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James Stuart Blackton


RichardB

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Date of Birth

5 January 1875, Sheffield, Yorkshire, England, UK

Date of Death

13 August 1941, California, USA (road accident)

Birth Name

James Stuart Blackton

Mini Biography

J. Stuart Blackton came to the US with his family from Sheffield, England, in 1885 at age 10, settling in New York. He became friends with Albert E. Smith - who later became his business partner and headed Vitagraph Studios - in 1894 and they started a short-lived vaudeville act together. Blackton went to work as a reporter for the "New York Evening World" newspaper, and an interview with Thomas A. Edison one day in 1896 piqued his interest in the film business. He later quit his job at the paper and bought a Kinetoscope projecting machine from Edison. He and his ex-vaudeville partner Smith joined forces and exhibited films all over the city, a venture that proved so profitable they quickly moved from exhibition to production. They made their first film in 1898, The Burglar on the Roof (1898/I), for release through Edison, but soon became disenchanted with that company (in addition to becoming involved in legal wrangling with it) and began their own company, American Vitagraph, with partner William T. Rock in 1900. Blackton acted in some productions but his main focus was in directing. He eventually left that field and became supervisor of all of the company's productions. He left the company in 1917 to go into independent production. He also worked as a director for hire for many studios, but did a lot of work for Warner Bros. He died in a car accident in California in 1941.

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The secret is revealed ...

Sometimes he did the routine in a spangled dress and wig and called himself Mademoiselle Stuart.

here.

The full, sordid details of Stuart's weekend-pastime revealed

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Little Nemo (1911)

The Vitagraph Co. of America

James Stuart Blackton and Winsor McCay directed a ten-minute short film based on the comic strip, of which two minutes were animated. The film was first released on April 8, 1911.[3] The first animated effort of McCay, it later achieved the status of an early animated classic.

Its on screen title is Winsor McCay, the Famous Cartoonist of the N.Y. Herald and his Moving Comics, but it is usually referred to as Little Nemo.

This version was named to the National Film Registry in December 2009.

Remarkable

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Struggling to find The Haunted Hotel (1907)

Can anyone else please ? I'm not good with film; maybe there is hope for me in Transport yet !

Here is mention of it - with a woman with a brush on her head ...

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The Thieving Hand on YouTube

It appears to load the whole film before playing, and I can't get the embedding to work.

Excellent find Madannie, Thank you - the place I was looking said it was removed due to ... blah, blah, blah.

Enjoyed that. A precuror to "The Hands of Orlac" aka Mad Love - with Peter Lorre maybe. Not seen that one in about 35 years.

I can't get any embedding to work

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