evidence ( 1929 film )
still from the 1929 film evidence. the film is lost. | lost films 1929 | pinterest | films and movie
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evidence (1929 film) | warner bros. entertainment wiki | fandom powered by wikia
evidence is a 1929 pre - code crime drama film produced and distributed by the warner brothers. it is based on the 1914 broadway play evidence by j. durocher macpherson and l. durocher... see full summary »
when a mysterious film can labelled ‘evidence (1935) ’ showed up at the bfi, our investigation led to a remarkable discovery in legal history, centred on the derbyshire market town of chesterfield .
evidence
is a personal triumph for miss frederick, but just as much a box office one for its producers .
sam kula, “up from the permafrost: the dawson city collection, ” in this film is dangerous: a celebration of nitrate film, ed. roger smither (london: fédération internationale des archives du film, 2002). ↩
clara kimball young film corporation — 1916–1917 with lewis j. selznick (producer )
signal film corporation — 1915 helen holmes with j. p. mcgowan (producer )
this film, then, is a very early example of the use of film as surveillance and an important plot point in the fascinating story of how photographic imagery has been used in legal proceedings since the early days of daguerreotypes, through surreptitiously captured photos of suffragettes, to the hd cctv footage routinely admitted as evidence today. before this discovery, a 1938 film of street betters in bradford had been the earliest cited example of a film used in evidence in a british court. we now know that following the chesterfield case, police units in bradford, glasgow and lancashire followed suit in their use of moving images .
circumstantial evidence (german: indizienbeweis) is a 1929 german silent crime film directed by georg jacoby and starring fritz alberti, ruth weyher, valy arnheim and henry edwards. it is based on a novel by marie corelli. countess romani grows bored of her life in corsica and wishes to go elsewhere. it is also known by the alternative title vendetta. it premiered on 15 february 1929 .
delong, j. bradford and andrei schleifer, “the stock market bubble of 1929: evidence from closed - end mutual funds. ” journal of economic history 51, no. 3 (1991): 675 - 700 .
future learning and skills – giving everyone the opportunity to build a lifelong relationship with film .
micheaux film company — alice b. russell (actress) with oscar micheaux (director )
blaney - spooner feature film company — 1913 cecil spooner with charles e. blaney (producer )
film set, with father and baby, the single standard josephine lovett (w). pc
the smoot - hawley tariff, while looming on the horizon, was not cited by the news sources in 1929 as a factor, and was probably not important to the october 1929 market .
galbraith, john k. the great crash, 1929. boston, houghton mifflin, 1961 .
monopol film company – 1912 marion leonard with stanner e. v. taylor (writer - director )
josephine rector (a / w) in scene from unidentified production. essanay film manufacturing company. ampas
some years ago, while preparing an inventory of the bfi’s government - sponsored non - fiction titles, i discovered a film can intriguingly labelled ‘evidence (1935) ’. it had been sent to the archive as part of a film collection from the bramshill national police training college, and the accompanying documentation was missing. little did i know that the contents would yield some history - making information about the market town of chesterfield in derbyshire and its pioneering role in the history of the way evidence is used in british courts of law .
review from photoplay, december 1929, p. 110 (thanks to andre soares for this review )
lowell film productions — 1925 lillian case russell with john lowell [ john l. russell ] (writer )
to summarize: there was little hint of a severe weakness in the real economy in the months prior to october 1929. there is a great deal of evidence that in 1929 stock prices were not out of line with the real economics of the firms that had issued the stock. leading economists were betting that common stocks in the fall of 1929 were a good buy. conventional financial reports of corporations gave cause for optimism relative to the 1929 earnings of corporations. price - earnings ratios, dividend amounts and changes in dividends, and earnings and changes in earnings all gave cause for stock price optimism .
unique film company — 1915 mrs. m. webb (writer) — miles m. webb (producer )
marion, frances. how to write and sell film stories. new york: covici - friede, 1937 .
there is much to criticize in conventional interpretations of the 1929 stock market crash, however. (even the name is inexact. the largest losses to the market did not come in october 1929 but rather in the following two years .) in december 1929, many expert economists, including keynes and irving fisher, felt that the financial crisis had ended and by april 1930 the standard and poor 500 composite index was at 25. 92, compared to a 1929 close of 21. 45. there are good reasons for thinking that the stock market was not obviously overvalued in 1929 and that it was sensible to hold most stocks in the fall of 1929 and to buy stocks in december 1929 (admittedly this investment strategy would have been terribly unsuccessful) .
this sure fire
mother
motif in
evidence
plus its interpretation by pauline frederick and a wholesome supporting cast, cannot miss bringing this one into the money getting class .
