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DURING NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 1907, FRANCIS BOGGS DIRECTED A thousand-foot version of Alexandre Dumas’ nineteenth-century international best seller, The Count of Monte Cristo. With its title shortened to Monte Cristo, the film was actually a fourteen-minute adaptation of highlights from the popular theatrical version of the novel, which continued to be performed into the early twentieth century.1 Like Selig’s production of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Monte Cristo was clearly a prestige production, intended to expand the nickelodeon’s audience by attracting admirers of the book and play.2 Boggs’ direction reflects the theatrical roots of the adaptation from the very start of the film, as a curtain reading “Act I” rises to reveal the opening sequence; titled curtains are utilized to introduce all five “acts” (scenes) of the film. The scenery consists of a well-blended mix of period furniture and props in front of backdrops incorporating painted perspectives that add depth to the overall setting. A subtle man-made breeze impels a flag to wave amidst the simulated exteriors shot inside Selig’s Chicago studio. The performers make entrances and exits onto the set from stage-left and -right, and directly address the camera/audience in a melodramatic fashion. They are generally centered within the frame and always photographed head on. Another theatrical motif incorporated into the mise-en-scène is the small chain fence that borders the front of the stage on which the actors perform. The highlight of the theatrical version of The Count of Monte Cristo occurs when protagonist Edmond Dantes escapes years of island imprisonment and safely crawls ashore to freedom, raises his arms and declares, “The world is mine!” Selig and Boggs agreed that this famous scene should be photographed C H A P T E R 4 Selig in Eden T H E G E N E S I S O F M O V I E S I N L O S A N G E L E S COL . WILLIAM N. SELIG ∙ 78 ∙ not in the studio but on an actual beach. Since the Chicago winter precluded any actor from emerging out of nearby Lake Michigan to re-create the familiar declaration, Selig authorized Boggs and cameraman-factotum Thomas Persons to travel to Southern California and stage the scene on a Pacific beach. The decision could not have been an easy one for Selig. Found guilty of infringing on Edison’s camera patents little more than a month earlier, the Selig Polyscope Company was more than ever on the verge of extinction. Because his financial resources were obviously impacted by this latest round of legal setbacks and he had been ordered by the court to desist from operating the cameras on which his livelihood depended, William Selig took a huge gamble, guided by the strength of his convictions. He and Boggs shared a radical vision of how the inclusion of such a realistic moment in Monte Cristo amidst an otherwise artificial theatrical presentation might have a transformative effect on the audience and cinema in general, attracting new spectators and thus equipping Selig with the financial resources and prestige he needed in order to persevere. Conversely, if his company was about to be shut down for good, at least Selig would go out with a noteworthy production to be proud of. It helped that Boggs had a young son living in California with a former wife whom he could visit during the Christmas season and thus assume some of the traveling expenses. Boggs and Persons arrived in Los Angeles and hired an impoverished dimemuseum hypnotist for $1.50 to double for the actor who played Dantes back in Chicago. The three took a Pacific Electric streetcar from downtown LA to what appears to be Laguna Beach’s dramatic Three Arches rock formations. Tom Persons cranked the camera in anticipation of Edmond Dantes emerging from the ocean, but the hypnotist didn’t surface. The cameraman and Boggs plunged into the water, primarily to save the actor’s rented wig and beard to protect their $10 deposit. Persons had to fork over an extra 50 cents before the nearly drowned hypnotist would agree to a retake.3 In the finished film, after Dantes is mistaken for a corpse and tossed from the top of the prison wall, the scene abruptly cuts from the artificiality of the Chicago studio to a spectacular view of waves crashing against a rocky coastline . The next shot shows the Dantes stunt double tentatively...

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