Kalem Company

While Kalem scored successes in their first year, the rate of production at the once-powerful Biograph stagnated, hampered by the loss of important personnel.

Under the direction of Sidney Olcott, Kalem made a number of significant films, including the first adaptation of Ben Hur and the following year, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

The one-reel version of Ben Hur – in which Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn was used as the location for the Holy Land – was made without obtaining the rights to the book, the usual procedure in the industry at the time, and Kalem was sued by the estate of the author, Lew Wallace.

[3] The action helped to establish the necessity for film studios to obtain the motion picture rights for the properties they wished to utilize.

As director, Olcott headed a small team in Ireland: Kalem's leading lady and principal screenwriter, Gene Gauntier, and cameraman George Hollister.

[5] Olcott and others from the studio - Alice Hollister, Agnes Mapes, Jack J. Clark, Robert G. Vignola, J.P. McGowan, Arthur Donaldson - returned to Ireland for most of the summer in the next two years.

Later on, the outbreak of World War I prevented Olcott, who had resigned from Kalem and shot films for himself, from following through with his plans to build a permanent studio in Beaufort, County Kerry.

In November 1910, William Wright, company treasurer, was sent to the West Coast to assess the feasibility of a permanent studio for the making of Western style films.

Wright saw the potential and after given the go-ahead from head office he acquired a property in Verdugo Canyon in Glendale and a permanent crew was dispatched from New York City.

With films from the Western genre much in demand, in 1911, a second California studio was opened in Santa Monica with actors Ruth Roland, Marin Sais, Ed Coxen, and Marshall Neilan taken under contract.

In December 1912, after successful "air tests", Kalem sent a troupe of players and a crew headed by McGowan to Birmingham, Alabama where the Lubin Manufacturing Company had briefly begun producing films.