in the first nine months of 1929, 1, 436 firms announced increased dividends. in 1928, the number was only 955 and in 1927, it was 755. in september 1929 dividend increased were announced by 193 firms compared with 135 the year before. the financial news from corporations was very positive in september and october 1929 .
smallwood film corporation – 1913 – ethel grandin with ray c. smallwood (director), arthur smallwood (brother )
bierman, harold, jr. the causes of the 1929 stock market crash. westport, ct, greenwood press, 1998 .
the western film producing company and booking exchange – maria p. williams (writer - producer – jesse l. williams (producer )
what we’ll be showing on sunday was sourced from a 35 mm safety film print created in 1952 for george eastman house, one of two significantly different versions that were created for a 1929 part - sound reissue that included a new soundtrack and some newly shot footage .
the stock price increases leading to october 1929, were not driven solely by fools or speculators. there were also intelligent, knowledgeable investors who were buying or holding stocks in september and october 1929. also, leading economists, both then and now, could neither anticipate nor explain the october 1929 decline of the market. thus, the conviction that stocks were obviously overpriced is somewhat of a myth .
bierman, harold, jr. “the reasons stock crashed in 1929. ” journal of investing (1999): 11 - 18 .
for more detail see max alvarez, “the motion picture distributing and sales company, ” film history 19 (2007): 247–70. ↩
see jane gaines, “pink - slipped: what happened to women in the silent film industry? ” the wiley - blackwell history of american film, ed. cynthia a. lucia, roy grundmann, and art simon (london: wiley - blackwell, 2011). ↩
rick altman, film / genre (bloomington: indiana university press, 1999), 33–35. see also tom gunning, “non - continuity, continuity, discontinuity: a theory of genres in early film, ” iris 2, no. 1 (1983): 101–112. ↩
see e. ann kaplan, women and film: both sides of the camera (new york: methuen, 1979), 50–59. ↩
“m. e. w. chinese film producer” [ marion e. wong ], moving picture world, 7 july 1917, 63. ↩
although it can be argued that the stock market was not overvalued, there is evidence that many feared that it was overvalued — including the federal reserve board and the united states senate. by 1929, there were many who felt the market price of equity securities had increased too much, and this feeling was reinforced daily by the media and statements by influential government officials .
what can we learn from the 1929 crash? there are many lessons, but a handful seem to be most applicable to today’s stock market .
bierman, harold, jr. the great myths of 1929 and the lessons to be learned. westport, ct: greenwood press, 1991 .
so, i had the title, the year, and possibly the location. the end credits confirmed that the film was shot in chesterfield market and also gave me the name of the photographer, pc saunders. so this was clearly some sort of police surveillance film shot in chesterfield market in 1935 .
the may issue of the national city bank of new york newsletter indicated the earnings statements for the first quarter of surveyed firms showed a 31% increase compared to the first quarter of 1928. the august issue showed that for 650 firms the increase for the first six months of 1929 compared to 1928 was 24. 4% . in september, the results were expanded to 916 firms with a 27. 4% increase. the earnings for the third quarter for 638 firms were calculated to be 14. 1% larger than for 1928. this is evidence that the general level of business activity and reported profits were excellent at the end of september 1929 and the middle of october 1929 .
film preservation 1993: a study of the current state of american film preservation, vol. 1, report, june 1993 (report of the librarian of congress, 3–4); david pierce, “the legion of the condemned—why american silent films perished, ” film history 9 (1977), 17, note # 1, notes that the figures might be larger if films held by private collectors were added. note also that features but not shorts are counted. ↩
christine gledhill, “rethinking genre, ” in reinventing film studies, ed. christine gledhill and linda williams (london: arnold, 2000), 240. ↩
a perfect talking picture with a perfect talking cast (print ad - the daily news, (( ludington, mich .) ) 5 december 1929 )
j. w. kendrick (1961) shows that the period 1919 - 1929 had an unusually high rate of change in total factor productivity. the annual rate of change of 5. 3% for 1919 - 1929 for the manufacturing sector was more than twice the 2. 5% rate of the second best period (1948 - 1953). farming productivity change for 1919 - 1929 was second only to the period 1929 - 1937. overall, the period 1919 - 1929 easily took first place for productivity increases, handily beating the six other time periods studied by kendrick (all the periods studies were prior to 1961) with an annual productivity change measure of 3. 7% . this was outstanding economic performance — performance which normally would justify stock market optimism .
