Silver Screen Craftsmen, Pt. 2- Lessley/Arbuckle/Normand/Keaton Collaborations

In "Behind the Scenes with Fatty and Mabel," from the April 1916 issue of Picture Play Weekly, Wil Rex wrote that the Fort Lee Triangle Studio was hectic and bristling with movie-making goings on.  Roscoe Arbuckle had constructed a banister, which was rather costly, according to the financial papers of the production, over $1,000. Roscoe was planning to tumble down the stairs and the railing needed to support his weight. Roscoe supervised the construction of a set.  After all, it was his neck on the steps.  With the help of a dozen prop men the banister was made and tested. Elgin Lessley was waiting on the sideline. Lessley is described [in the article] as an “intrepid cameraman, who has the reputation of turning out the clearest films of any Keystone crank turner and was loading his film magazines” as the banister was being tested.  Intrepid indeed. Elgin had traveled in the Far East just 3 years earlier. In 1913, he was single, 27 years old and in Yokohama with just 2 suitcases. He returned to the States on a Toyo Kisen Kaisha steamer. It was a lovely steamliner and a grand way to travel. The Toyo Kisen Kaisha had the fastest steamers on the Pacific route and was able to easily make 19 knots. It had accommodations for 275 first-class passengers (54 second-class and 800 steerage). The steamer was 440 feet long and 50 feet in breadth; powered by twin screws 17,000 horsepower turbine engines. And now here he was in Fort Lee, New Jersey in the middle of winter, having left sunny Los Angeles with his wife, Blanche; Ferris Hartman, the comic musical producer and his wife, Josie Hart, stage actress; Roscoe Arbuckle, director and star; Minta Durfee, film star and Mrs. Arbuckle; Mabel Normand, Joe Bordeau, also known as Boudreaux; and Al St. John [Arbuckle's nephew], who made $60 a week. It was a train full of fun makers that made the trip to New York the day after Christmas 1915. Roscoe Arbuckle "confessed” to Ray Frohman in 1919 that “Elgin Lessley was the only man who ever photographed Fatty for the screen (unless two or three cameras were being used at once).” Before he became the cinematographer on Buster Keaton’s most memorable films, he was with Mabel and Roscoe. Back in 1916 at the Triangle East Coast Studios, Roscoe Arbuckle and Mabel Normand arrived from California to make comedies in Fort Lee. Mabel made He Did and He Didn’t and Bright Lights...Roscoe made seven films, including The Waiters’ Ball. Without Mack Sennett to supervise, Roscoe created a new style of comedy at Fort Lee, New Jersey. According to Richard Koszarski, Roscoe was trying to add scenic beauty to comedy not just kicks and pies. Elgin was the right man to film these films.

Elgin Lessley was born June 10, 1883 in Monteau, Randolph County, Missouri, his father was Shelton and his mother was Orpha Brooks.  He had a large family, sisters; Nettie, Ora; and Elgin’s Uncles Herbert and Claude Brooks, his mother’s brothers, plus as a little boy Elgin’s grandfather Burton Brooks also lived with the Lessleys.  In 1910, the family moved from Missouri to Colorado Springs, Colorado where the family opened a department store where all the members of the family worked.  Elgin was the window trimmer at the department store his father owned. During the First World War, 1918, when he filled out his military resignation he was married to Blanche and they were living in Culver City, California. Blanche was born in Colorado. Elgin was employed by the Roscoe Arbuckle Film Co in Long Beach California as a cameraman. The couple was living near First and Beverly Blvd., in Los Angeles.  Lessley had made a real name for himself as a cinematographer by 1920.

(Pictured at left- Buster Keaton, Roscoe Arbuckle, Al St. John)  

