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This chapter describes how the once close relationship between the Wharton brothers irreparably broke. In late spring of 1919, after he and Ted parted ways, Leo Wharton left New York and headed west—not to Los Angeles but to Texas, which he hoped would become part of a film community that might rival Hollywood. At San Antonio Motion Pictures, he believed that he would have the opportunity to produce the kinds of feature films that he had long wanted to make. The demise of San Antonio Motion Pictures, however, effectively marked the end of Leo's film career. Ted Wharton, who left Ithaca less than a year after his brother Leo did, also traveled west. But whereas Leo had sought fame and success in Texas, Ted moved to Hollywood, which was rapidly evolving into the film capital of the United States. Almost immediately, Universal—by then well known for its popular westerns—hired him to work on the production of The Moon Riders (1920). Sadly, little more is known about the Whartons' final years. Nevertheless, a close examination of their careers restores Ted and Leo Wharton to the classical narrative of early filmmaking and reveals their profound impact on the early serial picture and their influence on later popular genres.

This chapter discusses how Leo Wharton got into the film industry. Leo's earliest documented stage appearance was in 1893, in the play The Fairies' Well. After a few years of itinerant acting, Leo was able to secure steadier employment at the Hopkins Grand Opera in Saint Louis, where his brother Ted was already performing. As part of Colonel Hopkins's theatrical company, Leo assumed various stage roles in the popular daylong “continuous performance” programs that Hopkins pioneered, which combined live drama and between-the-acts vaudeville. Leo's first known (and first credited) film appearance was in the title role of Lincoln in Abraham Lincoln's Clemency (1910), a photoplay produced by Ted Wharton for Pathé. The role not only garnered good reviews for his sympathetic performance and even for his resemblance to the revered figure whom he was portraying; it also led to an offer as a director for Pathé, the studio for which Ted was then working. There, Leo began directing similar shorts, such as the period historical drama The Rival Brothers' Patriotism (1911). Since early movie audiences seemed especially fond of marital comedies, Leo produced several shorts in 1913 that revolved around wedding-day complications. While these and other short pictures that Leo produced for Pathé were often predictable in their plotting and formulaic in their execution, they were nonetheless popular with audiences and profitable for Pathé. Moreover, they established his reputation in the industry.

This chapter recounts Ted Wharton's preparations for his new Wharton studio after cutting his ties to Essanay. The Ithaca Men's Business Association, acting on behalf of the Industrial Commission, offered him, free of charge, two acres on Cayuga Heights and promised improvements on the property. The recruitment efforts paid off: by mid-March of 1914, Ted announced that he and his brother Leo, by then formally his business partner, would base their new moving picture operation in Ithaca. The establishment of the Wharton Studio, one of the first independent production studios in the United States, was in itself a remarkable venture—all the more, given its regional location. Although several major producers had briefly filmed in southern locales, few studios operated beyond the New York metropolitan area, Chicago, and Southern California, where most filmmaking of the time was clustered. Nonetheless, the Whartons believed that, given the advantages of remarkable scenery and reasonable operating costs that Ithaca offered, they could make their studio a success. Adding to their confidence was their extensive background in live theater and their years in the early silent movie industry, which they knew would enable them to draw on contacts from Broadway and from movies for story material and stars.

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the serial motion picture. Typically two-reel action-packed films that ran for ten, fifteen, or more installments, serials often ended with a cliffhanger and a promise “to be continued next week.” Episodically structured and suspensefully plotted, they not only served as the precursors of the popular installment dramas and crime procedurals that have become staples of modern network and cable television programming; they also anticipated the extended incremental storytelling methods and “thrilling episodes of inescapable fatality and hair-breath escapes” that later filmmakers would exploit in commercial blockbusters such as the Star Wars series and the Indiana Jones and Marvel movie franchises. Moreover, serials helped to forge a strong link between the print and the film industries. The chapter then traces the evolution of the serial form, looking at an early twelve-part Edison production, What Happened to Mary, whose first installment was released on July 26, 1912. It also describes the serial The Perils of Pauline (released beginning March 23, 1914), which not only heightened interest in the genre; it also immortalized its star, Pearl White, and became the most famous of all the early chapter plays. However, it was the pioneering serials produced by filmmakers Ted and Leo Wharton that would have the most profound and sustained impact on the genre.