citation: bierman, harold. “the 1929 stock market crash”. eh. net encyclopedia, edited by robert whaples. march 26, 2008. url urltoken
if we take the 386 high of september 1929 and the 1929 - year end value of 248. 5, the market lost 36% of its value during that four - month period. most of us, if we held stock in september 1929 would not have sold early in october. in fact, if i had money to invest, i would have purchased after the major break on black thursday, october 24. (i would have been sorry. )
there are some actors in the 1929 version who were not in film the first time around (most notably mary fabian, who replaced the original carlotta, virginia pearson, now referred to as carlotta’s mother in a scene that was retained this time around), while other minor characters have been dropped and others added .
by 1929, investment trusts were very popular with investors. these trusts were the 1929 version of closed - end mutual funds. in recent years seasoned closed - end mutual funds sell at a discount to their fundamental value. the fundamental value is the sum of the market values of the fund’s components (securities in the portfolio). in 1929, the investment trusts sold at a premium — i. e. higher than the value of the underlying stocks. malkiel concludes (p. 51) that this “provides clinching evidence of wide - scale stock - market irrationality during the 1920s. ” however, malkiel also notes (p. 442) “as of the mid - 1990’s, berkshire hathaway shares were selling at a hefty premium over the value of assets it owned. ” warren buffett is the guiding force behind berkshire hathaway’s great success as an investor. if we were to conclude that rational investors would currently pay a premium for warren buffet’s expertise, then we should reject a conclusion that the 1929 market was obviously irrational. we have current evidence that rational investors will pay a premium for what they consider to be superior money management skills .
adolph casper miller, an outspoken member of the federal reserve board from its beginning described 1929 as “this period of optimism gone wild and cupidity gone drunk. ”
gaines, jane; radha vatsal .
how women worked in the us silent film industry .
in jane gaines, radha vatsal, and monica dall’asta, eds .
as an archivist, i was curious to know whether the 16mm artefact preserved at the bfi conservation centre was the actual film that was projected in court. with the help of conservation specialist angelo lucatello, who carried out a ‘forensic’ examination of the film, we were able to ascertain that it was indeed the actual artefact projected. several articles noted that the film was stopped during projection to allow the faces of the defendants in court to be compared with those of the perpetrators on screen, and this correlated with the physical state of those sections of the film – visible emulsion damage was caused by the heat of the projector bulb when the film was stopped. the derbyshire times article even accounted for the (almost) subliminal shot of the elephants: “three elephants, who were performing at a circus in the town, ambled slowly across the screen. ”
wigmore, barry a. the crash and its aftermath: a history of securities markets in the united states, 1929 - 1933. greenwood press, westport, 1985 .
although no consensus has been reached on the causes of the 1929 stock market crash, the evidence cited above suggests that it may have been that the fear of speculation helped push the stock market to the brink of collapse. it is possible that hoover’s aggressive campaign against speculation, helped by the overpriced public utilities hit by the massachusetts public utility commission decision and statements and the vulnerable margin investors, triggered the october selling panic and the consequences that followed .
galbraith’s ability to ‘forecast’ the market turn is not shared by all. samuelson (1979) admits that: “playing as i often do the experiment of studying price profiles with their dates concealed, i discovered that i would have been caught by the 1929 debacle. ” for many, the collapse from 1929 to 1933 was neither foreseeable nor inevitable .
just to compound the enigma, about a third of the way through the film, a troop of elephants passes through the marketplace. when i rewound this section (to double check that i had really seen this fleeting apparition !) i found my first clue to the film’s provenance. the word ‘chesterfield’ is written on a sign on a van parked behind the elephants .
see giovanna fossati, from grain to pixel: the archival life of film in transition (amsterdam: amsterdam university press, 2009), on the restoration of beyond the rocks. ↩
“we use the difference between prices and net asset values of closed - end mutual funds at the end of the 1920s to estimate the degree to which the stock market was overvalued on the eve of the 1929 crash. we conclude that the stocks making up the s & p composite were priced at least 30 percent above fundamentals in late summer, 1929. ”
this argument was first made in michael wood, america at the movies. new york: basic books, 1975. it is developed in christine gledhill, “the melodramatic field: an introduction, ” in home is where the heart is: studies in melodrama and the woman’s film, ed. christine gledhill (london: british film institute, 1987), 13, 34, and again in linda williams, “melodrama revisited, ” in refiguring american film genres: history and theory, ed. nick browne (berkeley: university of california press, 2001). ↩
the fact that the stock market lost 90 percent of its value from 1929 to 1932 indicates that the market, at least using one criterion (actual performance of the market), was overvalued in 1929. john kenneth galbraith (1961) implies that there was a speculative orgy and that the crash was predictable: “early in 1928, the nature of the boom changed. the mass escape into make - believe, so much a part of the true speculative orgy, started in earnest. ” galbraith had no difficulty in 1961 identifying the end of the boom in 1929: “on the first of january of 1929, as a matter of probability, it was most likely that the boom would end before the year was out. ”
this text was printed from the women film pioneers project at columbia university. to promote readability and conserve consumable resources, images and interactive elements in the digital version do not appear in print format .
