was asked, where are we going to get a man to run this thing? And Shustek said, well, Jerry, he knows a little bit about photography.

So I went to Shustek and I worked on that printer.

Then I went into the production of these little shorts with Dewey.

Still him in charge because he was selling and advertising the thing under Rotheker's name.

Now that place was in one of the Rotheker buildings or what? That was where today SV is located.

That's the Rotheker.

SV is at Southport and Diversity.

It's there today.

Southport and Diversity.

All right, the other Rotheker plant was on Erie Street.

Yes, that was, Rotheker was known as Industrial Motion Pictures.

Right.

But Rotheker owned that, but then he married into a family.

His father -in -law was an undertaker and he had quite a bit of money.

And I guess he helped his son -in -law to build that factory that's standing there today, rather than studio.

It was already a studio.

It had coupical lights.

It had all the modern facilities.

And they also printed the Chaplin films there.

No, not Rotheker.

I have a news item.

It says that for First National.

They did it for First National.

Oh, well, for First National, yes, because you see, that's what happened after a while.

They became a...

Rotheker become part of First National, I guess, because they produce Lost World together.

Well, First National chose him because he had such a fine laboratory on Erie Street.

Then he went off to found one of the great plants in Los Angeles, actually.

Rotheker was responsible for, or at least some of his people were responsible for...

What do you call them? At any rate, let's go on.

I've got that in my notes.

Well, I never knew Rotheker under that name on Erie Street.

I only knew Rotheker on Viversey Parkway.

But I knew that he was at one time on Erie Street because my brother had something to do with some kind of a machinery.

So this is in the late teens that you're with Rotheker then.

Is that right? What was the year? Because it was certainly before 1921, wasn't it? Now, let me explain it to you this way.

In 1920, Rotheker was talking about phasing out this short film production because it was not paying enough, not enough profit in it.

And second, it was a nuisance to run these short films when we had such an enormous demand for...

Industrial? No, full features for First National.

So I knew that I was going to be let out.

Then something else happened.

Shusteg was building 28 millimeter printer that would take 35 millimeter negative and convert them into a non -slow burning film, 28 millimeter film.

He made that.

He built it for Victor Animatograph Company.

Victor Animatograph.

From Davenport, Iowa.

And when he got it done, Mr.

Victor...

I got to know Mr.

Victor pretty well.

He was a very fine man.

Mr.

Victor asked Mr.

Shusteg, we got to have a man to run this.

And Mr.

Shusteg said, what? I know one guy, a young lad by the name Jerry Siakel.

He says, why don't you approach him? And he did, and I went to work for him.

I went to work at SNA and they did have a processing unit at that time because...

Do you mean SNA, E -S -S -A -N -A -Y or S and A? There were two.

Was it SNA over on Argyle? Yeah.

You went to work for SNA on Argyle then? That's right.

They were doing the Victor machine...

They were doing this...

No, not...

I didn't work for SNA.

I worked at the SNA lab, but I was paid by Victor.

Uh -huh.

And he had contracted with SNA to take some of these movies that he had to turn them into non -theatrically used 28 -millimeter films.

Terrific.

That's great.

But he was not the only...

That was not the only object of Victor's.

He also wanted to get into a motion picture work because Victor had a large library bigger than McIntosh at that time.

And he also produced...

He also built motion pictures in Davenport with a beater movement.

Do you know what beater movement is? Yeah, I do know.

One of the first...

In fact, the first camera and movie projector had beater movements.

Yeah, well, that's what he built.

All of course, those things aren't good, you know.

No, because you're a frame line.

No, not only that, but it's not steady.

Right.

It's chatterous.

Yeah, yeah.

Anyhow, Victor wanted to get into that kind of a business.

And I worked there, I don't know how long.

All I remember is that I have two union -paid cards because I had to join the union at SNH.

I never belonged to the union before, but I did that.

Then this organization in 1920 started to talk about this Tetrafilm that I finally got to connect...

How do you spell that? T -A -T -R -A.

Tetrafilm.

Tetrafilm.

That's the name of a mountain in Czechoslovakia.

Uh -huh.

And they were talking about making film, making film.

But in the meantime, even while at Rotheker, I was making documentaries about what was going on in Chicago.

Shoestec was one that arranged for that.

I hired Rotheker cameraman.

I had to render camera from Rotheker.

And I hired cameraman, and we got this and whatever we needed.

And we made documentary for Bohemians, documentary for Czechs.

This was through Rotheker then? No, through Rotheker.

That was our political connection.

Very good.

Very good.

