PHOTO GALLERY: Edendale at the Oscars

Many residents of Echo Park, Silver Lake, Los Feliz and Franklin Hills may have some awareness that the area,  collectively known as the Los Angeles suburb Edendale a century ago, played a significant part in film history.

But whether they’ve seen the displays at Edendale Grill, the Edendale branch of the Los Angeles Public Library or various websites, most are unclear on the extent of filming that took place here, mainly during the silent era. 

One look at the Academy Awards’ earliest years reveals much about the industry’s roots in Edendale.

 At the very first ceremony in 1929, a special honorary award was given to Charles Chaplin, for his producing, directing, writing and starring in The Circus.

Though that production was helmed out of his independent studio on La Brea (now the Jim Henson Studios), undoubtedly no one in the room was unaware that the world’s greatest movie star had gotten his explosive start some 15 years earlier making Keystone comedies at the New York Motion Picture Company lot at 1712 Alessandro St. under producer Mack Sennett. It's now 1712 Glendale Blvd., where the Jack In The Box restaurant and Public Storage stand.

Chaplin’s truly meteoric rise to superstardom was almost entirely a factor of the 50 shorts and one feature film he made in his brief year with Keystone. He had capped out at $200 a week at Keystone. But soon after he could claim the industry’s first million dollar salary. Chaplin,of course, grew bigger and certainly better from there, but was already world-renowned in 1915.

Another honorary award was given in 1929 for revolutionary semi-sound feature The Jazz Singer, partially filmed at the former Vitagraph studio on Prospect and Talmadge in Franklin Hills. That is now the Prospect Studios.

The Academy’s first president, Douglas Fairbanks, had gotten his start in pictures at the Triangle-Fine Arts studio located at the junction of Sunset and Hollywood Boulevards--now the Vons grocery store, then the border of Edendale and Hollywood.

1932 was a particularly important year at the Academy Awards for the Eastside, chiefly because Walt Disney won an honorary award for the creation of Mickey Mouse. Said creation, for those who don’t know, took place almost entirely in the Disney studio located at 2719 Hyperion Ave. It is now occupied by the Gelson’s market as well as a commemorative plaque from the city of Los Angeles that is so small as to be virtually microscopic. The first test screenings of Mickey took place in the garage of Disney's house, still standing nearby on Lyric Avenue.

 That same year, the prize for best comedy short was awarded to Oliver Hardy and Stan Laurel for The Music Box, filmed on the concrete steps between 932-937 Vendome St., south of Sunset Blvd.

Winning the Oscar for The Music Box not only gave the team some nice hardware: it cemented their partnership and gave them the popularity to begin making feature films.

Other Edendale Oscars that year included best cartoon short for Disney’s  Silly Symphony “Flowers & Trees." Disney’s studio would own that category throughout its time on Hyperion.  Though Sennett’s comedy short The Loud Mouth lost to Laurel and Hardy, he won the novelty short category for something called Wrestling Swordfish.

Nor was that the extent of Edendale’s recognition at the Academy Awards. In 1934, Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night swept the awards winning best picture, director, actor and actress. Writer-director Capra--who would go on to be Academy president--had gotten his first break into pictures as a “gag man" at Mack Sennett pictures, a fact he never forgot.

In 1936, “for his distinguished creative achievements as director and producer and his invaluable initiative and lasting contributions to the progress of the motion picture arts,” D.W. Griffith received a special award, presented by Henry B. Wathall, one of the stars of Griffth’s infamous Birth of a Nation. Filmed on the Fine Arts lot, as well as several locations throughout Southern California, Birth of a Nation, despite its controversial politics, was one of the first blockbuster feature films. Griffith had retired to Kentucky. It was Capra who had lured him back to Hollywood to receive the award.

The following year, Mack Sennett, too, was given his due, with a special award “for his lasting contribution to the comedy technique of the screen.”

 Disney would win yet another special Academy Award in 1939 for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first animated color feature, a landmark created entirely in Edendale. Disney in fact would go on to receive more Oscars than any other person.

Finally in 1948 at the 20th Annual Academy Awards, Albert E. Smith, co-founder of Vitagraph, and Colonel William Selig and were given honorary Oscars for their roles as film pioneers.

 If that latter name doesn’t ring a bell, consider it a casualty of the film world’s first real-life tragedy. Selig was the owner of Selig-Polyscope, the first movie producers to set up a permanent studio in Los Angeles. It stood at 1845 Glendale Blvd, currently a vacant lot at the foot of the 2 freeway, just as it was when first leased in 1909.

Still the Edendale pioneer who eludes proper tribute is director Francis Boggs, the man who actually filmed the first narrative film in Southern California, and convinced Selig to set up shop here—to great, if relatively transitory success.

Boggs was murdered a few years later during a beserk episode by the lot’s landscaper, tragically sealing his fate as a footnote. But for making LA a viable year-round film location--not to mention other technical and creative triumphs-- the Academy ought not be giving out Oscars.

It should be giving out Franks.