it is difficult to predict a major market turn with any degree of reliability. it is impressive that in september 1929, roger babson predicted the collapse of the stock market, but he had been predicting a collapse for many years. also, even babson recommended diversification and was against complete liquidation of stock investments (financial chronicle, september 7, 1929, p. 1505) .
yet the most comprehensive overview of the industry, business woman, in 1923 listed twenty - nine different jobs that women held (in addition to actress), including that of typist, stenographer, secretary to the stars and executive secretary, telephone operator, hairdresser, seamstress, costume designer, milliner, reader, script girl, scenarist, cutter, film retoucher, film splicer, laboratory worker, set designer and set dresser, librarian, artist, title writer, publicity writer, plasterer molder, casting director, musician, film editor, department manager, director, and producer. (2 )
warner bros. production and release. starring pauline frederic. directed by john g. adolfi from stage play ,
divorce evidence ,
by j. du rocher macpherson. screen adaptation and dialog by j. grubb alexander. at mark strand, new york, oct. 4. running time, 79 min .
rappoport, peter and eugene n. white, “was there a bubble in the 1929 stock market? ” journal of economic history 53, no. 3 (1993): 549 - 574 .
epes w. sargent, “the literary side of the motion picture world, ” moving picture world 21 (11 july 1914): 199, rpt. in film history 9 (1997): 269–274. ↩
delong and schleifer had limited data (pp. 698 - 699). for example, for september 1929 there were two observations, for august 1929 there were five, and for july there were nine. the nine funds observed in july 1929 had the following premia: 277% , 152% , 48% , 22% , 18% (2 times), 8% (3 times). given that closed - end funds tend to sell at a discount, the positive premiums are interesting. given the conventional perspective in 1929 that financial experts could manager money better than the person not plugged into the street, it is not surprising that some investors were willing to pay for expertise and to buy shares in investment trusts. thus, a premium for investment trusts does not imply the same premium for other stocks .
in 1929, public utility stock prices were in excess of three times their book values. consider, for example, the following measures (wigmore, 1985, p. 39) for five operating utilities .
a segment of the market can experience bad news and a price decline that infects the broader market. in 1929, it seems to have been public utilities. in 2000, high technology firms were candidates .
the following high and low prices for 1929 for a typical set of public utilities and holding companies illustrate how severely public utility prices were hit by the crash (new york times, 1 january 1930 quotations. )
the “familial mode” or system might possibly be seen in what charles musser has called the “collaborative system” he sees dominant until 1907–08 (“pre - classical american cinema: its changing modes of film production, ” in silent film, ed. richard abel [ new brunswick: rutgers university press, 1996, 86 ]. the “camera - system, ” followed by the “director - unit system, ” and finally the “central producer system” have been described most fully by janet staiger in david bordwell, kristin thompson, and janet staiger, the classical hollywood cinema: film style & mode of production to 1960 (new york: columbia university press, 1985), 113–41. ↩
in the spring of 1929, the u. s. senate adopted a resolution stating that the senate would support legislation “necessary to correct the evil complained of and prevent illegitimate and harmful speculation” (bierman, 1991) .
this archival detective story involves a police photographer, a posse of street - betters, a lenient magistrate and a troop of circus elephants… but it’s a story that changed the course of british legal history – and film history too .
the nation’s total real income rose from 1921 to 1923 by 10. 5% per year, and from 1923 to 1929, it rose 3. 4% per year. the 1920s were, in fact, a period of real growth and prosperity. for the period of 1923 - 1929, wholesale prices went down 0. 9% per year, reflecting moderate stable growth in the money supply during a period of healthy real growth .
according to chaney expert jon mirsalis, the 1929 version cut some of the phantom’s back story and his history with secret police agent ledoux (arthur edmund carewe). while a newly discovered two - color technicolor version of the famous bal masque sequence was added to the eastman house print in the 1970s, there were other color scenes in the original, and apparently some of the musical sequences shot for the 1929 version were also in color .
there were $ 1 billion of investment trusts sold to investors in the first eight months of 1929 compared to $ 400 million in the entire 1928. the economist reported that this was important (october 12, 1929, p. 665). “much of the recent increase is to be accounted for by the extraordinary burst of investment trust financing. ” in september alone $ 643 million was invested in investment trusts (financial times, october 21, p. 3). while the two sets of numbers (from the economist and the financial times) are not exactly comparable, both sets of numbers indicate that investment trusts had become very popular by october 1929 .
