Women a force in the early film industry

Women have been involved in the film industry since its birth, from Alice Guy Blache’s The Cabbage Fairy, to women’s movements in the 1960s and today with women screenwriters, such as Diablo Cody, who won a 2008 Academy Award for her screenplay of the movie Juno.

English Professor Anne Morey, also director of the Film Studies Program at Texas A&M, has taught many of the film classes offered at A&M and has a wide background of film, but she specializes in silent film and takes an interest in women screenwriters of the silent film era.

When considering screenwriters in the 1910s, Morey said that women were rather more present and more dominant in the field than they were to become.

“There was a lot more freedom to enter the film industry in the 1910s than there was later on. The stakes rise in terms of cost, as each decade goes by,” Morey said.

She said the barriers to entry went up gradually, such as when sound entered the film industry in the 1920s, for both corporations and individuals new to the business.

However, Morey said there were lots of female directors in the 1910’s and later.

The Legacy of the Pioneers

“Probably the most valuable screenwriter in the American film industry in the 1920’s and into the 1930’s was Francis Marion,” Morey said.

Francis Marion impacted the silent film world with her versatile acting and editing talents, but she preferred screenwriting. In her biography, an Academy leader named Gavin Lambert said Marion was “as prolific as the silent screen itself.”

Some of Marion’s silent film works included: Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1917), Pollyanna (1920), and The Love Light (1921).

“One thing that is interesting in looking at female screenwriters is discovering their sheer presence in the film industry and their importance during this period,” said Morey.

In Marion’s entire career she authored approximately 136 produced screenplays which is said to be an enormous amount compared to today’s standards of about 10 screenplays for the average screenwriter.

Other women screenwriters of the time included Anita Loos, author of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and Jeanie MacPherson, an actress turned screenwriter and also a founding member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1927.

There were women such as Gene Gauntier and Lois Weber who pioneered the industry and directed, wrote, produced and edited their own films that still influence the women of today in the movie business.

Women make their “big break”

Morey said she has been interested in the phenomenon of screenwriting during the silent and early sound periods as a way of inviting the American public in.

The border of film in that early time period could be easily crossed when competitions would be held for the average person to try out for their big break.

Morey said directors would run contests for people to be discovered and appear in films. This was one way many young women made it to Hollywood.

Women of the early film days thrived in the business mostly because of the wide open opportunities since the film industry was not commercialized or taken as seriously as any other business of the time.

Jessica Henning

Contact: Anne Morey, amorey@tamu.edu, 979.458.0709