1906 Film of San Francisco After Quake Found at Flea Market

NBC Bay Area ^

[nickcarraway]

A newspaper says a long-lost film reel with nine minutes of footage capturing San Francisco two weeks after the deadly 1906 earthquake surfaced at a flea market in the city.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported Saturday that the rare find portrays the city's post-quake devastation, including City Hall with its dome nearly destroyed.

The so called "great quake" and ensuing fire on April 18, 1906 killed thousands.

The newspaper says the nitrate film reel was shot by early filmmakers the Miles Brothers. The footage is a bookend to their most famous work ``A Trip Down Market Street,'' a 13-minute silent film shot from a cable car days before the earthquake.

Sam Rockwell Takes Home Best Supporting Actor Oscar The public will be able to view the film April 14 at the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum in Fremont.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

This sleuthing that went into nailing down the actual date that the film “Trip Down Market Street” is amazing. Youtube has an excellent 60 minutes interview with the guy who did all the research and archival records search that put its date about four days before the earthquake. Previously, people had thought it was made in February or March, not April. It’s really cool hearing how the guy figured out the date.

[Husker8877]

I’ll watch my language but what kind of a JAGOFF wishes for the death and destruction of so many people with such a stupid friggin comment!! Myself, my family and nearly all of my friends are here in CA and we are awesome amazing people, so tell THIS JAGOFF to watch HIS language!!!

[Jane Long]

I pray that you, your family and your friends can return CA to its once great state.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

"The public will be able to view the film April 14 at the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum in Fremont."

How many FReepers know the etymology of the word "Essanay" and why the museum in Fremont is named "Essanay"? It's a fascinating story (pardon me for going slightly OT here):

Essanay - Chaplin Brand

By Jeffrey Vance, adapted from his book Chaplin: Genius of the Cinema (New York, 2003) © 2009 Roy Export SAS

If the early slapstick of the Keystone comedies represents Chaplin’s cinematic infancy, the films he made for the Essanay Film Manufacturing Company are his adolescence. The Essanays find Chaplin in transition, taking greater time and care with each film, experimenting with new ideas, and adding flesh to the Tramp character that would become his legacy. Chaplin’s Essanay comedies reveal an artist experimenting with his palette and finding his craft.

After the expiration of his one-year contract with the Keystone Film Company, Chaplin was lured to Essanay for the unprecedented salary of $1,250 per week, with a bonus of $10,000 for merely signing with the company. The fourteen films he made for the company were distinctly marked and designated upon release as the “Essanay-Chaplin Brand.” The company’s headquarters were in Chicago, Illinois, and the company had a second studio in Niles, California [today, "Niles" is an historic district of Fremont, CA, no longer a separate town]. The name Essanay was formed from the surname initials, S and A, of its two founders: George K. Spoor, who provided the financing and managed the company, and G.M. Anderson, better known as “Broncho Billy” Anderson, cinema’s first cowboy star.

Essanay began in 1907 and a year later became a member of the powerful Motion Picture Patents Company. Chaplin’s one year with the company was its zenith. The studio foundered after Chaplin left to join the Mutual Film Corporation and finally ceased operations in 1918. Essanay would most likely be largely forgotten were it not for Chaplin’s early association.

While no single Chaplin film for Essanay displays the aggregate transformation to the more complex, subtle filmmaking that characterizes his later work, these comedies contain a collection of wonderful, revelatory moments, foreshadowing the pathos (The Tramp), comedic transposition (A Night Out), fantasy (A Night Out), gag humor (The Champion), and irony (Police), of the mature Chaplin films to come.

The most celebrated of the Essanay comedies, The Tramp is regarded as the first classic Chaplin film. It is noteworthy because of Chaplin’s use of pathos in situations designed to evoke pity or compassion toward the characters, particularly the Tramp. An innovation in comedic filmmaking, The Tramp dares to have a sad ending. Pathos also appears in The Bank, in which Charlie’s heart is broken when the object of his affection throws away the flowers he has given her and tears up the accompanying love note.

