BIOGRAPH The oldest movie company in America - Hollywood

D. W. Griffith and his Biograph stock company of actors arrived one cold morning in downtown Los Angeles at the Alexandria Hotel on 4th Street. After weeks of filming in downtown Los Angeles, Griffith had heard of a place where the local hot air balloon rides went from downtown. The balloons landed a few miles away in a place where there were orange groves and flower gardens. They decided one morning to follow the balloon to the little village they heard about. What they found was friendly people, beautiful locations, and the best place to film Biograph movies. This little village was known as Hollywood.

The first short movie filmed there was "In Old California" a romantic melodrama about Mexico-owned California. this was the first movie ever filmed in Hollywood. From this point on, filmmakers back east heard of this place, and Hollywood became the movie capital of the world.

In later years this lost film rewrote history, and established many firsts. Hollywood was discovered by an independent film company, and that the "Squaw Man" directed by C. B. DeMille (1913) was not the first movie made in Hollywood as always thought. The most important was a Latino based melodrama was chosen as the first ever film in Hollywood.

This caused a stir of controversy and radical efforts to silence and ignore this groundbreaking film, including threats, questionable roadblocks by Hollywood, and extreme measures to the extent of the inside theft of the two ton monument on Hollywood and Vine commemorating the film, and the hush about its theft in the press.

Celebrities along with Latino film-makers and actors talk about this film, in this historical DVD on the "Real" and truthful history of Hollywood. Included is the never before relased "In Old California, digitally enhanced and restored. In Old California - The Rise and Fall of Hollywood. Coming soon!