Collection
The O'Kalem Collection
8 items
The O’Kalem Collection includes films directed by Sidney Olcott for: The Kalem Company (The Lad From Old Ireland, Rory O’More, The Colleen Bawn, His Mother and You Remember Ellen), for the Gene Gauntier Feature Players (For Ireland’s Sake, Come Back to Erin) ,and the Lubin Company (Bold Emmet Ireland’s Martyr).
When New York’s Kalem Film Company came to Ireland in 1910 to make the short film The Lad from Old Ireland they made cinema history – the film was the first made by an American production company outside the US and also the first film ever made on two continents (and the Atlantic Ocean in between). Actor/director Sidney Olcott and actor/writer Gene Gauntier returned to Ireland several times between 1910 and 1915 to produce almost thirty Irish-themed films and earned themselves the nickname the O’Kalems in the process. The majority of their films were made in and around Killarney, Co. Kerry, making extensive use of the dramatic landscape and employing locals as extras.
The O’Kalem films can be considered important not only for their claim to be the first fiction films made in Ireland and on two continents, but also because they tell us much about the Irish emigrant experience in America at the start of the 20th century. They are also fine examples of silent era filmmaking by a large American studio. For several decades the IFI Irish Film Archive worked to identify extant copies of the O’Kalem films held in international film archives, to centralize them and retrieve copies of them for the benefit of Irish audiences.
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11m 55s
Inspired by the character of Sir Rory O’Moore, leader of the 1641 Rebellion, this short drama re-imagines the dramatic story of Rory O’More’s (sic). The film depicts his capture and escape from British soldiers, and locates it in the Lakes of Killarney in 1798.
Rory flees from English soldiers after he is betrayed by an informer, Black William. He escapes thanks to the help of his sweetheart Kathleen, who distracts the officer in command with her feminine charm. He heads to the hills and then to the lakes with soldiers in hot pursuit. When he sees that one of the soldiers is in trouble he abandons his opportunity to escape and returns to save the soldier from drowning. He is captured, imprisoned and sentenced to death.
On the scaffold he declares ‘If to fight for Ireland be a crime, then I am guilty’. Black William demands the reward for his capture. But all is not lost. A sympathetic priest, Father O’Brien, loosens Rory’s bonds on the scaffold and he escapes to meet Kathleen and sail off to a new life in America.
The film, like the songs, poems and plays composed in his honour, celebrates the many deeds of valour and acts of kindness attributed to one of Ireland’s great rebels.
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41m 44s
The Colleen Bawn is an ambitious story which evolves from a simple rural tale to a complex narrative of social status, love, murder and deception.
The film is inspired by the true events of the 1819 murder of 15 year-old Ellen Scanlan in Co. Clare, and based on the 1860 play of the same name by Dion Boucicoult. On the brink of financial disaster, Mrs Cregan hatches a plan to regain her social status and wealth through an arranged marriage of her son, Hardress. His heart longs for a poor farmer’s daughter (The Colleen Bawn) and they decide to marry in secret. However, realising the impact this marriage has on his family’s fortune, he plans to free himself from this union by having his bride killed.
The film uses the beautiful rural locations of Co. Kerry to great advantage.
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37m 06s
Irish revolutionary, Robert Emmett, leads a rebellion against British soldiers but his compatriot Con Daly is the true hero of the film.
Despite the misspelling of Robert Emmet’s name throughout and some historical inaccuracy (Emmet fought in the rising of 1803 not 1798), the film is typical in its pursuit of authenticity in character and setting. Emmet is here positioned as an exceptionally courageous and cunning figure (who evades capture by English troops by hiding up a chimney or playing his tin whistle) among a nation of courageous individuals. In fact, the leading figure in the film is not Emmet at all but fellow United Irishman Con Daly, played by Olcott, who also wrote and directed the screenplay. The English are represented as gallant and fair-minded rather than brutal oppressors but their occupation of Ireland is viewed as foreign and based on force. The scenario is least sympathetic to local informer Fealy (Robert Rivers) – a despised figure central in much romantic literature of Ireland’s struggle for independence.
