Looking for Mabel Normand

TCM MAY 5 Tuesday
8:00 PM Ramona (1910)
In this silent short, a rancher's daughter runs off with a Native.
Cast: Mary Pickford, Henry B. Walthall, Francis J. Grandon. Dir:
D.W. Griffith. C-17 mins,

 

As William M. Drew has drawn our attention to the importance of 1910 in the history of Hollywood and in particular the dramatic film Ramona created in 1910 in southern California at his new website, if you haven't gone there and read his proposal for the celebration the centennial, of the establishment of the movie star system and the film industry in Los Angeles, please do.

http://william-m-drew.webs.com/index.htm

His erudite and learned discussion made me think that perhaps I should write something about the film, Ramona.

It was in 1910, and according to the registry at the Piru Hotel, Mary Pickford was there during the first part of April while filming the Griffith adaptation of Ramona.  Griffith over and over again pointed out the prejudiced in his films. He used the Piru Hotel, the Rancho Camulos as background for the film; it was thought that the author was inspired by these locations when she wrote her fantasy of early California life. 

Mabel Normand did not accompany the troupe to California on that trip; she came in the following year to make “Mender of Nets”, etc. with Mary Pickford, Griffith and rest of the Biograph band of players.

“Ramona, A Story of the White Man’s Injustice to the Indian”

(Biograph 1910), is a single reel, 995feet, +/- 17 minute film, which was release May 23, 1910 filmed at Rancho Camulos, Piru and San Gabriel, California. The Library of Congress has a copy of this film and it is very much in public domain with a copy of the full film available on YouTube.

                         http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PE8Q9f9e5Y

                                  DW Griffith's Ramona on YouTube

D.W. Griffith got Biograph to obtain the rights to use the Helen Hunt Jackson 1884 novel from Little Brown and Co to create a film from this very popular novel, they paid $100.  It was reported to be one of the most expensive motion pictures that the studio ever made; it is also thought that it was the first movie to credit the location of the filming.

Ramona was directed by D. W. Griffith, the cinematographer was G. W. Bitzer.  Helen Hunt Jackson had written the original book but Stanner Taylor and D. W. Griffith adapted it for the screen. 

The cast:

Mary Pickford              Ramona, a half-Scottish, half-Indian girl

Henry B. Walthall        Alessandro

Francis J. Grandon       Felipe, Ramona’s stepbrother

Kate Bruce                   Ramona’s stepmother

W. Chrystie Miller       The Priest

Dorothy Bernard

Gertrude Claire             Woman in West

Robert Harron

Dell Henderson             Man at burial

Frank Opperman           Ranch hand

Anthony O’Sullivan     Ranch hand

Jack Pickford                A boy

Mack Sennett                White Exploiter

Charles West                Native American man in chapel

Dorothy West               Woman in chapel

Plot:

“Ramona, a young girl growing up on her adoptive mother's rancho in California, falls in love with the Indian lad Alessandro. When Ramona is denied permission to marry Alessandro, the two lovers elope, only to find a life of great hardship and unhappiness amidst the bigotry and greed of the white landowners”. written by Jim Beaver

Odd as it may seem Ramona although the most enduringly popular individual connected with California Mission period did not really exist at all.  The mistreatment of the Mission Indians by Angelo-Americans was the center of the novel as well as Griffith’s film, however the readers were enchanted by the romanticized Spanish/Mexican California and the interest generated by the story encouraged a mythical tourist industry.  The fictitious “Ramona Home and Marriage Place” and other tourist attractions dotted the landscape by the time Griffith and his Biograph troupe came to California.  The "wheelers and dealers" packaged the Ramona milieu to entice visitors to California in hopes of selling land in the sunshine state. The idea of Ramona became a marketing tool although she never existed outside of Jackson mind's eye.

The book has never been out of print since 1884, Griffith in 1910 made only the first of the four motion pictures based on the novel, there has also been music and the very popular annual pageant based on Ramona. Mary Pickford made perhaps 50 films in 1910 while working for Biograph Studios on both the East and West Coast. She was reported to be the “most elaborate and artistic movie star yet," and she was Ramona too.