The Crisis (1916), William Selig

[oldposterho]

Has anybody ever seen The Crisis, William Selig's 1916 answer to Griffith's Birth of a Nation? Apparently there's a full copy at the LoC and it seems staggering that it's never been released. It sounds very intriguing.

[oldposterho]

Yikes, I guess this is evidence that we've got a long way to go towards saving these old films. Might be Kickstarter time for this one.

[boblipton]

You set it up, I’ll contribute.

Bob

[JFK]

The Crisis: Mississippi’s First Civil War Film

[oldposterho]

It's actually a little shocking to come across this film, it's been completely off the radar for me, only heard about it in the Selig book and it sounds quite worthy and surprisingly missing in film histories. I'm definitely going to have to study up on how to get this process going. There are at least 2 other films at the LoC I'd like to have done as well, unfortunately it's going to at least have to wait until my book research is done to get in the job queue.

I'm actually in the process of doing a mini-version of this on my own with Harry Carey's Frontier Trail (the Pathegram version). It's a lot of fun but takes a surprising amount of time and focus, which I lack atm...

[silentfilm]

There are a couple of photos from this film in Motion Picture Pioneer: The Selig Polyscope Company by Kalton C. Lahue. There isn't much information on the film, but Lahue says that it was Selig director Colin Campbell's answer to Birth of a Nation (1915) and it was based on a story written by Winston Churchill!

[linquist]

I'm assuming that everyone on Nitrateville knows that this is not Winston Churchill from THE DARKEST HOUR fame. This is an American writer who shares the same name and was quite popular as an historical fiction writer. Both WCs knew of each other as both were popular writers and they even discussed with each other how to differentiate their brand. By the time that the British Churchill became a major figure in world politics, the fame of the American Churchill seems to have been fading. Probably being replaced by newer authors such as Rex Beach.