Buster Keaton inherited Elgin from Roscoe Arbuckle, a very lucky pairing indeed. [Fun Factoid]- by 1923 Buster was the most popular comedian with the U.S. Navy as his film “The Three Ages," his first feature-length Metro comedy was shown on ships. Our Hospitality was filmed by Elgin and was directed by and starred Keaton. This was a delightful film, with the photography done by Elgin and direction by Buster. Its working title was "The Rocket."  It was a family movie- Joseph Keaton, Buster’s father, has the part of the train engineer, his son Buster Keaton II, shows real promise as he cries beautifully, and more beauty is found in the person of Natalie Talmadge, Buster’s wife.   By 1924, there was no comedy film star making better pictures then the team of Keaton/Lessley.  Edward McPherson in BUSTER KEATON: Tempest in a Flat Hat, tells of an effect, which was indicative to the genius of this pairing.  McPherson explains a sequence effect of a split of the screen into nine fragments, "courtesy of a custom-designed shuttered light proof casing that fit over the camera. . . . To create the minstrels, the shutters simply were opened one at a time, with the film rewound in between. However, mechanical precision was not enough. It took the steady arm of cameraman Elgin Lessley -- the human metronome -- to crank each exposure at exactly the same speed. And then -- to achieve onscreen synchronicity -- Buster had to give nine flawless, identical performances.”                                                  

This sequence can be found in a film called “The Playhouse” (1921) [see photos above], a true collaborative effort between Keaton and Lessley. The camera lens would have needed to be taped within ten-thousandth of an inch.  Elgin said it couldn’t be done but they managed it. A lightproof black box was built that fit over the camera; this was kept as a secret for years. 

[Memorable title card from dream sequence in The Playhouse- after establishing shots showing Keaton as every stagehand, musician, performer, & member of the audience, a final shot of two Keatons sitting in the box seats as one peruses the playbill & deadpans to his date (also Keaton), "This fellow Keaton seems to be the whole show."]

Although Elgin Lessley was on that eastbound train with Arbuckle and Normand in 1915, he is best remembered for his groundbreaking camera work with Buster Keaton. He was only 60 when he died in Los Angeles on February 8, 1944. No contemporary obituary has been located. 

A listing of Elgin Lessley's films can be found here. 

(Lessley article excerpts courtesy of www.theasc.com and http://www.freewebs.com/looking-for-mabel/elginlessley.htm) 

-Maureen Lang

Comments

[David]

A very nice post, thank you. Do you plan
on covering Haskell Wexler in a future post ?
Also for future comments, how do you prefer to be addressesd as ?

Best,
David

[Maureen Lang]

Glad you enjoyed reading this post, David. I may do more about film craftsmen in the future- just thought I'd get a couple in before this year's Academy Awards. We can of course discuss Haskell Wexler's extraordinary contributions to cinematography here in the comments.
Wexler has quite a comprehensive personal website- here's a link to its filmography page:

http://www.haskellwexler.com/HaskellWexler.Com/Filmography.html

*Calling me Maureen, as Pat does, is fine. No address at all is fine also. Lang is my maiden name btw.

[mike]

Thanks for the posting, especially the info on Elgin. IMHO good cinematography is the key to a good movie. Without it, no actor, screenwriter or director can thrive.

Again this year I will mainly be going to the big screen movie houses to see those films that were nominated for the "Best Cinematography" category. The best actor/actress/director nowadays seem to be just a popularity contest.

[Al Spafford]

Delightful bit of flim history. My father's favorite actor was Buster Keaton, more so than even Chaplin. Now, a 3rd generation, my daughter, has been studying the silents and volunteers at a restored movie theater that often runs the silents. And guess what....her favorite is Buster (and did not know until I mentioned that was her grandfather's as well) Must be a genetic propensity there!

[David]

Maureen,

Thank you for the above link. When ever I hear a Woody Guthrie,
tune, I think of the film about his life "Bound for Glory" for
which Mr. Wexler was the cinematographer. I think that film has some of the best cinimatography of any film ever made.

David

[Maureen Lang]

mike,

The Academy's Best Cinematography category this year includes a b/w entry not to be missed (if hopefully it's playing somewhere in your area), "The White Ribbon (Das Weisse Band)." Highly recommended for the work of Christian Berger, who also lensed "Cache (Hidden)" & "The Piano Teacher."

Al Spafford,

Glad to hear your daughter is taking an interest in silent film. I spent many hours during college in the now defunct Silent Movie Theatre on Fairfax Blvd. here in L.A. enthralled by the work of Keaton, Chaplin, Lloyd, von Stroheim, DeMille, Murnau, etc, etc. Cheapest movie ticket in town, & the hardest wooden seats. We used to bring our own seat cushions (seriously).
There is something quite wonderful about the films of Buster Keaton though, isn't there? I share the sentiments of critic Walter Kerr, who wrote in "The Silent Clowns" that the 1st time he saw a Keaton film he was stunned by the way it managed to completely engage him, something he described as akin to "psyche locking to psyche."