in the us, women had the right to vote in 1911 in the state of california, but not until 1920 was it granted at the federal level. scholars concur that despite the benefit from a change in the political climate that accrued to women who worked in the new industry, there is no evidence of any direct hollywood association with the suffrage movement. ↩
see jane gaines, “pink - slipped: what happened to women in the silent film industry? ” in the wiley - blackwell history of american film, ed. cynthia a. lucia, roy grundmann, and art simon (london: wiley - blackwell, 2012), for the argument that given recent research, the story has changed from the idea that there were “no women in 1925” to the idea that opportunities for women were “over by 1925. ” ↩
there is a touching tete - a - tete between the woman and man who fears to speak of his love for her, bowing out gracefully when he understands her unchanged feeling for her husband. with the evidence of her innocence in hand she confronts the man who made her suffer, who asks for and is granted forgiveness with the bond of their child linking them .
pauline frederick gives a fine performance in this old - fashioned drammer of circumstantial evidence in the divorce courts. we all knew that polly would be grand in the talkies. if it weren' t for a fine cast of stage and screen vets, this picture would creak even worse than it does. conway tearle and william courtenay head an excellent troupe. all talkie .
but the sheer number of creative opportunities was eventually reversed when the more expensive multireel feature film became the standard, and it became more difficult to secure financing for larger production budgets. as karen mahar has pointed out, although feature films originally provided opportunity for independent companies outside the mppc distribution and exhibition system, as the multireel feature presentation became the standard, the competitive strategy behind the feature film business involved eliminating small companies by raising the capital investment required (2006) .
the closed - end funds were an attractive vehicle to study since the market for investment trusts in 1929 was large and growing rapidly. in august and september alone over $ 1 billion of new funds were launched. delong and schleifer found the premiums of price over value to be large — the median was about 50% in the third quarter of 1929) (p. 678). but they worried about the validity of their study because funds were not selected randomly .
sources: 1922 - 1929 measures are from the stock market study, u. s. senate, 1955, pp. 40, 49, 110, and 111; 1930 - 1932 wigmore, 1985, pp. 637 - 639 .
perhaps because it was considered a purely mechanical and tedious undertaking, requiring only attention to detail, keen eyesight, and nimble hands, film editing in the first decade was often carried out by anonymous, young working - class women. their duties were considered to be no more creative than cutting and pasting hundreds of feet of negative and positive film, and, as such, cutters and joiners were not mentioned in the trade presses, which the first century of us motion picture history relied upon so exclusively .
myrtle gebhart, “business women in film studios, ” the business woman (december 1923): 67–68. “the girls who do not act, ” picture - play magazine (december 1924): 102, 119, gives more detail about this work, explaining that a film joiner is a “splicer, ” that in addition to working as a librarian a woman might be employed as a researcher (“research worker”), and that they were numerous not only in the millinery but in the drapery department. ↩
unfortunately (p. 682) “portfolios were rarely published and net asset values rarely calculated. ” it was only after the crash that investment trusts started to reveal routinely their net asset value. in the third quarter of 1929 (p. 682), “three types of event seemed to trigger a closed - end fund’s publication of its portfolio. ” the three events were (1) listing on the new york stock exchange (most of the trusts were not listed), (2) start up of a new closed - end fund (this stock price reflects selling pressure), and (3) shares selling at a discount from net asset value (in september 1929 most trusts were not selling at a discount, the inclusion of any that were introduces a bias). after 1929, some trusts revealed 1929 net asset values. thus, delong and schleifer lacked the amount and quality of information that would have allowed definite conclusions. in fact, if investors also lacked the information regarding the portfolio composition we would have to place investment trusts in a unique investment category where investment decisions were made without reliable financial statements. if investors in the third quarter of 1929 did not know the current net asset value of investment trusts, this fact is significant .
factory payrolls in september were at an index of 111 (an all - time high). in october the index dropped to 110, which beat all previous months and years except for september 1929. the factory employment measures were consistent with the payroll index .
using the information of table 1, from 1922 to 1929 stocks rose in value by 218. 7% . this is equivalent to an 18% annual growth rate in value for the seven years. from 1929 to 1932 stocks lost 73% of their value (different indices measured at different time would give different measures of the increase and decrease). the price increases were large, but not beyond comprehension. the price decreases taken to 1932 were consistent with the fact that by 1932 there was a worldwide depression .
examining the manufacturing situation in the united states prior to the crash is also informative. irving fisher’s stock market crash and after (1930) offers much data indicating that there was real growth in the manufacturing sector. the evidence presented goes a long way to explain fisher’s optimism regarding the level of stock prices. what fisher saw was manufacturing efficiency rapidly increasing (output per worker) as was manufacturing output and the use of electricity .