And that's where I met my wife too, in one of those affairs.

That's where I photographed Masaryk too, and I photographed Kelly.

Would you tell us about now the films that you were making, because we lost some of that.

The films that you were making, Kelly and so on, it was a documentary.

You were making them for whom now? There were political, not political, but organization of Czechoslovaks in Chicago that gave all kinds of entertainment and tried to raise money for a new republic.

That was the purpose of all of this.

And also to have a record of what was going on.

So I picked up, I got some actresses.

See I belong to a theatrical organization.

I was wondering, because you directed that film so beautifully, that you had had some dramatic training, a good deal of dramatic training.

Had you not? Had you been in the theater at all or done any theatrical work here? Yes, I did.

Tell me about that, because that's really very important.

I really don't know what to say about it.

Maybe later on I'll tell you about it.

Anyhow, what we did is we took a good looking girl from our theatrical organization and photographed her with Colonel so and so.

You know we tried to get a little life into that, a little action, otherwise she just can't stand there and stare in the camera.

So that's the way we were doing things.

So that was with my documentary.

Well I went to Czechoslovakia to make a long film, which I was hesitating because I never made a long film before.

And I talked to my brother about that.

They're asking me to make Janosik.

I never made a long film and he said, don't worry about that.

Long film is easier to make than a short film.

And I said, well, in the same area somebody got to write a scenario.

That depends on scenario.

A whole lot, just like a blueprint in your shop depends on a good blueprint and you produce a good machine.

He said, well, that's very important.

Now where had you learned that? Had you learned that at Selig that a script was a good blueprint? Oh yes, sure.

Sure, sure.

Many times some of those fellows were criticizing, it's written that way, you know.

It's awfully, I can't even explain to you just what was going on in there.

But then said, if it's well written, it's easy to do.

If it's long, it'll be easy to shorten it or to lengthen it.

And it helped a lot to feel that way because the hesitation which I had in the beginning, I kind of lost.

But then we had help there too.

We had a leading man that had a theatrical experience and motion picture experience.

So very often I would turn to him with suggestion.

Now he was from what theater? He was from Prague.

His father owned a theater in Prague.

He was one of those matinee idols.

Had he been in films before? Yes he had.

He was on contract with a motion picture company in Prague and we went to the company and asked them would they loan us PISTECH and they said yes, we'll pay them so and so many dollars and they release him.

Tell me, was he then, since this was the first feature, he had been only in one reelers or rather short films, correct? He was in longer stories but what kind of stories, I don't know.

All I know is that he mentioned going to Berlin or going to Vienna.

In Slovakia they had not come up with a feature.

In Slovakia there was no such a thing but in Bohemia, which is in Prague, they already had an old brewery turned into a motion picture studio and motion picture lab.

That was one of the saddest things.

My brother came with all the equipment.

We carried our own cameras, our own film, everything.

We went to Europe with everything that we needed for film and we were introduced to AB film company and my brother went down there and he looked at that basement in that old brewery and that's where they were developing and printing films.

That's where they were doing all that work, how different it was, how crude it was in comparison to what we had here in Chicago.

But we managed to produce a film.

I managed to put the two negatives together.

We actually had two cameras too, grinding continues.

Which ones were they now? Were they Sea Lake Standard cameras? Yes, Sea Lake Standard and Pathé.

Pathé was left in Europe.

Was it a Pathé portable or a Pathé studio? Pathé studio.

It was used throughout the...

You were there in the summertime.

Because the Pathé cameras were subjected to...

Yeah, they were made out of wood.

Static...

Well, that's something that Dan has been able to overcome at Silly.

Someday I'm going to show you that little thing because that was a small invention, not an invention, a small...

Do you know what year that would have been? Because would it have been before 1920? Oh yes, yes.

Maybe four years before 1920? Oh yes, at least that.

Well then it was one of the first anti -static devices and what was that then? What was the anti -static device? The little plate or little unit that was pressing on negative or other positive.

And the reason why they had to have a pressure block...

Today we have an ice and flat film, you know, this...

Doesn't curl up.

Doesn't curl up.

Those days it had to be kept together.

And it had to have a pressure block and no one seemed to think of anything else but a glass ruby glass so you could look through, you know, and so on.

Everybody used that until later on Bell and Howell came along with automatic changing of lights.

First of all, you'll have to realize that the shoestack printers or rather shoestack silic printers were all cinematograph women, were all alike, just like projectors.

And that's the kind of unit then brought to Europe with him too and we left it there.

How many feet of film could they produce? I really don't know.

In other words, in what lengths? Well, they were always 400 feet.

They could develop continuously 400 feet? The printers would take up to 400 feet and the tanks would take up to 400 feet.

That stayed as a standard even through Rothecker.

Rothecker never had an automatic processing machine like S &A did.

Yes, because S &A could print a thousand foot lengths.

Yeah, well yes they could and they also processed our 28 millimeter film at S &A.

That's how I happened to see their film there, the stereoscopic thing, which I didn't know anything about at that time what they were doing.

That was sort of a hush hush anyhow.

Well, it was also an incorrect theory because it didn't work.

And that was...

I really don't know.

I remember that it had a double image.

Well, it would alternate the image from parallax, one point of view to the other.

It didn't work at all.

All right.

Now, did anyone in that material that you have, Hanselic, mentioned Schustek any other way than that he worked for him or...? No, just that he was...

They had to depend upon him because he was their local resident genius really.

Right.

And you worked then at Rotheker and so on.

And then what did you do then after the...

Well, we were talking about the European...

Your shoot in Slovakia.

Well, while at Rotheker Film Company, I also worked...

See, there wasn't so much of this short stuff sold then.

I worked on a longer commercials with Rotheker, with other cameramen, other directors.

And then also tests were being made on a new animation of Lost World.

A fellow by the name of O 'Brien was at Rotheker.

Rotheker had some kind of an understanding with First Nation that they're going to try to produce a Lost World.

So Dan was taken into this, and Dan was the one that had to design skeletons for all these animals, and then build them.

And together with O 'Brien worked out a system of animals being able to open jaw and even spit out blood and things like that.

All of those things, they worked out together.

My part again was to make some tests of animation, animating these, moving these.

Because later on they were working with living actors.

They were matted in? How were they worked in? Were they miniatures that were matted in, or how was that done? The miniatures were this long and depending on the kind of...

But the rest of it was done in Hollywood.

Done with optical printers then? Was it not? Were optical printers used or matted process? I don't believe.

So it may have been done by masking part of the...

Matt, yeah.

Matt, yeah.

Right.

In printing.

I really don't know how it was done.

All I know about that part is that I made tests there.

That's where I got my little experience in animation.

Did you shoot it then frame by frame? Frame by frame.

Did you know a person by the name of Howard Moss, who was a model animator in Chicago? No.

Because he was...

That could be...

He was one of the great model animators of the day, about 1916, 17, 18, 19.

In the department of animation in Praha gave me a book, the history of animation.

They have everything, everybody mentioned and they trace the...

Look up Howard Moss, will you? And see if he's in there.

Because Moss was one of the great animators and he's hardly ever mentioned.

I...

One of his films was donated to the Art Institute and they have it.

They have a...

It's called...

Cracked Ice.

Are you speaking about drawings? Are you speaking about...

No, I'm speaking about model animation.

The same as that you were dealing with.

Right.

Okay.

We haven't been thorough at all about any of this.

Your feelings when you came to this country, did you feel at all lost? You took the overland trip by train, of course, to Chicago.

But did your brother come with you as that is? Yes.

He came back with your brother.

So you felt much better about that.

We came in second class too.

You know, he had money by that time.

He was well paid over there.

That's why he was able to...

Besides that, my brother took me to Budapest for a whole week.

We lived about six or eight hours by train from Budapest.

And he introduced me to many people there which didn't mean anything to me because...

Whom he had known when he was a student? That's right.

And he treated so many people that he had met.

See, in Budapest, we had an uncle there that had a large wine wholesale house besides having a tavern and restaurant.

So these people were all invited by Dan and then treated everybody and talked about United States and talked about that in Chicago you get nine glasses of beer for five cents.

It was a little pale.

And those fellows couldn't understand it.

So he had to get a jug of some kind to show them just how much a pail of beer is and so on.

But that's the kind of...

No.

Well, you said you were going to say a little bit about your theater.

Now, the theater was really a community theater where you were.

It was a sort of a cooperative outfit.

We all chipped in so much money to start it.

There were all kinds...

Do you speak now your language or...

Yes, Slovak language.

Slovak language, yes.

Okay.

Now, the Bohemian had that kind of a theater before us.

My wife was born in that Bohemian neighborhood and we hired one of the men, member of this theater group to go with us to Europe.

A fellow by name Horley.

The man that played a part of Priest.

Of the Priest.

Anyhow, we thought we had to have at least one Bohemian.

Of course.

Well, anyhow, there were all kinds of little theatrical groups and singing societies throughout Chicago, mainly connected with church.

