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25 An Artcraft Picture. Produced by the Mary Pickford Film Corporation. Director : Cecil B. DeMille. Original story by Cecil B. DeMille and Jeanie Macpherson. Scenario by Jeanie Macpherson. Art director: Wilfred Buckland. Photography : Alvin Wyckoff Picture started: February 17, 1917. Picture finished: March 23, 1917. Length: 6,574feet (seven reels). Cost: $1 34,83 I.65 (includes $96,666.67 in Mary Pickford's salary charged to the picture). Released: May 14, 1917. Gross: $424.718.52 Cast: Mary Pickford Uenny Lawrence), Elliott Dexter ("Black" Brown), Charles Ogle Uim Lyn), Tully Marshall (Sam Sparks, a gambler), Raymond Hatton (Dick Roland, a miner), Walter Long (the sheriff), and Winter Hall Uohn Lawrence, Jenny's uncle) As Adolph Zukor negotiated the Famous Players-Lasky merger in mid-1916, he was also involved in negotiations to retain the services of his number one box-office star, Mary Pickford. On June 24, 1916, Zukor signed a contract with Pickford that called for Mary to receive a salary of $10,000 a week, with a $300,000 bonus for signing, 50 percent of the profits from her pictures produced under the contract, and an additional $40,000 for a month's layoff that resulted while she was renegotiating the terms of her employment. The contract also called for Pickford to be given her own studio in the East. Ifher pictures were made in California, Mary Pickford was to have the exclusive use of a stage on the Lasky lot in Hollywood. The average Paramount release of the time cost about $20,000 to produce. Under her new contract the Pickford pictures cost five to six times that figure. Existing contracts with Paramount-affiliated theaters simply didn't allow the distributor to pass on the inflated production costs to exhibitors. To put it bluntly, Paramount couldn't afford Pickford. On September 2, 1916, a four-page advertising spread in The Moving Picture World announced the formation of the Mary Pickford Film Corporation and stated that Pickford's films would be released through a new company, Artcraft Pictures Corporation. 103 104 / Cecil B. DeMille's Hollywood Artcraft was not bound by Paramount's block-booking contracts, and the Pickford pictures were offered on significantly higher guarantees and percentages than the standard program fare. Paramount exhibitors were understandably upset when they learned that they had lost Pickford and even more so when they noticed an odd coincidence. W.E. Greene and Al Lichtman, the president and general manager of Artcraft, were former Paramount employees. Theater owners had little choice but to bite the bullet and pay the higher ante if they wanted future Pickford releases. Paramount pictures were generally conceded to be the best films available, and few wanted to terminate their Paramount contracts for less-desirable product. Besides , Fox Film Corporation was already contracted with its own theaters . The Mutual Film Corporation had Charlie Chaplin under contract, but the balance of the Mutual program was often second-rate. Universal offered quantity over quality, and Metro always seemed to be on shaky ground. The Triangle Film Corporation provided Paramount's stiffest competition, offering productions supervised by D.W. Griffith, Thomas H. Ince, and Mack Sennett and starring popular actors like Douglas Fairbanks, William S. Hart, Lillian and Dorothy Gish, and Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. But despite the box-office value of its filmmakers and stars, the company's highly restrictive distribution policies brought Triangle to the brink of financial ruin.1 Just as theater owners became aware that Artcraft was merely a front created by Zukor to squeeze the highest possible dollar in film rentals, they had to face the fact that Zukor was moving behind the scenes to consolidate his position. Within a year the industry was rocked with a series of announcements: the Douglas Fairbanks Pictures Corporation was formed and would release through Artcraft; D.W. Griffith signed with Artcraft in March 1917; Thomas Ince signed in June 1917; and William S. Hart Productions, Inc., also announced its affiliation with Artcraft. To soften the blow, Zukor signed Mack Sennett to produce tworeel Paramount-Sennett Comedies, and picked up Roscoe Arbuckle's Comique Film Corporation comedies for Paramount release. With these additions to the Paramount and Artcraft rosters, Adolph Zukorcontrolled the filmmaking activities ofnearly all the top stars in the movies, with the exception of Charlie Chaplin. The first two pictures of the Mary Pickford Film Corporation were Less Than the Dust (Artcraft, 1916) directed by John Emerson, which was generally considered to be the worst picture the...

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