An interview with historian & writer Robert Birchard

How did you first become interested in film history?


I first became curious about film history when I was 11 years old, back in 1961, and saw the David Wolper TV special Hollywood: The Golden Years, which was about the silent era.  I started reading about early films in books like “The Movies” by Richard Griffith and Arthur Mayer and “Classics of the Silent Screen” by Joe Franklin (actually ghost-written by film historian William K. Everson, I later learned), and I was also fortunate to be able to meet and know a number of people who worked in silent pictures, and eventually counted Harold Lloyd, Esther Ralston, Mary Brian, directors Allan Dwan and Irvin Willat, George O’Brien and a number of others as friends.


You have an impressive career as a historian! Is the earliest era of film history the most interesting to you?


I think what first attracted my attention was seeing clips from films like The Birth of a Nation, Intolerance, Ben-Hur, Wings, and The King of Kings.  I had seen short silent comedies on TV as a kid, and that’s what i thought silent movies were—men in funny mustaches running around and falling over things.  But here were clips from feature films that looked every bit as impressive (and sometimes even more so) as films being made in the early 1960s.  Ben-Hur, for example, had just been remade—King of Kings as well—so it was a revelation to me that pictures as big and colossal had been made so many years before.

Gradually, as I saw more and learned more I became fascinated with the development of the movies in the nickelodeon and early feature film era.


How did you begin researching the early days of Universal Pictures?


The idea for my book “Early Universal City” came when I acquired a collection of photographs of the cross-country jaunt from Chicago to Los Angeles that led up to the the grand opening of Universal City on March 15, 1915.  It was a fascinating visual record , and I wanted to share it.  I’d already done an earlier pictorial book for Arcadia Publishing called “Silent-Era Filmmaking in Santa Barbara”, which chronicled the American Film Company, and I thought the format would lend itself to telling the Universal story as well by supplying extensive captions to provide detail and context to the images.

I had also spoken to a number of “Universal-ites” through the years, including cinematographers Virgil Miller and Gilbert Warrenton, directors Edward Sloman and Al Rogell, and actors Lew Ayres and Diana Sera Carey (known in the silent era as Baby Peggy Montgomery, and others, so I had a sense of what it was like working at Universal, and I thought I could convey some of that even though many of these picture people are long since departed.





Was Carla Laemmle helpful in the research?


Carla Laemmle was another person who added color to the story of Early Universal City.  Her uncle, Carl Laemmle, was the head of the studio, and she lived on the lot for many years as a girl and young woman, and I learned so much from her through the years about life and work on the lot.


What was the most difficult part of the research process?


For me the most challenging part was the selection of the photographs. The book contains about 200 pictures, culled from well over 400 potential images.  The goal was to select shots that would help tell the story without seeming repititious or unnecessary.


What was the most interesting or exciting part of writing the book?


The most exciting part for me was the discovery that there were actually two Universal Cities—the first one was located where Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills Cemetery is located today.  The company moved to its new and larger current location in 1915.


What are the most important films to come out of those early Universal years?


For a studio that catered primarily to independent and small town theaters, it is unusual that Universal’s few big-budget specials are still among the best-remembered titles in Hollywood history—films like Foolish Wives (1922), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), The Phantom of the Opera (1925), All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), Dracula (1931), Frankenstein (1931), The Mummy (1932), The Invisible Man (1933), Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and 100 Men and Girl (1937), which are all available on home video and still quite impressive.


Have you ever gotten to see the Phantom of the Opera set? I hear it is still standing on the lot.


Yes, I did get an opportunity to visit Stage 28, where the Paris Opera House set was built.  It doesn’t look much like a theater.  The floor is flat, there is no stage, no seats, but the side and back walls of the 1925 Opera House set are still standing and the set is re-dressed and used from time to time when an elegant theater setting is required





What is your next project?


I’m researching the story of the first movieland murder—which took place in 1911 when a studio janitor shot down Francis Boggs—the filmmaker who had established the first permanent movie studio in Los Angeles in 1909.  The more I dig in, the more fascinating the story becomes, and the motivation for the shooting will come as something of a shock when it is finally revealed.






I highly recommend Mr. Birchard’s other books which are available on Amazon.com or at your local bookstore.

First Comment:

1. As a HOLLYWOOD historian and writer myself, I offer sincere praise to Robert Birchard’s book on early Universal.  Having spent some forty years in the movie business, including many at Universal when it was then MCA owned, I can really relate to the studio’s place in history.

   It is the most historic and revalent of all the studios. I know just about every inch of its sprawling 420 acres. With all its numerous corporate owners over the years, none have any idea of what they actually own.

   I’d love for Mr. Birchard to contact me if so inclined -and we’ll be able I’m sure, to find even more gems relating to the “worlds first municipality devoted solely to the making of motion pictures” (as its founding creedo once described).

   Posted by Graham Hill on 01/12 at 03:35 PM