A year after the production of Bold Emmet, the O’Kalem’s representations of historical subjects would seem outdated, displaced by the violence of the 1916 rising.
Notes by Tony Tracy
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13m 04s
Adapted by Kalem scenarist Gene Gauntier from the Thomas Moore poem of the same title, You Remember Ellen is a romantic drama of love across the economic divide.
A humble, hard-working farmer’s daughter (Gauntier) lives a simple life until she happens upon a handsome young man on a country road. They fall in love, marry and live at first in her modest family home. However, when it is time to visit his homestead, she discovers her new husband isn’t quite the man she thought.
The film shares the picturesque surroundings of Killarney, Co. Kerry which were a significant part of the appeal to US emigrant audiences.
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12m 24s
Terry (Sidney Olcott) , a poor Irish farmer, dreams of a better life and is tired of working the land. He decides to head west to build a better, more prosperous future in the USA.
He bids farewell to his darling Aileen (Gene Gauntier) but promises he will return to her some day when he has made his fortune. In New York he finds work on a building site and quickly establishes himself in New York society until he eventually enters politics and becomes the mayor of the city’s Tammany Hall. Meanwhile, Aileen pines for him and, with little money left to her name, is soon to face eviction. Terry is faced with a decision – to forfeit all he has achieved in America to return home and help his beloved in her hour of need.
With sequences filmed in Ireland and in the United States (and indeed on board ship in between), this film is widely acknowledged as the first film ever made on two continents and is also regarded as the first film made by an American production company outside the USA.
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12m 53s
Only one reel of this three-reel film has survived the ravages of time and so the tale is incomplete – but worth watching nonetheless. In this transatlantic tale, feisty young Peggy O’Malley (Gene Gauntier) refuses her father’s orders to marry Jerry, the village blacksmith and runs away to New York City via steam-liner. Upon landing in New York she gets a job working as a parlour maid in the home of wealthy Mrs Mortimer.
The film includes striking documentary-like elements in scenes set in Ireland – at the cattle market in Killarney and scenes of the emigrant ship leaving Queenstown (now Cobh) for America.
This is all that survives of the film. Contemporaneous reviews fill in the remaining story : It’s not long before Peggy falls into a bad crowd and soon finds herself arrested for a crime she didn’t commit. With the news of Peggy’s arrest having made its way back home, will her blacksmith in shining armour come to save her from her wrongful imprisonment and take her back to Ireland?
A single reel of this 3 reel film was discovered in the Museum of Modern Art following research by IFI in preparation for a major retrospective of Irish cinema in MOMA in 2011.
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11m 28s
A wealthy American tourist couple happen upon a talented violinist, Terence, and his mother in a small cottage in rural Ireland. Terence grasps the opportunity and, thanks to his mother’s meagre savings, leaves his peasant roots in Ireland for the bright lights of the New York stage. He thrives in New York society but, back in Ireland, his pining mother is encouraged by the local priest to join him. She finally arrives at a concert Terence is playing in Carnegie Hall. Like the earlier The Lad From Old Ireland, this film was also shot on two continents in rural and urban locations and aboard a transatlantic liner in between, adding visual variety and authenticity to the tale.
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38m 55s
For Ireland’s Sake tells the story of Marty O’Sullivan (Jack Clark), a young blacksmith who forges pikes which are used as weapons against English soldiers. Spotted by British Soldiers, Marty flees and manages to evade capture thanks to the quick thinking of his sweetheart Eileen (Gene Gauntier). She cunningly hides Marty in her voluminous cloak and sends the soldiers searching in the opposite direction. Eileen continues to aid Marty throughout his quest, during which he finds himself in a series of dangerous predicaments – hiding up a chimney, swimming across a lake, hiding out in a cave, and escaping prison with the help of a file and a well-intentioned priest.