“Silents in the Canyon”
by Pablo Capra
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| Crossing the American Prairies in the Early Fifties used 200 cowboys from nearby ranches, 50 women and children, 120 horses, and 11 prairie schooners. Los Angeles Times, 1911. |
During the same years that the chain gang had its permanent camp at Topanga Beach, 1913-1916, the silent movie studio Inceville was operating one mile away, where Sunset Blvd. is today. Its founder was Thomas Ince (1880-1924), the “Father of the Western,” and he ensured the integrity of his films by not only employing 300 cowboys, but a whole Sioux tribe (200 men, women, and children who lived on the grounds in tepees). One of his most successful films was Custer’s Last Fight (1912), which showed the side of the Native Americans, and featured some who had actually been in the battle. The Topanga Beach party atmosphere of earlier days now shifted here, as people came to see the movie stars and spectacle—especially in May, when Inceville’s annual Wild West Rodeo and Barbecue drew thousands.
Before the prison camp imposed its restrictions, Topanga Beach had also been the setting for early movies. The most notable one was Crossing the American Prairies in the Early Fifties by D. W. Griffith (1875-1948), a single-reel film, about 15 minutes long, produced by the American Biograph Company in May 1911. In the film, Native Americans attack a wagon train at night, capturing some of the pioneers and slaughtering the rest. The survivors escape burning at the stake and other terrors before finally reaching California, while the dead are buried by the shifting sands. Unlike Ince’s films, Griffith’s film assumed the Native Americans to be evil. Four years later, Griffith would reignite the Ku Klux Klan with his film The Clansman (renamed The Birth of a Nation).
Griffith directed Crossing the American Prairies in the Early Fifties through a megaphone from the saddle of a cream-colored horse. He included 200 cowboys from nearby ranches, 50 women and children, 120 horses, and 11 prairie schooners. A reporter observed…
On approach the camp of the players resembles that of a large circus. There are two big tents of perhaps 500 capacity, and about twenty smaller tents. There is a commissary department, which rivals a downtown hotel in its completeness, for it must be remembered that these moving picture folks are high-priced artists, and accustomed from years of travel to the best that the land affords.
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| D. W. Griffith directed the film through a megaphone from the saddle of a cream-colored horse. Los Angeles Times, 1911. |
The most difficult part of the filming was saved for last, when the partially buried actors had to play dead as dirt blew into their eyes, mouth, ears, and hair. “There were heard smothered oaths from the dead people that no wild cowboy had ever excelled,” remembered Griffith’s wife Linda Arvidson (1884-1949). Many of the actors threatened to quit, even though it was the last day. The women were particularly unhappy because they had to wear grungy men’s clothes to make the battlefield appear larger. Their dreams of appearing on film were dashed by the fear of being recognized in such an unflattering role.
A young woman named Myrtle Dennison of Caney, KS was cast in a leading role, prompting her local newspaper to gush that she had “attained quite an achievement in the world of art.” Veteran actors Dell Henderson (1883-1956) and W. Chrystie Miller (1843-1922) were also in the film.
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This is an excerpt from the book Topanga Beach: A History, 1820s-1920s. Author Pablo Capra is a former Lower Topanga resident, and continues to preserve the history of that neighborhood on his website, www.brasstackspress.com, and as a board member of the Topanga Historical Society, www.topangahistoricalsociety.org.
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