Keystone Studios

{{short description|American film studio (Los Angeles; 1912–1935)}}

{{Infobox company

| name = Keystone Studios

| logo =

| image = File:Keystone Studios (00069483).jpg

| image_caption = Keystone Studios, 1915

| successor =

| foundation = 1912 (as Keystone Pictures Studio)

| founder = Mack Sennett

| defunct = 1935

| location = Edendale, Los Angeles

| industry = Film studio

| key_people =

| products =

| num_employees =

| parent =

| subsid =

}}

Keystone Studios was an early film studio founded in Edendale, California (which is now a part of Echo Park) on July 4, 1912 as the Keystone Pictures Studio by Mack Sennett with backing from actor-writer Adam Kessel (1866–1946)[https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0450254/ Internet Movie Database] and Charles O. Baumann (1874–1931), owners of the New York Motion Picture Company (founded 1909).[http://www.silentera.com/PSFL/companies/N/newYorkMoPicCo.html Silent Era.com]{{Cite web |url=http://www.moviemoviesite.com/Years/1911-1920/1912usa.htm |title=MovieMoviesite.com |access-date=August 10, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304023323/http://www.moviemoviesite.com/Years/1911-1920/1912usa.htm |archive-date=March 4, 2016 |url-status=dead }} The company, referred to at its office as The Keystone Film Company, filmed in and around Glendale and Silver Lake, Los Angeles for several years, and its films were distributed by the Mutual Film Corporation between 1912 and 1915.[http://www.silentera.com/PSFL/companies/M/mutualFilmCorp.html Mutual Film Corporation] at Silent Era. Retrieved 2012-01-30. The Keystone film brand declined rapidly after Sennett went independent in 1917.

The name Keystone was taken from the side of one of the cars of a passing Pennsylvania Railroad train (Keystone State being the nickname of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania) during the initial meeting of Sennett, Kessel and Baumann in New York.{{cite news |title=HOW KEYSTONE GOT ITS NAME |newspaper=LA Times |date=7 January 1917 |page=24 (of Part 3)}}

The original main building, the first totally enclosed film stage and studio in history, is still standing. It is located at 1712 Glendale Blvd in Echo Park, Los Angeles and is now being used as a Public storage facility.{{cite AV media|title=Silent Traces: Discovering Early Hollywood Through the Films of Charlie Chaplin|last=Bengtson|first=John|author-link=John Bengtson|year=2010|publisher={{ill|Lobster Films|fr}}|minutes=11:30}}

Production

File:MackSennetBathingBeauties.JPG

The studio is especially remembered for its silent film era under Mack Sennett, the Canadian-American film actor, director, and producer, who became known as the 'King of Comedy'. With financial backing from Adam Kessel and Charles O. Bauman of the New York Motion Picture Company, Sennett founded Keystone Studios in Edendale, California – now a part of Echo Park – in 1912. The original main building which was the first totally enclosed film stage and studio ever constructed, is still there today. Known as Sennett's Fun Factory,{{cite book |vauthors=Walker, Brent E |title=Mack Sennett's fun factory: a history and filmography of his studio and his Keystone and Mack Sennett comedies, with biographies of players and personnel |date=2010 |publisher=McFarland & Co |location=Jefferson, N.C. |isbn=978-0786457076 |page=7}} it was here that he created the slapstick antics of the Keystone Cops (from 1912) and the Sennett Bathing Beauties (beginning in 1915). Keystone comedies were noted for their hair-raising car chases and custard pie warfare, especially in the Keystone Cops series. Charlie Chaplin got his start in films at Keystone when Sennett hired him in 1914, fresh from his vaudeville career, to make silent films, in which he rapidly became a star performer and film director, participating in thirty-five films within the single year he worked there.{{cite book |vauthors=Harness, Kyp |title=The art of Charlie Chaplin: a film-by-film analysis |date=2008 |publisher=McFarland & Co |location=Jefferson, N.C. |isbn=978-0786431939 |pages=9–38 |chapter=Keystone}} Other actors who worked at Keystone toward the beginning of their film careers include Marie Dressler, Harold Lloyd, Mabel Normand, Roscoe Arbuckle, Gloria Swanson, Louise Fazenda, Raymond Griffith, Ford Sterling, Ben Turpin, Harry Langdon, Al St. John and Chester Conklin.

In 1915, Keystone Studios became an autonomous production unit of the Triangle Film Corporation with D. W. Griffith and Thomas Ince. Sennett left in 1917 to produce his own independent films (eventually distributed through Paramount), after which Keystone's business declined. Keystone Studios eventually closed after bankruptcy in 1935.{{cite book |vauthors=Booker, Keith M |title=Historical dictionary of American cinema |date=2011 |publisher=Scarecrow Press |location=Lanham, Md. |isbn=978-0810874596 |page=205}}

File:Mabel's Dramatic Career 1913.jpeg (1913) with two moviegoers ("Fatty" Arbuckle and Sennett) arguing while watching Mabel Normand on screen]]

File:A Little Hero - George Nichols sr. - 1913, Keystone Film - EYE FLM38894 - OB 685520.webm A Little Hero released in 1913 in Netherlands with Dutch intertitles; running time: 00:04:31.]]

Legacy

Much of the lighting and studio equipment from Keystone was bought by Reymond King, who started the "Award Cinema Movie Equipment" company in Venice, CA in November, 1935.{{Citation needed|date=February 2020}}

"Keystone Studios" is the fictional studio in the Cineville film Swimming With Sharks (1994).

In 2007, when the independent film studio Cineville merged with the DVD distributor Westlake Entertainment, the companies named their joint enterprise Keystone.Robertson, Willa (2007-07-18). [https://variety.com/2007/film/markets-festivals/cineville-westlake-create-keystone-1117968802/ "Cineville, Westlake create Keystone"]. Variety. Retrieved 2018-08-15.

The original Keystone Studios lot was an explorable location, as well as a major plot element, in the 2011 video game L.A. Noire, published by Rockstar Games.