Chaplin infuses the Essanay comedies with a number of other innovations. The first is comic transposition. In A Night Out, his second film for Essanay, the Tramp, thoroughly inebriated, gently puts his cane to bed, “pours” himself a glass of water out of a candlestick telephone, and uses toothpaste to polish his boots. Chaplin also employs fantasy for the first time in the Essanays films. In A Night Out, as Ben Turpin pulls the Tramp along the sidewalk, he believes that he is floating among flowers on a river. Chaplin’s own style of gag comedy develops in the Essanays, exemplified in The Champion, in which a David-like Tramp receives the assistance of his loyal bulldog to best his Goliath-like boxing opponent. Irony, a hallmark of Chaplin’s mature work, appears for the first time in the Essanays. Irony is conspicuous in Police, in which an evangelist implores the Tramp (who has just been released from jail) “to go straight” but is later revealed to be a pickpocket himself. Finally, Chaplin first utilizes several other devices in the Essanay comedies that will become signature features of his later films: dance (Shanghaied), the equivocal ending (The Bank), and the classic Chaplin fade-out (The Tramp).

Finally, look how far ahead of his time Chaplin was! Chaplin in "A Woman," 1915:

You can still buy Chaplin's Essanay Comedies. I've got them on my home video server.

[Jane Long]

.

[ApplegateRanch]

Not that I know of, though there may have been ‘new’ children involved, under the assumed name.

[al baby]

Ok jagoff i was not refering to the good people of California i was refering to those evil pervereted garbage that has infested the bay area you know darn well i was not speaking of you or your family btw i was born and lived in California my whole life go

[BenLurkin]

Looking forward to seeing. Might make an interesting companion piece to this footage:

San Francisco’s Market Street Over Popular Songs Of The Day (1906)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1ZeJIMSOT4

[BenLurkin]

Interesting Side by Side view:

San Francisco Earthquake 1906 - Before and After Journey Down Market Street
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TaxcXfSwdE

[afraidfortherepublic]

I recall a photo showing the tumbled Greek-style columns in front of one of the public buildings -- they had been said to be stone, but were revealed to be metal rings stacked up and fastened together.

Earthquakes in CA have a habit of revealing short cuts in construction. After the Tehachapi quake in 1953, the 3+ story brick wall at the rear of the auditorium/cafeteria at our high school was found to have no reinforcing steel -- was little more than an outer shell of bricks with rubble tossed in between. But, for a school that claimed that the marching band on stage might pull the whole thing down, it took 2 years and $1million to demolish and replace it. Brick construction is no longer allowed in CA schools. For what it's worth, our school was more than 100 miles from Tehachapi.

[Teacher317]

How cold the flea market merchant not know what a treasure they had??

[gleeaikin]

Watching the side by side film, fascinating. Seeing the early birth of the automotive world and last days of draft animals. Much more visual than our own pre and post internet world.

I was in Mexico City to study in 1957 when a 7.5 quake hit. Walked around the next day taking photos. Still have them. Not as bad as the 1985 quake, fewer than 200 died, but there still was some serious damage out there. The “Angel” on the column of the Independence fell off and broke. Actually it was a Roman style “winged victory.” The next few days it was said there was a big scandal because it was supposed to be all gold, but instead was guilded. I just Googled, but no mention of the scandal, just that it was gold on bronze, and some people tried to steal broken pieces. Cover up, fake news??

https://theculturetrip.com/north-america/mexico/articles/9-fascinating-facts-about-mexico-citys-angel-of-independence/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_of_Independence

Another scandal reported at the time was that popular movie star, Cantinflas, had money invested in an apartment building that collapsed and killed over 100 people. Graft in the purchase of building materials was reported/suspected at that time. I could find no reference to that at Google. He was just becoming famous in US and pulling the big bucks at that time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantinflas

[wally_bert]

Sounds like a plot for a Streets Of San Francisco episode.

[Monkey Face]

This is one time I wish I still lived in Fremont.

Thanks, SC!

;o]

‘Face

[Dont tread and Live]

I would not mind San Fran to get hit again....only 10 times worse

[Little Pig]

It may have been unlabeled, and not many people still have film projectors in their homes.

[bert]

war is hell

Christians go to war all the time

[vooch]

then they ain’t really Christians

war is hell is a mantra of criminals and bandits not honorable soldiers

[bert]

Ha, Ha...... who the hell are you to judge?

[Georgia Girl 2]

Wait til the grid goes down for 6-12 mos. Its going to be deja vu all over again.