In the late 1920s, sound films-known as talkies-gave filmmakers new ways of storytelling and ushered in the Hollywood studio system that dominated filmmaking until midcentury. The hero stops the train by burning down a railroad bridge. Filmed in Cottage Grove using extras from the Oregon National Guard, The General is the story of a train engineer whose sweetheart and train ( The General) are captured by Union forces. This economic impact was demonstrated in 1926, when Buster Keaton produced and starred in The General, which cost $750,000 to produce. In 1916, the Portland Chamber of Commerce tried to woo Hollywood filmmakers to Oregon by touting the state’s scenery, weather, and even its light. The economic potential of filmmaking was becoming evident throughout the state. Still, the Board of Motion Picture Censors continued to do its work until it was declared unconstitutional in 1961. Movies were growing in popularity among the middle class, and censors aimed to protect the public from what some believed were immoral and unwholesome images and ideas. The economics of the industry-which was producing a million dollars of revenue in Portland, according to a 1915 Oregonian report-empowered theater owners to challenge and sometimes even ignore censors.

Censors objected to such movies as Harry Shaw’s Dash for Liberty (1913), Sapho (1914), Traffic in Souls (1913), and The Valley of the Missing (1915), but approved the controversial The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Kreutzer Sonata (1915). Responding to public concerns about the offerings at its dozens of movie theaters, the City of Portland established an advisory Censor Board in 1911 and a Board of Motion Picture Censors with enforcement power in 1914. Watching films-especially those dealing frankly with sex-could also be controversial. The film included a simulated stagecoach robbery, an attack by Indians, and a much-criticized scene of horses injured in a long-distance race. Where Cowboy Is King, a documentary by the American Lifeograph Company in Portland, depicted the 1914 Pendleton Round-Up. The film, which starred former Broadway actress Grace Fiero, included footage of Crater Lake, Payne’s Gulch, Medford, Ashland, and the Siskiyou Pass. Grace's Visit to the Rogue Valley, for example, was exhibited in 1915 to promote southern Oregon at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. The combination of period buildings and diverse outdoor locations seems to have been attractive to early filmmakers, who quickly found their way around the state. That same year Selig converted an old mansion in Los Angeles to a production studio-a movie factory-and kicked off the West Coast expansion of the film industry.įrom 1908 to 1929, almost fifty full-length silent films were shot in Oregon. The Coast Guard rescues the groom-to-be and delivers him to the wedding.

She chooses, but the unsuccessful suitor has his rival shanghaied.

Shot in Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia River, the film shows two men vying for a young woman’s hand. One of the first feature films made in the state was The Fisherman’s Bride, a 1908 silent film produced by Col. In the 1920s, theater owners and print media developed Oregon newsreel content-including Screenland News, the Webfoot Weekly, and Oregonian Screen Review-which lasted throughout that decade. By 1897, local documentary films were being made, including Fishing on the Willamette (1897), The Portland Fire Department (1901), Decoration Day Parade (1902), Panoramic View of the Columbia (1904), and Opening Ceremonies of the Lewis & Clark Exposition Grounds (1905). Soon early films were being projected in theaters, first at Cordray’s Opera House in Portland. Motion pictures debuted in Oregon in 1894 when a kinetoscope arrived in Portland. The innovative technology allowed boxing matches, vaudeville acts, and other popular entertainment to be shown in penny arcades and peepshows and, after 1906, on the nickelodeon.

80s movie production companies