(The complete 1926 “Ella Cinders” movie is available free on Wikipedia). And the persistent studio gate keeper was played by Mike Donlin, former Santa Cruz baseball player who went on to a big league career, then did vaudeville and movies. There was also an uncredited cameo by baby-faced Mack Sennett comedian Harry Langdon (a former cartoonist-turned-actor). Green even played the film director in Ella Cinders. Green, whose film career stretched from 1912 to 1954. The director of Ella Cinders was the prolific Alfred E. Griffin was a former Keystone director and Mervin LeRoy would later produce “The Wizard of Oz” and direct musicals and dramas, best remembered for “Little Ceasar” (1931) and “30 Seconds Over Tokyo” (1944). The studio chose Frank Griffin and Mervin LeRoy to turn Ella CInders’ story into a screen play. Head of production John McCormick produced the film, and cast his wife as Ella Cinders, who only happened to be a leading star of the 1920s, Colleen Moore. First National (Warner Bros.) felt the popular daily strip would provide a guaranteed return on its recognition factor alone. These jobs not only gave him contact with stars and studios, but gave him the idea to turn his comic strip “Cinderella in the Movies” into a real movie. Conselman was surprised how easy devising intertitles was for him: just like writing comic-strip dialog balloons. Silent movie intertitles either contained dialogue, or explained the action. Farnham on the movie “Bright Lights” writing intertitles. Wanting an insider’s view of filmmaking, MGM let Conselman assist Joseph W. Widespread interest in Hollywood soon had the Ella Cinders strip carried by papers nation-wide. He also found inspiration in the movies themselves, using cinematic devices in his comic strip. He knew plot and dialog from his childhood in Vaudeville and musicals, and the stageplays of his parents –actors Harry and Mary– whose biggest hit was the 1904-05 Klaw & Erlanger production of “Mother Goose.” The theater life had made his childhood a living fairy tale, transformed on stage into anything one imagined. They were an inside look at Hollywood and movie making, filled with humor and drama.Ĭonselman had written or edited numerous articles on filmmaking. Conselman’s plotlines went well beyond mere parody of the familiar tale. Conselman’s fascination with Hollywood filmmaking led him to create a modern “Cinderella in the Movies” comic strip in 1925, with employee Charles Plumb illustrating and Conselman writing.Ĭonselman loved a play-on-words, and reversed the name Cinder-Ella into “Ella Cinders,” for the wise-cracking heroine.
William Conselman settled in California in 1920 as Features Editor for the Los Angeles Times.
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