Silent Films in St. Augustine by Thomas Graham (review)

Silent Films in St. Augustine is a relatively short book reporting the history of the rise and fall of silent films in the Ancient City. Thomas Graham writes with clarity, providing carefully documented information without burying the reader under an avalanche of minutiae. A considerable number of photographs, some from the author's collection, richly illustrate film scenes and vivify bygone directors and actors.

The work is organized into eight chronological chapters, starting with "First Exposures, 1906–1911" and concluding with "Into the Sunset, 1919 to 'The End.'" Dividing chapters into accounts of film companies that sojourned in St. Augustine, Florida, Graham chronicles the comings and goings of hundreds of people, such as Oliver Hardy, Florenz Ziegfeld and Billie Burke, and Rudolph Valentino. Interesting anecdotes prevent the book from becoming a simple parade of names, however. Graham includes, for example, the mystery of Ethel Barrymore's lost pearls and fourteen-year-old Mary Miles Minter's bid to become "'America's Sweetheart'" until she became embroiled in a murder investigation (p. 83).

The author successfully contextualizes specific events within the history of the early film industry. He notes the evolution of films from flickers to multiple reels and describes the significance of "block bookings" and the migration of film studios to California (p. 144). Graham also tackles some broader national contexts without losing sight of his primary focus. For instance, he records how America's entry into World War I resulted in a substantial rise in admission prices to generate tax money. He describes the futile attempt to implement "heatless" and "lightless" days to conserve coal and details school and theater closures that were necessitated by the Spanish flu epidemic (p. 140).

Throughout the work, Graham emphasizes the role of St. Augustine's citizenry. He describes enthusiastic crowds who watched the filming and includes portions of observer interviews originally published in local newspapers. Graham also writes about the importance of "supers" or extras (p. 12). The Edison film company, for example, employed hundreds of men from the area, both black and white, to recreate a Zulu uprising in Rorke's Drift (1914). Illustrating that moviemaking and public relations sometimes coalesced, Graham writes about contests that aimed both to pique interest and to find young women who would act in the films.

The star of the book, without doubt, is St. Augustine itself. Employing reviews of movies wholly or partially filmed in the city, Graham chooses commentaries on the beauty and versatility of the city's settings. The buildings, gardens, beaches, and other local environs became exotic Spain, Italy, South America, Africa, and Egypt. Graham notes that filmmakers used locations shrewdly; George Terwilliger, for example, transformed buildings burned out during the 1914 fire into a destroyed South American town in The Insurrection (1915). Even when reviewers panned a film, according to Graham, they still touted the sets. As he writes of My Lady Incog. (1916), "As usual, the reviews were kinder to the cinematography than to the storyline" (p. 82).

Although Graham likely had no intention of writing a guidebook to the Ancient City, he lures denizens of the city, tourists, and historians to visit extant film locations. That would certainly include Henry M. Flagler's Hotel Ponce de Leon, now part of Flagler College, and the grounds that became the Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park. With Silent Films in St. Augustine in hand, a pilgrimage could be especially rewarding.