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The Santa Fe newspaper arts sections ran an article today about early filmmaking in NM, especially Tom Mix and Romaine Fielding. I had never heard of Fielding before.

Apparently most of his films were lost in the Lubin fire of 1914.

Do any of his films exist?

There was a lengthy article about him on Looking for Mabel - http://www.freewebs.com/looking-for-mab ... elding.htm. He struck me as another of these interesting early figures about whom it would be nice to know more.

His film `The Rattlesnake' was at a festival a few years ago, but I'm not sure about the survival of the rest of his work (I fear it would be a pretty low figure).

Hey thanks for that link. An interesting early film figure to be sure.

Apparently he wrote, produced, directed, and starred in many of his films. One of note was shot in Silver City, NM, entitled The Toll of Fear in 1913. It was a 2-character story and Fielding played both parts.

drednm wrote:The Santa Fe newspaper arts sections ran an article today about early filmmaking in NM, especially Tom Mix and Romaine Fielding. I had never heard of Fielding before.

Apparently most of his films were lost in the Lubin fire of 1914.

Do any of his films exist?

Very few of Fielding's films survive, which is unfortunate since he was quite talented. Of his Lubin films, there is The Rattlesnake, which is missing some footage, and one reel of a two reel film called Bloodhounds of the Law/ A Dash for Liberty which shows he was ahead of his time cinematically. He made a couple of truly awful comedies, of which a few survive--Greenbacks and redskins, and Crooks, and another which I can't remember off the top of my head because it was not worth remembering. He did NOT make The Great Divide as one writer suggested years ago. His unfinished version was scrapped by Lubin and remade with another star and director. Nor did he make Juan and Juanita, which has also been written. I devoted some space to Fielding in my book about Lubin--The King of the Movies--but it remains for someone to really give this guy the credit he is due with a full and honest biography. A small amount of his later work survives as well, but I don't have those files in front of me and can't look it up.

He apparently returned to films in 1920 and make 8 or so films as a supporting actor. Of course being born in 1868 he was already in his 40s when he started making films.

One of his more famous lost silents is The Noose which starred Richard Barthelmess.

drednm wrote: Of course being born in 1968 he was already in his 40s when he started making films.

Oh, so he was like Merlin, aging backwards?

OOPS... I always do that!!

Corrected

I first ran across Fielding when I started using Daniel Blum's Pictorial History of the Silent Film as my sort of silent film Bible. That was some 30 years ago. Blum includes a nice portrait of Fielding in the section for the year 1913. For those who don't know he resembles at best Efrem Zimbalist Jr. IMO Fielding suffers anonymity for the same reason Francis X Bushman does, not too much of his work is available anymore.

I didn't start seeing this 1868 birth year for Fielding until the internet came along. Some older print publications like those of Ephraim Katz or the Who Was Who on the Screen volumes has or had his birth year as 1882. Go figure.

Apparently he tinkered with his birth year so he wouldn't seem so old....

Some good articles have appeared in journals like Film History about Fielding, who did seem to have an interesting life. Born William Blandin, he worked as a quack medic before becoming a top actor-director for Lubin (and was voted one of the most popular personalities of the screen in 1915). Photos show a rather attractive looking man if I recall correctly.

Didn't someone start doing a film about him which appeared at some festival or other a couple of years ago? Was it called 'No Star for Romaine' or something?

His son, also called Romaine Fielding, has now died but a granddaughter Laura survives. Fielding himself, for all his glamour, died from an infected tooth, but appears to be well-remembered in New Mexico where he filmed titles like The Rattlesnake during his Lubin years.

Fielding is an interesting character. Yes indeed, he's pictured in Blum's pictorial history of the silents. I thought he looked "modern" compared to his contemporaries, sort of like Christopher Reeve?

I always thought his name sounded like a salad.

But he does sound interesting, i'd love to see his Lubin films, if only to see if they are better than the usual Lubin dreck.

greta

Romaine Fielding is one of my guilty pleasures, he has nothing to do with Mabel Normand but I just love the letters he wrote to his fans… I posted some more material about him with a few articles that were written about his sojourn in New Mexico, it is a long post but I wanted to share what I found about him with you… so I included, a John R. Armijo article; a Robert Nott article; a Linda Kowall Woal article and a few that were written while Romaine was still around…here is a link to the new material the 2007 post is in Off Topic…. http://looking-for-mabel.webs.com/romai ... ng2011.htm

Great post Marilyn.... love that rattlesnake picture!

Marilyn, some great stuff there and on Looking for Mabel 2012. Many thanks.

Romaine is a guilty pleasure of mine as well. Fascinating fellow. Just wish more of his films survived.

Here he is in 1912:A MEXICAN COURTSHIP
http://www.t3licensing.com/video/clip/1411110371_s01.do" target="_blank" target="_blank

he may have directed THE DEPUTY'S PERIL, also 1912, with Edgar Jones
http://www.t3licensing.com/video/clip/1411109281_s01.do" target="_blank" target="_blank

and here is THE RATTLESNAKE (not the best copy in the world...)

http://www.krqe.com/dpp/video/web_extra ... e_20090709" target="_blank" target="_blank

LOC has at least two reels of THE CRIMSON DOVE (1917) with Carlyle Blackwell, that Fielding directed.

Seeing any of his films had been a major goal of mine for years. So far what I've seen has been less than amazing, but I've not yet given up hope....