R.I.’s forgotten slice of the silent-film industry

Tawfik
Tawfik

The story of a silent-film studio founded nearly 100 years ago in Providence might have been lost to time if not for the efforts of a recent Rhode Island College graduate.
Adam Tawfik wasn’t sure what he’d find when he began researching Eastern Film Corporation for an honors thesis. With a major in film and a minor in history, Tawfik’s perspective was that he might “uncover a mystery.”
Tawfik’s pursuit of that mystery resulted in his thesis, “The Elusive Eastern Film Corporation of Rhode Island: Resurrecting a Footnote in Film History.”
“One of my hobbies has always been to research obscure movie topics,” said Tawfik, who returned to his home in Athens, Ga., after his May graduation from RIC.
That interest led him to choose RIC, where he found a program that gave him the opportunity to study not just production, but the broad aspects of film. He’s known for years he’s been heading toward being a film historian.
For his thesis on Eastern Film Corporation, Tawfik went to primary sources, including newspaper articles from the 1910s and 1920s. Much of his work was done at the Rhode Island Historical Society, digging through documents and viewing four of Eastern’s films.
“Adam came in here and started pouring through material,” said Jim DaMico, special-collections curator for the society.
“We have 26 silent films from Eastern on cellulose nitrate in our film archives. They’re relatively rare and relatively few films were made in Rhode Island in the 1910s and 1920s,” said DaMico. “Cellulose nitrate is highly combustible, so a lot of the films from that era were lost in fires.”
In addition to the films, some of which have been transferred to VHS or DVD, the Rhode Island Historical Society has documents about the film company’s creation, location and people involved in the company. “But we didn’t have anything that’s a definitive history of Eastern Film. I think it was sort of forgotten,” said DaMico.
Tawfik traces the rise of major studios in Hollywood in order to compare their choices and development to the Eastern studio.
Tawfik found that Sen. Frederick Peck of Barrington founded Eastern Film Corporation in 1914 with a $300,000 investment of his own capital, viewing the film company as a money-making enterprise.
While that was a substantial investment for the time, Tawfik’s research describes the boundaries Eastern set for itself in relation to the major studios blossoming in Hollywood.
“Eastern’s founders … diverged from the kind of men who founded the majors. Moguls like Zukor, Lasky, Goldfish, Mayer and Laemmle were self-starter, charismatic, immigrant entrepreneurs with artistic inclinations, willing to risk high sums of money,” Tawfik reported in his thesis. “Eastern’s WASP-ish executives were more conventional businessmen.”
Eastern executives, “Began with the entrepreneurial spirit of the majors but lacked their charisma, their risk-taking, their acumen and ultimately their success,” Tawfik wrote.
Eastern Film existed from 1915 to 1929, although its prime years were from 1915 to 1917, Tawfik found.
Eastern set up shop at 1100 Elmwood Avenue in Providence in a building converted from a brewery. The location was conveniently across from Roger Williams Park, which came in handy for exterior scenes.
One of the studio managers expressed the promise of the venture, noting that “any kind of location is at your service within a few miles in a machine … California, Long Island, Jersey – why none of them can touch it,” Tawfik wrote in his thesis. After viewing some of Eastern’s films, ones transferred to DVD and VHS, including the 45-minute feature-length film “Partners of the Tide,” Tawfik came to the conclusion that content and style played a part in the demise of the Eastern studio.
“At a time when the public craved sensational films that flirted dangerously with waywardness, Eastern was determined to make wholesome fare,” Tawfik wrote. “And even though a lot of the Hollywood films may not have great story lines, they have polish and glamour.”
The studio began shooting in Jacksonville, Fla., using the logo Jaxon.
Eastern returned to Providence permanently in 1917, according to Tawfik’s research. A fire in August of that year severely damaged the studio.
“It staggered on for a few more years,” with its last known fiction film being “The Rich Slave,” in 1921, wrote Tawfik.
In the late 1920s, Eastern changed its focus to making nontheatrical films for private industries and organizations.
While the story of Eastern may be a small part of film history, DaMico said filling in Rhode Island details is valuable.
“I think the value is to spotlight the fact that Rhode Island had a lively film culture,” said DaMico.
Rhode Island Historical Society Executive Director Morgan Grefe, an adjunct instructor at RIC who had Tawfik in her course “Rhode Island History and Public History,” said his timing, by coincidence, was good.
“Our fundraiser in April was ‘Spring Forward, Think Back to the Rhode Island Historical Society’s Silver Screen,’ ” said Grefe.
“Rhode Island has been an innovator in many ways, in business, in philosophy,” said Grefe. “We also have to think about Newport in its heyday … Rhode Island was on the upswing in 1915.” •

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