But no one had an organization where anybody could belong to.

So in our organization, we had socialists whom they call unbelievers.

Then we had Lutherans, Catholics, and we had Serbians.

And so we had so many different members of this organization.

But you spoke what language in the theater? Slovak.

Slovak all in the theater, okay.

All of your people knew Slovak? Those were all, very few born in here.

Most of them were people like myself.

But it was actually started by a socialist organization because they had more guts to go out after those things than they.

Gradually, it grew up into a big, big place.

There must have been a couple of hundred members in there.

They gave at least a dozen plays a year.

And they traveled also to different cities.

All of that is in a souvenir book which I have, which I'll show you.

All right.

How did you learn production? Because I looked at the set of that house that you used, and you used an H -stand then, where it was an H -stand being used, that is for your shot through the window.

Were H -stands being used? Because you had figured out some rather complicated action.

We've done that at Selig.

Because it was quite complicated.

And then those things had been shot on the lot in the back.

How big was that lot? Because I went over there to what's left of the studio, and there's a whole school back there.

Was it a big lot? Well, it was so big that it had a little pool, a little lake there too.

When we were working on a Civil War picture of some kind, and the reason I remember this is because...

Called the Crisis.

Well, whatever it was.

I don't know.

But I remember one of the men, fellow by name Fawcett, George Fawcett.

I think I'd like to see some of those things.

He was one of those fellows that was nice to me when he handed me a roll of film and said, please.

I'm sorry to say, but those things stick in your mind more than anything else when people treat you like you're somebody.

Don't they? And fellow by name H .B.

Warner.

I would like to know if he was a member of Selig because he lived, he died not 15, 20 years ago.

H .B.

Warner was a...

Yes, H .B.

Warner, one of the last films was Lost Horizons, directed by Frank Capra.

Was H .B.

Warner in that film? H .B.

Warner was working at Selig on something, not in his Civil War story.

I don't know that, sir.

No, but H .B.

Warner was there.

Yes, because I projected negative for him.

Very good.

Did you know Kathleen Williams? Oh, yes.

That was one of the first leading ladies my brother introduced me to and my brother told me that I should behave like they do in Europe.

If a lady offers me her hand, I should kiss her.

He said if she doesn't offer, I should just bow.

I got all that information beforehand.

You're going to meet all kinds of people.

It's nice and lousy and some will ignore you, some will call you hunky, but don't pay no attention to that.

We're used to that now.

It wasn't pleasant there.

You know, when I worked at the Perf...

Did the Germans, were the Germans nasty? Most of them not.

They were more or less afraid of Dan.

But the man in charge of Perfrating Room, fellow by the name of Fritz, I don't know his last name, he wasn't nice to me at all and he used to throw orders at me.

I didn't like that.

I talked to Dan and I said, man, he's kind of funny.

So Dan talked to me and said, Fritz, my brother is not in here to take your job.

He's going to go right through on to the other places.

You better get that.

How many people were working there, can you estimate, in the technical end, not in the acting end? Were there as many as 100, do you think? Oh, at least.

At least 100.

And most of them were, had been native born Germans, is that correct you would say? Or were they just from the German community here? Well, there were some, there was a Norwegian that was very proud of his heritage because a man in charge of a machine shop after Shustak left was a fellow by the name Johnson.

And he was also proud of his heritage.

And they got into each other's hair sometime talking about, they don't like each other.

That I could understand because we also didn't like Madja, but then Sweden, Norwegian species.

Always have been at each other's neck.

And there were two Bohemians there, one Slovak, and that was in his shop.

Now throughout the plant, it was mainly people that live not far away from there.

So there were a lot of Germans because they lived...

They lived near there.

I remember that neighborhood.

And I remember that on one, okay, maybe a couple of occasion, we sort of are close the shop almost, and all of us were asked to go out on Western Avenue there or across the street into that.

During that Civil War picture, I remember that real well.

We were all going there to play part of a mob.

And sometime it happened more often in summer, seldom in winter.

I think Selig didn't go out in winter.

It wasn't very pleasant.

No, it was horrible.

Tell me, Colin Campbell, do you remember the name Colin Campbell? He was one of Selig's great directors.

I just was wondering if...

I probably saw him.

He was the one that directed the Civil War.

Oh, that might've been...

And also he directed the spoilers.

Do you remember the name? That's the very one.

That I was more interested in that than any other picture.

That was made though on the West Coast, but it was developed back here, right? And scenes were made in here too.

That's what I wanted to know.

Tell me about that.

Well, they fight inside in the...

Dustin Farnham.

