Once there was a city spread out idyllically on the slopes of Santa Ynez Canyon with sweeping views of the sea. The streets were lined with houses of many types, from humble cottages to mansions, and the buildings were fashioned after the architecture of many lands. But as ephemeral as Atlantis, this city appeared and then disappeared in 12 short years. This was the creation of American silent film producer/director Thomas Ince, who in 1912 built a city of motion picture sets on several thousand acres of land in and around the hills and plateaus of the canyon, where he was able to shoot many of the outdoor locales needed for his films. It was here at Inceville, now Sunset at Pacific Coast Highway, where in 1913 alone, Ince made over 150 two-reeler movies, mostly Westerns, thereby anchoring the popularity of the genre for decades. It was at Inceville where many of the filmmaker’s innovations were developed, such as the shooting script, which included stage direction, dialogue and scene description for interiors and exteriors. ‘He was really the father of the modern way of writing a script,’ says Marc Wanamaker, founder of the Bison Archive, a research and informational archive on the history of the motion picture industry consultant and author of several books such as ‘MGM, When the Lion Roared,’ ‘Destined for Hollywood,’ and ‘Hollywood’ Then and Now.’ Unlike earlier directors, such as D. W Griffith, who followed his own vision, developing the story as he went along, Ince created a detailed scenario that provided a story outline that could be duplicated and distributed to the entire production staff–costumers, set directors and all those involved in preproduction. By 1915, he was producing feature films that incorporated all the elements that he systematized at Inceville: the fully developed scenario; the ‘star’ system; sharp editing of the final film; authentic sets, costumes, and locations. Ince, who was born in 1882 in Newport, Rhode Island, was raised in the theatrical world. His parents were stage performers, and before reaching puberty he had been featured in a dozen shows and had appeared on Broadway. By 1910, he had entered films as an actor for Carl Laemmle’s Independent Motion Picture Company, but soon he wanted to direct and in a precocious moment of bravado advanced the idea to Laemmle. ‘Wearing a borrowed suit and ‘the best looking diamond ring you’ve got’ from a local jeweler, Ince walked into Laemmle’s offices in New York, determined to make an impression,’ Wanamaker recounts. ‘Representing himself as a director, Ince told Laemmle that he wanted to be independent. Laemmle, impressed with the younger man’s pugnacity, concluded that Ince was just the man to send to Cuba to make films, out of the reach of the Motion Picture Patents Company.’ That company, formed by Thomas Edison, threatened all competitors who challenged his monopolistic grip on motion picture production, from equipment to film. Laemmle also believed that Ince would be just the man to handle Mary Pickford, who left the D.W. Griffith’s Biograph Company in late 1910 to make films for IMP in Cuba. It was in Cuba that Pickford learned much of her style under Ince’s direction. By 1912, Ince had returned to New York and joined the New York Motion Picture Co. which decided to establish a West Coast studio. Ince leased 18,000 acres of land extending from the seashore up Santa Ynez Canyon and into the mountains for 7-1/2 miles. While he was building the frame- structured studio buildings, situated where Gladstone’s Restaurant is today, he also hired Miller’s 101 Ranch Wildwest Show, including many cowboys, animals and a Sioux Indian tribe, who set up their teepees on the property. ‘Ince invested $35,000 in building, stages and sets’a bit of Switzerland, a Puritan settlement, a Japanese village,’ writes Katherine La Hue in ‘Pacific Palisades: Where the Mountains Meet the Sea.’ ‘Beyond the breakers, an ancient brigantine weighed anchor, cutlassed men swarming over the sides of the ship, while on the shore performing cowboys galloped about, twirling their lassos in pursuit of errant cattle. ‘The main herds were kept in the hills, where Ince also raised feed and garden produce. Supplies of every sort were needed to house and feed a veritable army of actors, directors and subordinates.’ The commissary served hundreds of workers their noonday meal. Most of the cowboys, Indians and assorted workmen lived at Inceville, while the actors came from Los Angeles and other communities as needed, taking the red trolley cars to the Long Wharf at Potrero Canyon, where buckboards conveyed them to the set. Ince lived in a house that overlooked Inceville, the location of Marquez Knolls today. Ince’s organization and planning skills were evident in the physical layout. La Hue observes that there were five stages located on the flat area of the canyon, the main one of glass measuring 100 by 300 ft. Two hundred dressing rooms bordering the stages accommodated the actors. At the end of each stage were docks with 500 distinct sets kept in readiness for instant use. Ince was a master at recognizing and developing new talent. William S. Hart was one such actor, who was transformed from Shakespearean stage performer to the highly successful cowboy largely responsible for the success of the Ince Western enterprise. But, at the beginning, Hart was reluctant to agree to Ince’s invitation to make movies with him. Wanamaker speculates that Hart was afraid of horses, and for this reason repeatedly declined Ince’s invitation to star in his films ‘Once while Hart was out in Los Angeles doing a play, Ince invited him out to Inceville, walked him over to the teepee encampment and introduced him to the Indians,’ Wanamaker says. ‘The next thing he knew, Hart was speaking the Sioux language, which he had picked up from his father who was a teacher on an Indian reservation. ‘Ince invited Hart back again and showed him a little horse, ‘Fritz.’ When Hart mounted the little horse he found that his feet were barely a foot from the ground, easing his apprehension. Little by little, Hart became a Western star.’ Known as Two-Gun Hart by his co-workers, he was described as the best-loved man in Inceville. By 1916, Ince was supervising eight directors and releasing one five-reel picture (about 50-minute films) each week at an average cost of $40,000. His film, ‘Civilization,’ which employed over 25,000 extras, was by far his most ambitious endeavor. The set for the mythical city stood alone on the barren hills, where Marquez Elementary School is today. It was built by 60 carpenters over a period of three months at a cost of $80,000 and was used for only 100 feet of film, a segment requiring 105 seconds to view, La Hue writes. Costs continued to rise as moviegoers enjoyed the more expensive feature films, which used five reels or more. Ince retained his optimism and through his alliance with Triangle, a production company founded with D. W. Griffith and Mark Sennett, built a new studio in Culver City to use for indoor movies, while retaining Inceville for outdoor locations and Westerns. Ironically, on January 16, 1916, a few days after the opening of his Culver City studio, a fire broke out at Inceville, the first of many which would eventually destroy all of the dry frame buildings. That same year, Ince gave up on Inceville and sold it to Hart, who renamed it Hartville. Three years later, Hart sold the lot to Robertson-Cole, which continued filming until 1922. La Hue writes that ‘the place was virtually a ghost town when the last remnants of Inceville were burned on the Fourth of July in 1922, leaving only a weatherworn old church, which stood sentinel over the charred ruins.’ In 1918, Ince left Triangle and founded Ince Productions, building new studios in Culver City, just a mile from the Triangle lot. Ince’s young pioneering life came to an abrupt end on November 19, 1924, when he died, officially of a heart attack suffered while celebrating his 42nd birthday with William Randolph Hearst and other prominent guests including Charlie Chaplin, Marion Davies and newspaper columnist Louella Parsons aboard Hearst’s yacht. Years later, several conflicting stories circulated about Ince’s death, some even speculating that Hearst shot him in a jealous rage as he suspected Ince of having an affair with Davies. Wanamaker dismisses the intrigue and sympathizes with Ince’s wife Elinor, who wrote in a letter in Wanamaker’s possession: ‘I wish the world would remember my husband as one of the fathers of the film industry, not for the drama surrounding his death.’ Ince’s legacy lives on in the only two remaining studios in Culver City’Sony and Culver Studios’which were once part of Ince Studios. Ince Boulevard identifies the street running along the east side of the Culver Studios. In 2004, Sony announced that they had sold Culver Studios (while keeping the larger Sony Studios to the west) to a private investment group because they no longer needed as much studio space for television production. It continues to operate as a studio lot.
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