Hollywood Timeline: 1922

Date

Event

11^th January

Erich von Stroheim’s $1 million movie Foolish Wives premieres at the Central. Stroheim also stars as a con artist posing as Russian nobility.

28^th January

The roof of the Knickerbocker Theater in Washington collapses beneath an estimated 30 inches of snow, killing 98 and injuring nearly 200.

January

Motion Picture Magazine announces that the winner of its contest to find a new star is 16-year-old Miss Clara Bow of 857 73^rd Street, Brooklyn, New York.

1^st February

Paramount director William Desmond Taylor is shot dead at his home. Actresses Mabel Normand and Mary Miles Minter are among the suspects.

3^rd February

The jury in the second trial of Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle is discharged after failing to reach a verdict.

19^th February

W. Christy Cabanne’s comedy drama Beyond the Rainbow, starring Harry T. Morey and Billie Dove is released. The performance of screen newcomer Clara Bow, who won a national contest to appear in the film, is so poor it is cut.

6^th March

Former postmaster Will Hays starts work as head of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association in a move by the industry to avoid state or federal censorship in the wake of a string of scandals.

10^th March

Samuel Goldwyn resigns from the Goldwyn Company, which he co-founded in 1916 after stockholders at the company’s annual general meeting elect Frank Godsol Chairman of the Board of Directors.

13^th March

Thousands line the street to catch a glimpse of movie stars, including Theda Bara, Montagu Love and Mae Murray, attending the opening of Loew’s State Theatre in Boston.

12^th April

At his third trial, Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle is acquitted of the manslaughter of Virginia Rappe. The jury issues a statement saying, “Acquittal is not enough for Roscoe Arbuckle. We feel that a great injustice has been done him".

18^th April

Will Hays, head of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association temporarily bans the booking and showing of all Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle films.

25^th April

Lee De Forrest claims to have perfected the talking picture. His new process records sound on the film as it is being made.

20^th May

Rudolph Valentino is charged with bigamy following his marriage on 13^th May to Natacha Rambova. The actor failed to wait the mandatory twelve months after his divorce from actress Jean Acker before remarrying.

23^rd May

Actress Priscilla Dean suffers a sprained ankle trying to rescue prints of Lon Chaney’s Under Two Flags from a fire that breaks out in one of Universal Studio’s cutting rooms.

23^rd May

Walt Disney’s Laugh-O-Gram Films is incorporated.

May

German Shepherd Rin Tin Tin makes his screen debut playing a wolf in Irving Cumming’s The Man from Hell’s River.

5^th June

Justice Hanby rules that there is insufficient evidence to bring Rudolph Valentino to trial for bigamy.

6^th June

New ‘movie czar’ Will Hays posts a note to studios instructing them that movies must be cleaned up and stay clean.

9^th June

Joseph Tykocinski-Tycociner, a professor at the University of Illinois, successfully demonstrates a a sound-on-film system.

11^th June

Robert Flaherty’s documentary film Nanook of the North goes on general release. Film Year Book 1922-1923 will name it one of the ten best films of 1922.

20^th June

The Paramount Stock Company school officially opens. Its purpose is “developing screen players in purely motion picture technique and affording them a thorough knowledge of all phases of motion picture production.”

23^rd July

21-year-old former tie salesman Clark Gable appears in blackface as the female cook Eliza in When Women Rule, a play staged by the Red Lantern Players in Astoria.

29^th July

Walt Disney’s Laugh-o-Gram releases Little Red Riding Hood, Disney’s first film.

30^th July

Fred Niblo’s bullfighting drama Blood and Sand premieres at Graumann’s Rialto Theatre. Rudolph Valentino cements his status as a Latin lover opposite Lila Lee and Nita Naldi.

31^st July

Rex Ingram’s The Prisoner of Zenda premieres at the Astor Theatre. Lewis Stone stars as the British tourist who poses as an abducted king to prevent his evil sibling from claiming his throne.

19^th August

The Exhibitors Trade Review reports that the Federal Trade Commission has issued a complaint against the Fox Film Corporation for reissuing old films under new titles without disclosing the films are not new.

5^th September

Rudolph Valentino refuses to make any more films for Famous Players-Lasky after the company refuses to release him from his contract. The star is dissatisfied with “the handling of all my films.”

10^th September

One Terrible Day, the first of Hal Roach’s Our Gang comedy shorts, is released.

12^th September

Pola Negri arrives in New York aboard the White Star Liner Majestic. She is greeted by Jesse Lasky, head of Famous Players-Lasky.

14^th September

When Knighthood Was in Flower, a historical romance starring Marion Davies, premieres at the Criterion Theatre on Broadway.

17^th September

Harold Lloyd films the famous scene for Safety Last! (1923) in which he scales the side of the International Bank Building at Temple and Spring streets, Los Angeles.

27^th September

The Power of Love, cinema’s first stereoscopic (3D) feature film receives the first of only two public screenings at the Ambassador Theatre Hotel in Los Angeles.

3^rd October

A court rules that Rudolph Valentino must honour the contract he has with Famous Players-Lasky and is forbidden from appearing for any other studio.

3^rd October

Furrier Abraham Seligman escapes serious injury after he is struck in the chest by an arrow while standing at his window. The arrow was launched by Douglas Fairbanks, who was entertaining journalists on the rooftop of the Ritz Hotel while in New York to promote his latest film, Robin Hood.

8^th October

Allen ‘Farina’ Hoskins makes his debut in Fire Fighters, the second ‘Our Gang’ comedy short. Farina will make more films in the series than any other gang member.

18^th October

For the first time, searchlights rake the night sky outside Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. The opening attraction is Allan Dwan’s Robin Hood, starring Douglas Fairbanks.

29^th October

Jackie Coogan stars as Oliver in Frank Lloyd’s Oliver Twist, appearing opposite Lon Chaney as Fagin and Gladys Brockwell as Nancy.

5^th November

Edward Venturini’s The Headless Horseman is released. It is the first film to be shot on Panchromatic stock rather than orthochromatic, which rendered blue skies as pale white.

12^th November

Mary Pickford stars in Tess of the Storm Country, a remake of her own 1914 feature. Some reports claim she had all prints of the original destroyed, although a version exists today.

26^th November

The Toll of the Sea, the first feature film to be made in two-strip Technicolor is released. Anna May Wong stars in the romantic melodrama set in China.

November

Lee DeForest forms the DeForest Phonofilm Corporation to exploit his sound-on-film system.

8^th December

Douglas Fairbanks loses his legal fight to prevent Triangle and others from re-editing his old films.

20^th December

Will Hays allows Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle to return to filmmaking. His announcement prompts a protest from the Los Angeles district Federation of Womens Clubs.

December

Famous Players inform actress Mary Miles Minter, whose career has suffered because of her involvement in the William Desmond Taylor murder case, that it is not renewing her contract.

The Mitchell Motion Picture Camera goes on sale.