Emeralds in Tinseltown - The Irish in Hollywood by Steve Brennan and Bernadette O'Neill [published by Appletree Press]

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This Chapter is from Emeralds in Tinseltown: The Irish in Hollywood, written by Steve Brennan and Bernadette O'Neill, and published by Appletree Press

CHAPTER 3

The "O'Kalems"

Irish politics and stories have never been far removed from the Hollywood screen. Ireland and its history has been a regular backdrop for the movies, from John Ford’s screen version of The Informer to The Devil’s Own or the far-fetched Blown Away. Long before romances such as The Quiet Man or Ryan’s Daughter Irish-themed movies were churned out by the hundreds in the early days of the industry for the burgeoning Irish populace of America. One studio, The Kalem Film Company, became so closely associated with Hollywood movies about the Irish that they became known as the ‘O’Kalems’. The studio was also overflowing with Irish and Irish-American actors and directors in the silent screen days before the First World War.
It is said that the silent film director Sidney Olcott was called in by his bosses at the New York-based Kalem Film Company, shown a map of the world, and asked to pick a country for his next film. Olcott, whose mother was from Dublin, picked Ireland. It’s a good yarn, but the reality is that the silent screen company’s decision to send an expedi-tion to Ireland in 1910 to make Irish-themed movies was simply a clever marketing ploy to appeal to the millions of first- and second-generation Irish who had come to America over the previous years. The Kalem Company saw the value of such a potentially enormous audience. An article in Moving Picture World thought it a brilliant move and described the Irish film venture as ‘the linking of the old and the new worlds.’
The company set up base in Beaufort, County Kerry. Olcott, described by Irish film historian Liam O’Leary as “a great-hearted man, demanding in his pursuit of perfection, hypnotic in his control of actors and tasteful in his film presentations,” hoisted an American flag in front of his studio on the main road from Killarney to the Gap of Dunloe and started making movies set against backdrop of Irish politics. So prodigious was the Kalem Company’s output of Irish films that they were dubbed ‘The O’Kalems’.
Working with his lead screenwriter Gene Gauntier, Olcott first made The Lad from Old Ireland, a story of one man’s emigration and flight from poverty. Irish audiences in America flocked to see the movie and any other Irish film that the ‘O’Kalems’ sent their way. Olcott’s passion for his mother country soon began to influence his creativity, and his films became increasingly seditious as far as the British Censorship Office was concerned. The tenor of Olcott and Gauntier’s films changed as they became more aware of the Irish political situation. Olcott continued to produce movies with such titles as Ireland the Oppressed, Rory O’More and Robert Emmet. The censorship authorities based in Dublin Castle were becoming seriously concerned that Olcott and his movies would ‘incite the natives and the Irish throughout the world.’ The British government became so agitated with Olcott that a sharply worded letter was dispatched to the Kalem head office back in the U.S. While Olcott eventually agreed to tone down his film plots, he continued to make films in Ireland. But the outbreak of the First World War caused the Kalem Company to withdraw completely from the country and return to the United States.
The story of 'The "O'Kalems"' continues with [part 2]

'Emeralds in Tinseltown - The Irish in Hollywood' by Steve Brennan and Bernadette O'Neill, published by Appletree Press.

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