The Finger Lakes Film
Trail is a new consortium project intended to shine a spotlight on the
historical and cultural contributions of the Central New York region in the
development of the early motion picture industry. A collaboration between local
institutions the Eastman Museum, the Wharton Studio Museum in Ithaca, and the
Case Research Laboratory in Auburn, the Film Trail will sponsor an ongoing
calendar of film events, lectures, exhibits, and screenings for local
audiences.
The Eastman Museum is well-known to
Rochester residents, with its continuing mission to celebrate the history of
photography and cinema, as well as the achievements of entrepreneur,
philanthropist, and pioneer of popular photography and motion picture film,
George Eastman.
Part of the Cayuga Museum of
History, the Case Research Laboratory guides visitors through the history and
commercialization of sound film, which began with Theodore (“Ted”) Willard Case
and his invention of the first commercially successful sound-on-film
technology.
Wharton Studio Museum honors
filmmakers Ted and Leo Wharton, who established their production studio at
Renwick (now Stewart) Park in Ithaca in 1913, making it one of the country’s
first regional production facilities. Together they produced between 600 to 700
pictures, many of them sensation-filled serial episodes that they filmed at
their Ithaca studio, which was in operation through 1919.
The Film Trail’s inaugural event, to
be held this Thursday at the Dryden Theatre, will be a showing of the first
four episodes of “The Exploits of Elaine,” the landmark serial produced by the
renowned silent filmmaking brothers.
As the first film to gross over $1
million in sales, “The Exploits of Elaine” was an early blockbuster of the
serial format. The films follow the story of a young woman named Elaine (played
by actress Pearl White, who also did most of her own stunts), as she enlists
famous detective Dr. Craig Kennedy (the “American Sherlock Holmes”) to help her
find the man — known only by the chilling alias “The Clutching Hand” — she
believes responsible for the murder of her father. The duo use what was then
cutting-edge crime detecting technology (including fingerprinting!) on their
mission to track down the killer.
Because of its cultural and
historical significance, the work became the first serial to be honored with a
place on the U.S. National Film Registry in 1994.
Presenting a print lovingly restored
by the George Eastman Museum, Thursday’s screening will feature live piano accompaniment
by Philip C. Carli and an introduction by Dr. Barbara Tepa Lupack, author of
the forthcoming book, “Silent Film Sensations: The Wharton Brothers and the
Magic of Early Cinema.”
The next event on the Finger Lakes
Film Trail’s schedule will be a screening of Oscar Micheaux’s silent race-film
classic, “Within Our Gates,” a black response to D.W. Griffith’s Ku Klux
Klan-glorifying “The Birth of a Nation.” Also introduced by Dr. Barbara Tepa
Lupack, that screening will be held at the Carriage House Theater, Cayuga
Museum of History & Art, in Auburn, on May 19, at 2 p.m.
Planning for further events
sponsored by The Finger Lakes Film Trail is already underway, including two
film screenings in Ithaca during October’s “Silent Movie Month in Ithaca”, as
well as “Silents Under the Stars,” a free movie showing at Taughannock Falls
State Park in late August (film titles to be decided).
Tickets for the screening of “The
Exploits of Elaine” are $7 for Eastman Museum members, $10 for non-members, and
$5 for students with ID. The screening will also be repeated on Monday, April
29, at 1:30 p.m., as part of the Dryden Theatre’s “Senior Matinee” series.
This article appears in Apr 24-30, 2019.