if a researcher could find out the composition of the portfolio of a couple of dozen of the largest investment trusts as of september - october 1929 this would be extremely helpful. seven important types of information that are not readily available but would be of interest are :
the utilities bubble did burst. between the end of september and the end of november 1929, industrial stocks fell by 48% , railroads by 32% and utilities by 55% — thus utilities dropped the furthest from the highs. a comparison of the beginning of the year prices and the highest prices is also of interest: industrials rose by 20% , railroads by 19% , and utilities by 48% . the growth in value for utilities during the first nine months of 1929 was more than twice that of the other two groups .
even the trade press picked up on the event. a tongue - in - cheek letter by a reviewer for today’s cinema congratulated the derbyshire police for their filmic enterprise: “our industry seems to be playing an increasing part not only in causing crime… but in preventing it… some time ago, we seem to remember a film camera being set as a trap to catch an alleged fowl thief. but you seem to have done the thing in style. the film, we read, lasted some 15 minutes. after the first ‘performance’ the picture was re - wound and put through again, being stopped at particular places as required by the defendants… one thing we think ought to be made clear: was your film really non - flam? we should hate to think of so enterprising a chief constable committing an offence under the cinematograph act of 1909 through excess of zeal! ”
barsky and delong (1990, p. 280) stress the importance of fundamentals rather than fads or fashions. “our conclusion is that major decade - to - decade stock market movements arise predominantly from careful re - evaluation of fundamentals and less so from fads or fashions. ” the argument below is consistent with their conclusion, but there will be one major exception. in september 1929, the market value of one segment of the market, the public utility sector, should be based on existing fundamentals, and fundamentals seem to have changed considerably in october 1929 .
see, for instance, epes winthrop sargent, “the photoplaywright, ” moving picture world (9 august 1913): 630; jeanie macpherson, “development of photodramatic writing, ” moving picture world (11 july 1914): 199, rpt. in film history 9 (1997): 274–75. ↩
in concept, investment trusts were sensible. they offered expert management and diversification. unfortunately, in 1929 a diversification of stocks was not going to be a big help given the universal price declines. irving fisher on september 6, 1929 was quoted in the new york herald tribune as stating: “the present high levels of stock prices and corresponding low levels of dividend returns are due largely to two factors. one, the anticipation of large dividend returns in the immediate future; and two, reduction of risk to investors largely brought about through investment diversification made possible for the investor by investment trusts. ”
article after article from january to october in business magazines carried news of outstanding economic performance. e. k. berger and a. m. leinbach, two staff writers of the magazine of wall street, wrote in june 1929: “business so far this year has astonished even the perennial optimists. ”
thursday, october 24 (black thursday) was a 12, 894, 650 share day (the previous record was 8, 246, 742 shares on march 26, 1929) on the nyse. the headline on page one of the times (october 25) was “treasury officials blame speculation. ”
the 1929 stock market crash is conventionally said to have occurred on thursday the 24 th and tuesday the 29 th of october. these two dates have been dubbed “black thursday” and “black tuesday, ” respectively. on september 3, 1929, the dow jones industrial average reached a record high of 381. 2. at the end of the market day on thursday, october 24, the market was at 299. 5 — a 21 percent decline from the high. on this day the market fell 33 points — a drop of 9 percent — on trading that was approximately three times the normal daily volume for the first nine months of the year. by all accounts, there was a selling panic. by november 13, 1929, the market had fallen to 199. by the time the crash was completed in 1932, following an unprecedentedly large economic depression, stocks had lost nearly 90 percent of their value .
as a company job, the scenario writer was sometimes also responsible for titling, or intertitle writing, and within this labor of writing there might have been another breakdown: continuity writer, film editor, and scenario editor (mcgilligan 1986, 2). some women established themselves as both film editor and scenario editor, the latter of which required more writing, as, for example, beta breuil and hettie gray baker, who emerged from the editing department to head up departments as scenario editors. in her 1914 art of photoplay writing, catherine carr describes the responsibilities of the scenario editor in what she calls the “maiden trip” of the manuscript :
another economy is operative outside hollywood, and thus we find women financing companies with family fortunes, organizational fund - raising, professional earnings, and divorce settlements. some, like madeline brandeis, worked on the edge of hollywood, where she started madeline brandeis productions to produce educational shorts, operating between 1924 and 1929. a midwesterner whose first film was produced in chicago, brandeis funded her first production with her settlement from the omaha, nebraska, brandeis dry goods store heir to whom she was married. a number of the short films brandeis produced as part of the children of all lands series, distributed by pathé, are extant .