David,

On your recommendation, I'm going to rent "Bound for Glory" & watch it again- haven't seen it in a long time, & had forgotten that Wexler was behind the camera on that one. Thanks for the tip.

I've got my own movie tip for commenters interested in extraordinary contemporary cinematography- any of the films that Haskell Wexler lensed for director John Sayles, among them "Limbo" & "The Secret of Roan Inish."

[JFF]

Gregg Toland. The Best Years of Our Lives. Citizen Kane. 'Nuff said.

[Maureen Lang]

JFF,

Gregg Toland, by Orson Welles own admission, taught Welles everything he knew about how to film a movie when they were prepping "Citizen Kane." Ever the gentleman, Toland showed Welles the ropes in private meetings, so as to not point out camera basics to a greenhorn director on the set in front of his crew & actors. As you no doubt are aware, Toland was a master of deep focus shots; he basically invented/perfected the technique. Deep focus shots well utilized in both films you mention.

Here's a nice write up on Toland's career:

http://www.cinematographers.nl/GreatDoPh/toland.htm

[Johnny]

Maureen, Thanks for this post and a great discussion on cinematographers in the comments. When I was a university student many years ago a group of us would go to the Silent Movie Theater on Faifax. Oddly enough it was the first place I saw the sound film Dead End which had Gregg Toland as the DP. If you've never seen a really good print of Dead End you have never seen really superior deep focus particularly in the wharf and slum streets shots. A great performance by Bogie, Silvia Sidney, first appearance in movies by the Dead End Kids of course.

[Maureen Lang]

Thanks for commenting, Johnny. Billy Bitzer's camera work all the way up to Gregg Toland's & on into the early 40s was available for viewing at one time or another at the Silent Movie Theatre & other 2nd run houses in L.A. Not many 2nd runs open here anymore, although the Laemmle & Landmark theater chains have taken up the foreign film slack, with an occasional festival nod to cinema classics of the past. The advent of cheap dvd rentals killed a lot of these old theaters, no doubt.

Although I've got a huge screen Bravia plus Blu-ray to watch at home, absolutely nothing beats seeing a great cinematographer's work on a wide screen in a theater. And, as you mentioned, a decent print (digitally remastered is nice) reveals the original release's treatment of nuances & detailing.

[Jeff B.]

A very enjoyable read, Mo. Any thoughts on this year's Academy Award nominees for Best Cinematography, Best Picture, my favorite Best Animation long or short?

[Maureen Lang]

Glad you enjoyed the post, Jeff. FWIW, here are my personal choices for the categories you named:

Best Cinematography- The White Ribbon
Best Picture- The Hurt Locker
Best Animation, Feature- Fantastic Mr. Fox
Best Animation, Short- A Matter of Loaf And Death

[Jeff B.]

I'm agreeing with you on all the choices excepting the White Ribbon which I have not seen. Nick Park always gets an Oscar nod and deserves his wins. Have you seen all the nominees in the short Animation category? The Lady and the Reaper is a worthy contender.

[Maureen Lang]

Jeff B.,

"The White Ribbon" is also up for Best Foreign Language Film. It won the Palme d'Or at Cannes last year. Well worth hunting for an art house somewhere near you where you can view it.

I saw all the Animation short nominees over at that queen of L.A. art houses, the old Nuart, just a little while ago, & agree that "The Lady & The Reaper" is indeed a magical little short.

[JFF]

A tip for tv watchers, TCM Sunday line up tonight includes Buster Keaton's classic Our Hospitality that will be shown starting at 9:15 p.m. according to my tv scroll. I'm a Keaton fan from way back and this movie deserves the four star rating TCM gives it.

[Maureen Lang]

Sorry I'm a little late getting back to you- much thanks for your tip, JFF. I've got it on my dvr to watch with my daughter the next time she comes by for dinner & a movie.

We are lucky again this Sunday night (3/28/10) to have a Keaton double bill in TCM's Silent Sunday line up- "Sherlock Jr." & "The Navigator," both filmed by the Keaton/Lessley team in 1924, both, as JFF said above, worthy of their 4 star ratings.

A terrific pair of Keaton classics, hand cranked to perfection by the marvelous Elgin Lessley.

[watson]

A very enjoyable read, Mo. Any thoughts on this year's Academy Award nominees for Best Cinematography, Best Picture, my favorite Best Animation long or short?