This Day in Film History (Birth of Sidney Olcott, Silent Film Pioneer)

September 20, 1873—Sidney Olcott, a pioneer of filmmaking in both the United States and Ireland, was born in Toronto, Canada, on this date.

Olcott made his mark in film in several ways. First, as the first director of Kalem Studios in 1907, he chose to film one of the great stage extravaganzas of the late 19th and early 20th centuries: the chariot scene in Ben-Hur. The film—with this scene as the centerpiece and a final others tacked on—lasted only 15 minutes, and was done without copyright permission. This enraged the Henry Wallace, the son of novelist General Lew Wallace, and in a landmark lawsuit the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the family’s favor.

Olcott had better luck with his other films—at least, as far as staying on the good side of lawyers was concerned. Priests and politicians—well, that was another matter.

Being of Irish descent, he decided, when given a chance to shoot on location, to film in the land of his forbears. The film he shot in Killarney, The Lad From Old Ireland, is believed to be the first American movie made on location outside the U.S. After the success of that 1910 film, he returned the next summer to Beaufort, where over 18 weeks he shot 17 films—an even more remarkable achievement when you consider that area was not electrified at the time. (He supposedly claimed that he enjoyed working with the Irish population because they were all natural actors.)

On the set of his third film, a priest denounced the “tramp photographers”—i.e., Kalem Studios—for disturbing the peace of his parishioners, including through a scene with actors with painted faces making love before the camera in a churchyard. Members of the studio who happened to be faithful Catholics and in attendance at this sermon attempted to reason with the padre, to no avail. So they did what any smart Catholic would do—appeal to the local bishop, who not only forced the priest to apologize but had him transferred, too.

Several Olcott films dealt with Irish nationalism—a theme that didn’t sit well with British censors of the time. Protests by British authorities about Olcott’s treatment of two historical incidents—the rebellions of 1798 and 1803—led to the director temporarily resorting to less controversial subject matter.

In 1912, Olcott tackled his most ambitious project to date, the first feel-reel film ever, From the Manger to the Cross. Now, often filming the life of Christ is one of those cases where angels fear to tread. But Olcott’s film was acclaimed as a masterpiece and made his studio a nice little bundle of cash.