the financial fundamentals of the markets were also strong. during 1928, the price - earnings ratio for 45 industrial stocks increased from approximately 12 to approximately 14. it was over 15 in 1929 for industrials and then decreased to approximately 10 by the end of 1929. while not low, these price - earnings (p / e) ratios were by no means out of line historically. values in this range would be considered reasonable by most market analysts today. for example, the p / e ratio of the s & p 500 in july 2003 reached a high of 33 and in may 2004 the high was 23 .
thursday, october 3, 1929, the washington post with a page 1 headline exclaimed “stock prices crash in frantic selling. ” the new york times of october 4 headed a page 1 article with “year’s worst break hits stock market. ” the article on the first page of the times cited three contributing factors :
during 1929, the public was bombarded with statements of outrage by public officials regarding the speculative orgy taking place on the new york stock exchange. if the media say something often enough, a large percentage of the public may come to believe it. by october 29 the overall opinion was that there had been excessive speculation and the market had been too high. galbraith (1961), kindleberger (1978), and malkiel (1996) all clearly accept this assumption. the federal reserve bulletin of february 1929 states that the federal reserve would restrain the use of “credit facilities in aid of the growth of speculative credit. ”
a vivid and human problem is treated here with becoming restraint, and blazing expletives, touching the heart strings all the time. a faithful wife and devoted mother stands unjustly convicted of an indiscretion on circumstantial evidence brought about by a jealousy - crazed rejected suitor. there is a splendid court scene, where miss frederick rises to heights in renouncing her rights as wife and mother, finding herself the victim of circumstances with no one to believe her. she is forced to give her child to the father, turning to an emblem of justice in the courtroom and laughing hysterically .
in the silent era, european exoticism was also faked. welsh immigrant muriel harding styled herself as polish countess olga petrova and as a move for artistic control, started petrova pictures corporation in 1917, outside the studio system (mcmahan 2002, 180). valda valkyrien, the danish actress born in reykjavik, iceland, adopted the aristocratic persona of mademoiselle valkyrien to help her career when she immigrated to the us. she found work at the thanhouser company and later announced the valda valkyrien production company, although the evidence that the company produced any films has yet to be found .
to put the p / e ratios of 10 to 15 in perspective, note that government bonds in 1929 yielded 3. 4% . industrial bonds of investment grade were yielding 5. 1% . consider that an interest rate of 5. 1% represents a 1 / (0. 051) = 19. 6 price - earnings ratio for debt .
public utilities were a very important segment of the stock market, and even more importantly, any change in public utility stock values resulted in larger changes in equity wealth. in 1929, there were three potentially important multipliers that meant that any change in a public utility’s underlying value would result in a larger value change in the market and in the investor’s value .
the risks of independent financing were great, as the case of actress alla nazimova illustrates. nazimova productions was set up by lewis j. selznick within metro pictures, where the extant art deco classic camille (1921), written by june mathis and designed by natacha rambova, was produced. but when in 1922 nazimova became a united artists partner, producing the more experimental salome (1923) with her own capital, she lost everything and was never able to finance another film. (32) see “us companies outside hollywood: 1915–1935. ” less dramatic losses were sustained by margery wilson productions on that something (1921) and vera mccord on good - bad wife (1921), although these companies never made another film after the first venture .
this begins with edgar morin, the stars (1960; rpt. minneapolis: university of minnesota press, 2005), richard dyer, stars (london: british film institute, 1979). the most comprehensive coverage of the silent star is richard decordova, picture personalitie: the emergence of the star system in america (champaign - urbana: university of illinois press, 1990). ↩
effectively, the october 15, 1915, court order broke up the motion picture patents company, and the patents company vs. the universal film manufacturing co. was not decided until april 9, 1917, but the hold began to loosen even before the first of the lawsuits challenging the patent pool monopoly in 1912. see bowser 1990, ch. 5; ramsaye 1986, 715–16. ↩
the events of black thursday are normally defined to be the start of the stock market crash of 1929 - 1932, but the series of events leading to the crash started before that date. this article examines the causes of the 1929 stock market crash. while no consensus exists about its precise causes, the article will critique some arguments and support a preferred set of conclusions. it argues that one of the primary causes was the attempt by important people and the media to stop market speculators. a second probable cause was the great expansion of investment trusts, public utility holding companies, and the amount of margin buying, all of which fueled the purchase of public utility stocks, and drove up their prices. public utilities, utility holding companies, and investment trusts were all highly levered using large amounts of debt and preferred stock. these factors seem to have set the stage for the triggering event. this sector was vulnerable to the arrival of bad news regarding utility regulation. in october 1929, the bad news arrived and utility stocks fell dramatically. after the utilities decreased in price, margin buyers had to sell and there was then panic selling of all stocks .