Dustin Farnham, yes, and Tom Sanchi.

Who had worked there as a handyman for a while before he became an actor.

Yes, that's right.

They stayed that fight at Selig there.

In Chicago.

In Chicago, yes.

How I happened to be present when they were...

You saw the fight.

Well, part of it.

But there was something else.

During that fight, there was a sack of gold involved in there.

That was to be hidden from somebody.

I don't know the story.

I saw the film, I remember the story, but I remember that one man threw that sack of gold into a potbelly stove, which was not lit, of course.

And the gold sack went down and tripped the ash, what you call it, went down into the ashes.

And that was something very important because it had something to do with the story.

What it had to do with the story, I don't know.

But then had the problem of devising something whereby that ash or that...

The grate.

Would flip and show that thing falling down.

And that took a long time to figure it out.

But that's why Dan called me to some of those scenes.

Also, another one.

During that Civil War picture, they had a little lake there in the yard and there were two model boats built there.

They were models, though.

They were not pigmen.

And they were shooting at each other.

And Dan had a problem of devising, releasing an I can tell compounder, which was shot out of the thing.

How did he do that? I don't know.

But a few years back when we were in California, we went to Universal Studio and they have that kind of a scene that they put on for...

Now, they shot those in Hollywood later on in slow motion.

Did you use slow motion in your model scenes at all to give it more of a lifelike quality? Or did you shoot it straight at 16 frames per second? No, we used slow motion and fast motion, too.

In scenes.

So in other words, for the model scenes, you think you used slow motion, perhaps? For the model scenes that I photographed, we used all one -to -one.

But the fast motion and slow motion we used when we were making comedies.

That was very important.

What about your lighting in the studio? Do you remember the kinds of lights...

Did they use Cooper Hewitts? Cooper Hewitts, yes.

And then what others? The regular arc lights? Arc lights were used, too.

We used arc lights even...

They hurt the actors' eyes because initially they weren't covered.

And so the dust, the carbon dust got in their eyes.

Yes.

And Cooper Hewitt lights were not very practical because of the sensitivity of a monochrome film.

Yes.

We used yellow powder for shirts and faces and gloves and everything to subdue the glare.

How did red show up on monochrome film? As black? Yeah, it would show up.

It showed up as black, didn't it? Really red so that they had to avoid red.

Did you ever hear of a film called The Landing? The Coming of Columbus that was done by Selig in about 1911? Did you know any directors other than Colin Campbell? Did you know, remember any of them? Otis Turner? Did you ever hear of Otis Turner? I can't tell you that.

If I was introduced to him, I remember very few people.

Only those that then introduced me.

And he did introduce you to Kathleen Williams? He did.

She was one of the leading ladies.

She was from Butte, Montana.

Well, then introduced me to some people that he was kind of interested in.

He thought I had to...

Remember Tom Mix.

Did Tom Mix come to the studio? No, you see, that's something that I don't understand at all.

I don't know anything about Tom Mix.

But I read somewhere in the publication that he was at Selig.

I didn't know that he was.

Yes, but he shot out in Arizona.

So there would be no reason unless Selig wanted him back in Chicago for something.

You know, they shot out in, first of all, in Colorado and then in Arizona.

But Selig had a ranch there and that's where they shot.

So there would be no reason for it.

Did you ever hear of Bosworth? Yes.

Can you tell me anything about him? Because he hated Chicago.

He said they would always send damaged stock to them.

And sometimes even non -perforated stock.

I don't understand.

That was before your time there, though.

That was...

That could be.

It was, yeah, years before your time.

When Dan and I were coming to Chicago, we stopped in New York.

Selig asked Dan, stop in New York to go to such and such a studio on Coney Island.

I don't know who was on Coney Island, but we took a subway from Manhattan to Coney Island and then took me into this place and asked me to sit in the office there and wait for him while he met somebody there.

I think the man's name was Chenier, a Frenchman, a chemist, that later came to Selig.

And Dan and Chenier worked together on solving many problems.

Chenier was in charge of lab.

Had he come from Parfait, United States? I don't know what he came from.

I don't even know the name of a firm that was on Coney Island.

But Dan never told me that.

Dan seemed to know him and they became very good friends.

When Chenier wanted a device to measure the squareness of film.

There are many ways of measuring the right perforation and division and so on.

When Chenier wanted all of those things, he turned to Dan.

Dan, such and such a perforator is out of square.

Such and such a perforator is short, in a thousand or something like that.

Dan had to go into the perforating room and make the adjustments and so on.

They were kind of screwed.