Keystone Studios
Encyclopedia
Movie studio
A movie studio is a term used to describe a major entertainment company or production company that has its own privately owned studio facility or facilities that are used to film movies...
founded in Edendale, California
Edendale, Los Angeles, California
Edendale is a historical name for a district in Los Angeles, California, northwest of Downtown Los Angeles, in what is known today as Echo Park, Los Feliz and Silver Lake....
in 1912 as the Keystone Pictures Studio by Mack Sennett
Mack Sennett
Mack Sennett was a Canadian-born American director and was known as the innovator of slapstick comedy in film. During his lifetime he was known at times as the "King of Comedy"...
with backing from Adam Kessel and Charles O. Bauman, owners of the New York Motion Picture Company. The company filmed in and around Glendale and Silver Lake
Silver Lake, Los Angeles, California
Silver Lake is a hilly neighborhood in the city of Los Angeles, California east of Hollywood and northwest of Downtown Los Angeles. Silver Lake is inhabited by a wide variety of ethnic and socioeconomic groups, but it is best known as an eclectic gathering of hipsters and the creative class.The...
for several years, and its films were distributed by the Mutual Film Corporation between 1912 and 1915.
The studio is perhaps best remembered for the era under Mack Sennett when he created the slapstick
Slapstick
Slapstick is a type of comedy involving exaggerated violence and activities which may exceed the boundaries of common sense.- Origins :The phrase comes from the batacchio or bataccio — called the 'slap stick' in English — a club-like object composed of two wooden slats used in Commedia dell'arte...
antics of the Keystone Kops
Keystone Kops
The Keystone Kops were incompetent fictional policemen, featured in silent film comedies in the early 20th century. The movies were produced by Mack Sennett for his Keystone Film Company between 1912 and 1917. The idea came from Hank Mann who also played police chief Tehiezel in the first film...
, from 1912, and for the Sennett Bathing Beauties, beginning in 1915. Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
got his start at Keystone when Sennett hired him fresh from his vaudeville
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
career to make silent film
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
s. Charlie Chaplin at Keystone Studios is a 1993 compilation of some of the most notable films Chaplin made at Keystone, documenting his transition from vaudeville
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
player to true comic film actor to director. In 1915 Keystone Studios became an autonomous production unit of the Triangle Film Corporation
Triangle Film Corporation
Triangle Film Corporation was a major American motion-picture studio, founded in the summer of 1915 in Culver City, California, and envisioned as a prestige studio based on the producing abilities of filmmakers D. W. Griffith, Thomas Ince and Mack Sennett...
with D. W. Griffith
D. W. Griffith
David Llewelyn Wark Griffith was a premier pioneering American film director. He is best known as the director of the controversial and groundbreaking 1915 film The Birth of a Nation and the subsequent film Intolerance .Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation made pioneering use of advanced camera...
and Thomas Ince
Thomas H. Ince
Thomas Harper Ince was an American silent film actor, director, screenwriter and producer of more than 100 films and pioneering studio mogul. Known as the "Father of the Western", he invented many mechanisms of professional movie production, introducing early Hollywood to the "assembly line"...
. In 1917 Sennett gave up the Keystone trademark and organized his own company.
Many other important actors also began their careers at Keystone, including Harold Lloyd
Harold Lloyd
Harold Clayton Lloyd, Sr. was an American film actor and producer, most famous for his silent comedies....
, Gloria Swanson
Gloria Swanson
Gloria Swanson was an American actress, singer and producer. She was one of the most prominent stars during the silent film era as both an actress and a fashion icon, especially under the direction of Cecil B. DeMille, made dozens of silents and was nominated for the first Academy Award in the...
, Louise Fazenda
Louise Fazenda
Louise Fazenda was an American film actress, appearing chiefly in silent comedy films.-Early life:Of Portuguese ancestry, she was born in Lafayette, Indiana. Her father, Joseph Fazenda, was a merchandise broker. After moving west Louise attended Los Angeles High School and St. Mary's Convent...
, Raymond Griffith
Raymond Griffith
Raymond Griffith was one of the great silent movie comedians.Griffith was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He lost his voice at an early age, causing him to speak for the rest of his life in a hoarse whisper...
, Ford Sterling
Ford Sterling
Ford Sterling was an American comedian and actor best known for his work with Keystone Studios. One of the 'Big 4' he was the original chief of the Keystone Cops.-Biography:...
, Fatty Arbuckle
Fatty Arbuckle
Roscoe Conkling "Fatty" Arbuckle was an American silent film actor, comedian, director, and screenwriter. Starting at the Selig Polyscope Company he eventually moved to Keystone Studios where he worked with Mabel Normand and Harold Lloyd...
, Marie Dressler
Marie Dressler
Marie Dressler was a Canadian-American actress and Depression-era film star. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1930-31 in Min and Bill.-Early life and stage career:...
, Mabel Normand
Mabel Normand
Mabel Normand was an American silent film comedienne and actress. She was a popular star of Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios and is noted as one of the film industry's first female screenwriters, producers and directors...
, Ben Turpin
Ben Turpin
Ben Turpin was a cross-eyed American comedian and actor, best remembered for his work in silent films.-Personal life:...
, Harry Langdon
Harry Langdon
Harry Philmore Langdon was an American comedian who appeared in vaudeville, silent films , and talkies. He was briefly partnered with Oliver Hardy.-Life and career:...
and Chester Conklin
Chester Conklin
Chester Cooper Conklin was an American comedian and actor. He appeared in over 280 films, about half of them in the silent era.-Early life:...
.
Sennett, by then a celebrity, departed the studio in 1917 to produce his own independent films (eventually distributed through Paramount
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
). The business of Keystone Studios decreased after his departure, and was finally dissolved after bankruptcy in 1935.
Much of the lighting & studio equipment from Keystone was bought by Reymond King - who started the "Award Cinema Equipment" company in Venice, California in November, 1935.
The name "Keystone Studios" was used later as a production label for Cineville and was named as the fictional studio in the Cineville production "Swimming With Sharks" starring Kevin Spacey.
A new legal corporate entity named Keystone Studios began again during 2005. The two owners are Carl Colpaert and Lee Caplin. Keystone obtained its new trademark in 2006.
The Keystone Studios lot was an explorable location, as well as a major plot element, in the 2011 video game L.A. Noire
L.A. Noire
L.A. Noire is a 2011 crime video game developed by Team Bondi and published by Rockstar Games. It was released for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows. It was released as a 3-disc game for the Xbox 360 console, which prompts the player to switch to another disc at certain points in the...
, published by Rockstar Games
Rockstar Games
Rockstar Games is a major video game developer and publisher based in New York City, owned by Take-Two Interactive following its purchase of UK video game publisher BMG Interactive. The brand is mostly known for Grand Theft Auto, Max Payne, L.A...
.