“Audience look for the dramatic realism of today. The world is vibrant with life and activity and it is from this life with its intensely human characters that the dramas for the screens must be taken. No period in the world’s history has been richer in dramatic material than the one in which we now live. It is the portrayal of scenes from life’s dramas with their varied expressions of human emotions that the more engaging field of opportunity lies.” — James Stuart Blackton
Source: Karl K. Kitchen (1915)
Photo: 1912
“This is the time of large effort in the motion picture world. Time was, and not so long ago, when through lack of courage or comprehension, the run was in the direction of small things. Now there is no reasonable limit to the possibilities of our undertakings.” — James Stuart Blackton
Source: Karl K. Kitchen (1915)
The Enchanted Drawing (1900)
“Every production, no matter how elaborate and costly it is, becomes an incentive to producing another which will eclipse it in grandeur. This is the trend of affairs. There is no going back. Whatever may be said of the other stage, we know that the ultimate goal of the motion picture stage is set afar off and that with every day’s activity we find ourselves a little nearer to it.” — James Stuart Blackton
Source: Karl K. Kitchen (1915)
Humorous Phases of Funny Faces (1906)
“In the preparation of the modern play for the screen we have taken a long step forward in accomplishing effective results. I venture to say that we are rapidly approaching the time when in the making of pictures we shall have full command of the plastic arts. Dramatic realism is expressed in actions.” — James Stuart Blackton
Source: Karl K. Kitchen (1915)
Princess Nicotine (1909)
“Psychological advancement is well within the immediate possibilities of motion pictures. With new camera effects we recently portrayed what may be called a psychological condition when we produced a picture of a man under the influence of anesthetics. We sought to show the phantoms painted by the disturbed and unstable brain. To do this we did not proceed haphazard. On the contrary, we called to our aid an eminent physician whose professional work in the field of anesthetics gives him full authority to speak. He outlined the phenomena and made it possible for us to have a workable insight into the sensations which an anesthetic produces.” — J. Stuart Blackton
Source: Karl K. Kitchen (1915)
The Haunted Hotel (1907)
“It is not going wide of the mark to say that in this department of creative work in the studio there is wide opportunity for the ingenuous photo-psychologist, to give him a name. In the motion picture field we are not unlike the novelist in that it is well within our scope of our work to bridge the gap between that which is purely imaginative and the definitely real.” — J. Stuart Blackton
Source: Karl K. Kitchen (1915)
“Seven o’clock sees me up and ready for the day’s activities. The early to rise and early to bed idea hasn’t been improved upon for a regular habit. I work hard and I believe it does me good. When I find time for play – and I do find it, for recreation is essential – I play hard and I believe that does me good, too. When I realize that the entire world – the world throughout its length and breadth – is contemplated in the word stage, by the dramatic forces subject to the motion picture industry, and when I consider the extent of the undeveloped resources in the motion picture field, one in the industry cannot be a sluggard.” — James Stuart Blackton
Source: Karl K. Kitchen (1915)
Photo: 1915. With his daughter Violet Virginia Blackton (1910-1965) and son Charles Stuart Blackton (1914-2007). Bain News Service.
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Respectable by Proxy (1920). Starring Sylvia Breamer.
Forbidden Valley (1920), starring May McAvoy and Bruce Gordon.
