11/12/23
Newsletter #510
The Crack of Dawn
I am inexorably drawn to the unremembered or unknown. My new book, Hitler in the Madhouse, is about a totally unknown event in the life of an extremely well-known and severely chronicled person – his one month stay in a military psychiatric hospital during the last month of WWI — which you won’t find in any of the many massive biographies of Hitler, yet it’s true all the same. That’s my kind of story.
My first novel that I wrote when I was 25 years old and remains unpublished (for good reason), Mann’s Revenge, is about the mysterious, unexplained death of Heinrich Himmler. Honestly, in the intervening 35-40 years between the Himmler book and the Hitler book, I didn’t write about Nazis at all.
My newest book, which is just being edited for publication, The Gospel According to Judas, is a comedic retelling of Jesus’ story, illustrating several parts of the story that I previously didn’t know or understand, but with research and imagination I was able to both comprehend and explain them, at least to my own satisfaction. One simple thing I did was to put the story in its proper chronological order, which none of the Apostles’ accounts do. It’s as though the order in which the story is told in the books of John, Matthew, Mark and Luke are in the order that they found the shreds of the ancient texts. When they had a sufficient amount of say, John scraps, they picked them randomly out of the box and that’s the order in which they were printed. Anyway, Jesus and his crew circled Israel three times – these circuits are known as Jesus’ “Ministries” – from Jerusalem in the south to the Sea of Galilee in the north, with one side-trip to Phoenicia (now Lebanon).
In any case, movie-wise, I am constantly drawn back to the story of the man who could well be considered the first “movie mogul,” Thomas Ince. Ince isn’t important to the history of movies in the same way that D. W. Griffith was, meaning, cinematically; Ince was important because he was the innovator of motion picture production. Just like Henry Ford, who didn’t invent the automobile, but figured out the best way to produce them. Well, Thomas Ince didn’t invent movies, or the language of cinema, or any specific kind of movie (although Ince mostly made westerns, but westerns were being produced long before Ince started), he figured out the best way to create movies one after another after another. This included the brand-new concept of the “screenplay,” the “shooting schedule,” of having a prop department, a costume department, a camera department, an editing department, etc.
Once Thomas Ince was already extremely successful (he made 800 westerns), he went into business with D. W. Griffith, the biggest producer-director in the world, and the King of Comedy, Mack Sennett, and together they started the first movie studio with a huge production facility, called Triangle Pictures. They built their enormous movie studio complex on Washington Blvd. in Culver City. The company was immediately financially overextended, and the first thing to go was the studio. Sam Goldfish (co-founder of Paramount Pictures) had recently formed a movie company with Edgar Selwyn. They combined both of their last names and came up with Goldwyn Pictures. Goldwyn Pictures bought the enormous Triangle Studio. That was when the big sign with a lion, surrounded by the biggest lie in Hollywood, the Latin words, “Ars, Gratia, Artis,” meaning, “Art for art’s sake” (right), was erected over the studio.
Then Marcus Loew, who owned Loew’s Theaters and Metro Pictures, bought Goldwyn Pictures and Louis B. Mayer Pictures, put them all together and formed Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and they kept the Goldwyn logo. Notice how they tried to retain the specific font of each of the different companies.
When Goldwyn bought Triangle, Thomas Ince was out on his ass. When Loew bought Goldwyn Pictures, Sam Goldish, who had officially become Samuel Goldwyn, was out on his ass. Both Ince and Goldwyn did the same thing – they started their own studios under their own names: Thomas Ince Motion Pictures and Samuel Goldwyn Pictures. Now neither Ince nor Goldwyn could be thrown out without also having to shit-can the name of the company.
Thomas Ince bought the empty lot next to MGM and built his new studio, which was quite a bit smaller (although he also had a ranch in Malibu). Still, he continued to knock out westerns like sausages. He also foolishly tried to compete with D. W. Griffith’s second epic, Intolerance (1916), by producing and directing his own million-dollar epic, Civilization (1916), which was awful and nearly sunk him. So, he returned to making westerns, which he was good at. Along the way he hired a handsome actor-director named Francis Ford to star in and direct westerns for him. Francis brought his little brother out from Augusta, Maine, and his name was John Ford (real name, Sean O’Feany).
Producing Civilization didn’t sink Ince, nor did losing Triangle Studio. What did Thomas Ince in was a weekend yachting excursion with the millionaire, nespaper magnate, William Randolph Hearst. Also aboard the yacht were Charlie Chaplin and Hearst’s mistress, movie actress, Marion Davies. Hearst suspected that Marion Davies was having an affair with Charlie Chaplin, which is why he got them both on a boat together – he wanted to see how they acted around each other. When Hearst’s jealousy overcame him, he went out on deck, saw a man heading away from Davies’ cabin, and shot him to death. Alas, it wasn’t Chaplin he shot; it was Thomas Ince.
Luckily, being a millionaire and all, as soon as they docked, Hearst had Ince’s body removed from the ship and cremated. Thus, an autopsy could not be performed. Hearst said that Ince had gone to bed complaining of a stomachache, then must have just died. It was a crappy alibi, particularly after having had the body immediately, and illegally, cremated, but surprise, surprise, he got away with it, Scott-free.
Thus came the unexpected, untimely – Ince was just 44 – and sadly ignoble demise of Thomas Ince, the first movie mogul. And now he is all but forgotten. In fact, all that remains as a tribute to his life and many accomplishments is one single street in Culver City that runs into Culver City Studios, which began its life as Thomas Ince Motion Picture Studio, just up the street from MGM (which is now Sony Pictures).
Leaving Atlanta tomorrow and going back to sultry Detroit.
Here’s looking at you, kid.
Good one.
It appears that Chaplin came within an Ince of his life.
Great story. As was hitler in the madhouse.