Stairstars
Well-Known Member
Sharing a new arrival, which is also the oldest screen used prop I have and wonder if there is anything older out there. This rifle, from the very obscure BRONCHO MOTION PICTURE CO. was made in 1882, but found it's way to Thomas Ince's INCEVILLE STUDIO, which was situated on 18,000 acres, stretching seven miles on the south side of Sunset Blvd., to the Pacific Ocean at PCH. On it, he built a movie making factory town, housing every aspect of film making and employing hundreds of people. He had a commissary to feed them, planted crops and built elaborate villages and towns as back lots. He made several pictures at a time and was often seen riding between them on horseback. He made a deal with the New York film Company, who also owned KAY-BEE, 101 Bison and Keystone, to have a foothold in CA. Broncho was to make western shorts and they did - 157 of them in a year and a half. The biggest was CUSTER'S LAST FIGHT, in 1912, which features these rifles as they were historically issued to the 7th Calvary. Further enhancing the spectacle of Ince's films was a deal he made with the traveling Miller 101 Ranch Wild West Show, under the agreement they would winter on the property in exchange for using their 300 cowboys and 200 Sioux Indians in the films, five of which claimed to be at Little Big Horn. Broncho only lasted a year and a half, and even the parent company was gone by 1914. In 1925, a year after Ince's untimely death, and in anticipation of the 50th anniversary of the real battle, they added two reels to the film and re-released it. It was a sensation again. Ince may also be remembered for Inceville, with nearly all wooden structures, burning to the ground and then being approached by Henry Culver, who offered him land in the city that would soon bear his name, to build a modern studio. He accepted and in 1915 built a beauty on Washington Blvd, that he later sold to Goldwyn. In May of 1924, that studio became MGM. Meanwhile, Ince built a second studio down the street with a large columned white house, as the offices, and many additional buildings to continue his idea of total film making and operated there until his death. We call it 40 acres now, and it became the home to DeMille, Pathe, RKO, Selznick, Desilu and Paramount. Some of the greatest films and best loved TV shows were shot there.