sooner or later this price bubble had to break unless the regulatory authorities were to decide to allow the utilities to earn more than a fair return, or an infinite stream of greater fools existed. the decision made by the massachusetts public utility commission in october 1929 applicable to the edison electric illuminating company of boston made clear that neither of these improbable events were going to happen (see below) .
on august 2, 1929, the new york times reported that the directors of the edison electric illuminating company of boston had called a meeting of stockholders to obtain authorization for a stock split. the stock went up to a high of $ 440. its book value was $ 164 (the ratio of price to book value was 2. 6, which was less than many other utilities) .
the article concluded with a statement made by the chief magistrate, mr alderman h. varley, which beautifully encapsulates the mood of the day: “it has to be said that on occasions the law is an ass, and in regard to betting laws, the law is an ass. i can telephone a £1 bet, and i can keep within the law, but if i make a sixpenny bet in my house or in the street i am liable. ” evidence is a wonderful example of how non - fiction films born of a utilitarian purpose many decades ago can have rich resonance for audiences today. and how many betting shops now stand on these streets ?
in 1930, the federal reserve bulletin reported production in 1920 at an index of 87. 1 the index went down to 67 in 1921, then climbed steadily (except for 1924) until it reached 125 in 1929. this is an annual growth rate in production of 3. 1% . during the period commodity prices actually decreased. the production record for the ten - year period was exceptionally good .
from 1925 to the third quarter of 1929, common stocks increased in value by 120 percent in four years, a compound annual growth of 21. 8% . while this is a large rate of appreciation, it is not obvious proof of an “orgy of speculation. ” the decade of the 1920s was extremely prosperous and the stock market with its rising prices reflected this prosperity as well as the expectation that the prosperity would continue .
the october 19, 1929 issue of the commercial and financial chronicle identified the main depressing influences on the market to be the indications of a recession in steel and the refusal of the massachusetts department of public utilities to allow edison electric illuminating company of boston to split its stock. the explanations offered by the department — that the stock was not worth its price and the company’s dividend would have to be reduced — made the situation worse .
except for some intermittent damage from the nitrate negative that was used to make the original print, the version we’re showing — a recent restoration by film preservation associates — looks great, with clear and sharp images and the original color tinting. but it’s about 20 minutes shorter than the original, and includes footage — about 40 percent by some estimates — that was not in the original version (including all of the opera sequences, which were restaged for sound) .
later, lois weber and other “universal women” were guaranteed distribution through universal film manufacturing company, founded in 1912 by carl laemmle, one of the challengers of the mppc monopoly. whether her films were made as rex, bosworth, or lois weber productions, they were released through universal, which, in 1916, had ambitions to distribute worldwide in india, mexico, australia, and japan, where the bluebird brand proved to be popular (thompson 1985, 72) .
story and direction receives more than usual attention and care, with john adolfi turning out a fine all - around job in coursing the action. warners are understood to have considered tagging this in the special cases before eventually deciding to let it go as a programmer. decision appears for the better. the multitude of picture goers and a good many frederick fans may have hesitated to pull the purse strings for $ 2, but will certainly go for this a pop scale. and it' s not a special anyway, unless for miss frederick who again demonstrates a tear jerking mother part to its fullest extent, getting some superb emotional acting out of it without becoming balmy or maudlin. which is another reason why
evidence
is as convincing as it is .
margin buying during the 1920’s was not controlled by the government. it was controlled by brokers interested in their own well - being. the average margin requirement was 50% of the stock price prior to october 1929. on selected stocks, it was as high as 75% . when the crash came, no major brokerage firm was bankrupted, because the brokers managed their finances in a conservative manner. at the end of october, margins were lowered to 25%.
evidence is a 1929 pre-code crime drama film produced and distributed by the warner brothers . it is based on the 1914 broadway play evidence by j. durocher macpherson and l. durocher macpherson . this early talkie was directed by john g. adolfi and starred pauline frederick and lowell sherman . while this film is lost , its soundtrack , recorded by the vitaphone process , survives . 
evidence is a 1929 pre-code crime drama film produced and distributed by the warner brothers. it is based on the 1914 broadway play evidence by j. durocher macpherson and l. durocher macpherson. this early talkie was directed by john g. adolfi and starred pauline frederick and lowell sherman. while this film is lost, its soundtrack, recorded by the vitaphone process, survives.
evidence is a 1929 pre-code crime drama film produced and distributed by the warner brothers. it is based on the 1914 broadway play evidence by j. durocher macpherson and l. durocher macpherson. this early talkie was directed by john g. adolfi and starred pauline frederick and lowell sherman. while this film is lost, its soundtrack, recorded by the vitaphone process, survives.