J. Searle Dawley: “First Motion Picture Director”?

We are much too tardy in including so important a figure as J. Searle Dawley (1877-1949) into our annals. While perhaps not really the “First Motion Picture Director”, as he liked to style himself (whoever deserved that designation would be endlessly debatable) Dawley certainly comes close enough (and was likewise prolific enough) that he could stake a defensible claim. Sources vary widely as to the number of films he directed, somewhere between 200 and 350. Even at the low end the number is impressive. And many of them are still known and widely watched today, over a century after he stopped directing.

Like nearly all early cinema professionals, Dawley got his start in the theatre. A native of Colorado, he dropped out of formal schooling by eight grade and enrolled in oratory college. He was only 17 when he got a job as a member of Lewis Morrison’s stock company in New York, as both an actor and stage manager over a period of five years, appearing in plays like Faust and Richelieu. In 1899 he left the company to tour in vaudeville, which he remained emersed in through 1902. He then returned to stock in Edna May Spooner’s Brooklyn based company for several more years, by which time he was writing his own plays, which were produced and performed by the company.

In 1907 he was hired by Edwin S. Porter to direct films at the Edison Studio. One of the earliest of these, Rescued from an Eagle’s Nest (1908) is notable both for its preposterous plot (a baby is snatched by an eagle) and the fact that its hero was played by none other than D.W. Griffith, still an actor, not yet a director himself. Films of Dawley’s Edison period include Faust (1909), Hansel and Gretel (1909), the first screen version of Frankenstein (1910), one of the first versions of A Christmas Carol (1910), The House of Seven Gables (1910), The Ransom of Red Chief (1910), The Three Musketeers (1911, in two parts), The Corsican Brothers (1912), Treasure Island (1912), Martin Chuzzlewit (1912), Mr. Pickwick’s Predicament (1912), several films about the American Revolution, several travelogues and dozens more.

Frustrated with Edison’s refusal to make films of greater length than a single reel, Dawley parted ways with Edison. During a brief interlude he free-lanced. One of the films he made during this period was A Monk’s Tale (1913), the very first film to feature Harold Lloyd (prior to his meeting Hal Roach). After this, he was mostly associated with Famous Players-Lasky, where his films included Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1913) with Minnie Maddern Fiske, An American Citizen (1913, John Barrymore’s first film), and several with Marguerite Clark, including Snow White (1916) and Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1918). For Fox, he made A Virgin Paradise (1921) with Pearl White. In 1915 he became one of the founding members of the Motion Picture Directors Association (MPDA).

Dawley’s last films were early sound experiments made in the mid 1920s with Lee Deforest, including a short about Abraham Lincoln, and musical entertainments featuring Sissle and Blake,Roger Wolf Kahn‘s band, and jazz banjoist Brooke Johns. The Deforest system did not take off however, and those associated with it had to watch from the sidelines while Vitaphone and then other systems became the standard. He attempted to stay involved in the industry but seems mostly to have found work as a newspaper writer.

For more on vaudeville,pleaseconsult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, for more on silent movies please check out my book: Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube.