Editing King Vidor (section)

==Hollywood apprenticeship: 1915–1918==
Based on a screen test arranged by Texas actress [[Corinne Griffith]] and shot by [[Charles Rosher]] in Hollywood, Florence Vidor procured a contract with [[Vitagraph Studios]], marking the start of her successful movie career. Vidor obtained minor roles acting at Vitagraph and [[Inceville]] studios (the spy drama ''[[The Intrigue]]'' (1916) survives, in which he plays a chauffeur). As a low-level office clerk at [[Universal Pictures|Universal]], he was fired for trying to present his own scripts under the pseudonym "Charles K. Wallis", but soon was rehired by the studio as a writer of [[Short film|shorts]].<ref>Baxter, 1976. P. 7: Vidor, while a young cameraman in Texas, had provided Griffith with a letter of introduction to a cousin in California, who had in turn gotten Griffith a job as an extra at Vitagraph. In 1915, Griffith returned the favor to the struggling Vidor and Arto.<br />Durgnat and Simmon, 1988 p. 23: Vidor served "as prop boy, script clerk, bit actor..." And: Griffith a former "Texas flame" of Vidor. And p. 326: "pseudonym" derived from Vidor's christened name Charles King Wallis Vidor.</ref><ref>Holliman, TMC</ref>

===Judge Willis Brown series===
Beginning in 1915, Vidor served as screenwriter and director on a series of shorts about the rehabilitation of juvenile delinquents by social reformer [[Judge Willis Brown]]. Written and produced by Brown, Vidor filmed ten of the 20-film series, a project in which Vidor declared he had "deeply believed". A single reel from ''[[Bud's Recruit]]'' is known to survive, the earliest extant footage from Vidor's film directing career.<ref>Baxter 1976. P. 8-9</ref><ref>Berlinale, 2020</ref>

===Brentwood Film Corporation and the "Preachment" films, 1918–1919===
In 1918, at the age of 24, Vidor directed his first Hollywood feature, ''[[The Turn in the Road]]'' (1919), a film presentation of a [[Christian Science]] evangelical tract sponsored by a group of doctors and dentists affiliated as the independent Brentwood Film Corporation. Vidor recalls of his first foray into Hollywood film-making:{{blockquote|I wrote a script [The Turn in the Road] and sent it around&nbsp;... and nine doctors put up $1,000 each&nbsp;... and it was a success. That was the beginning. I didn't have time to go to college.<ref>Thompson, 2011<br />Baxter, 1976. p. 9: "the production is frankly a preachment, noted the [[New York Times]]" and p. 11. Baxter refers to the "preachment" film ''The Turn in the Road''.<br />Gustafsson. 2016: The film "advocated views associated with Christian Science (not to be confused with [[Scientology]]), a then relatively new religious movement that came about towards the end of the 19th century and to which Vidor claimed allegiance."<br />Higham 1972: "a team of businessmen supported him in making a work exemplifying his own Christian Science principles."</ref>}}

Vidor would make three more films for the Brentwood Corporation, all of which featured as yet unknown comedienne [[Zasu Pitts]], who the director had discovered on a Hollywood streetcar. The films ''[[Better Times (film)|Better Times]]'', ''[[The Other Half (1919 film)|The Other Half]]'', and ''[[Poor Relations]]'', all completed in 1919, also featured future film director [[David Butler (director)|David Butler]] and starred Vidor's then wife Florence Arto Vidor (married in 1915), a rising actor in Hollywood pictures. Vidor ended his association with the Brentwood group in 1920.<ref>Baxter, 1976. P. 9<br />Durgnat and Simmons, 1988 p. 26: "Vidor's first five features are lost&nbsp;..."</ref>

==="Vidor Village" and First National Exhibitors, 1920–1925===
[[File:King Vidor & Florence Vidor - Dec 1920 EH.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.0|Holiday greetings from the Vidors, December 25, 1920]]
King Vidor next embarked on a major project in collaboration with a New York-based film exhibitor [[First National Pictures|First National]]. In a bid to compete with the increasingly dominant Hollywood studios, First National advanced Vidor funding to build a small film production facility in [[Santa Monica, California]], dubbed ''Vidor Village''. King Vidor issued a founding statement entitled "Creed and Pledge" that set forth moral anodynes for film-making, inspired by his Christian Science sympathies.<ref>Baxter 1976. pp. 9–10</ref><ref>Berlinale 2020, 2020: "He was a Christian Scientist, although not a particularly devout one. And the creed was somewhat influenced by that faith."</ref>

{{blockquote |I believe in the motion picture that carries a message to humanity.
I believe in the picture that will help humanity to free itself from the shackles of fear and suffering that have so long bound it in chains.

I will not knowingly produce a picture that contains anything that I do not believe to be absolutely true to human nature, anything that could injure anyone or anything unclean in thought or action.

Nor will I deliberately portray anything to cause fright, suggest fear, glorify mischief, condone cruelty or extenuate malice.

I will never picture evil or wrong, except to prove the fallacy of its line.

So long as I direct pictures, I will make only those founded on the principles of right, and I will endeavor to draw upon the inexhaustible source of good for my stories, my guidance and my inspiration.<ref>Durgnat and Simmons, 1988 p. 31 See figure 14</ref>}}

His "manifesto" was carried in ''[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]]'' magazine's January 1920 issue.<ref>Baxter, 1976. p. 10</ref>

The first production from Vidor Village was his ''[[The Jack Knife Man]]'' (1920), a bleak and bitter story of an orphaned boy raised by an impoverished yet kindly hermit, performed by former stage actor [[F. A. Turner|Fred Turner]]. The recluse achieves financial success and is ultimately rewarded with the affection of a hard-nosed but soft-hearted widow, played by Lillian Leighton. Redolent with the precepts of the "Creed and Pledge", the film's "relentless realism" did not please the executives at First National. They demanded entertainment that would garner a mass share of box-office receipts so as to fill their theaters.<ref>Baxter, 1976 p. 11 "the general tone [of the film] chilled First National&nbsp;... 'they had huge theaters to fill, and they wanted names, big names and more names.'"</ref>

As film critic and biographer [[John Baxter (author)|John Baxter]] observed: "[t]his experience had a fundamental effect on Vidor's attitude toward film-making." Under pressure "as the studio system began to harden into place", the 26-year-old Vidor began to craft his films to conform to prevailing standards of the period. His 1920 film ''[[The Family Honor]]'' exemplifies this shift towards romantic comedies and away from the ideals that had informed ''The Jack Knife Man''.<ref>Gustafsson, 2016: "after a few failures Vidor put his manifesto away and tried to make films that generated some income instead."<br />Baxter, 1976. p. 11: "In a [business] community increasingly dominated by big combines, his films, though distinguished, were almost entirely the romances and comedies then in vogue&nbsp;... the ideals of his 'Creed and Pledge' receded".</ref>
[[File:The Sky Pilot (1921) - 4.jpg|thumb|King Vidor and Colleen Moore on location for ''The Sky Pilot'' near [[Truckee, California]]]]
Vidor's ''[[The Sky Pilot]]'' (1921) was a big-budget western-comedy shot on location in the high [[Sierra Nevada]] of California. [[John Bowers (actor)|John Bowers]] stars as the intrepid preacher and [[Colleen Moore]] (soon to be famous as the quintessential Hollywood "[[flapper]]") as the girl he loved and rescued from a deadly cattle stampede. The natural landscapes serve as an essential dramatic component in the film, as they would in subsequent Vidor movies. The cost overruns cut into First National profits, and they declined to fund any further Vidor projects.<ref>Baxter, 1976. P. 11, p.13: "The Sky Pilot hovers uneasily between Western comedy and the celebration of landscape which is closest to Vidor's heart."</ref>

Vidor and Moore would begin a three-year romance on the set of ''The Sky Pilot'' that became "a Hollywood legend". The couple would resume their relationship after 40 years (in 1963), remaining close until Vidor's death in 1982.<ref>Higham, 1972: "They fell in love, and their affair continued until 1924. They met again exactly 40 years later&nbsp;... They resumed their romance with much of its original intensity". And: In 1972 the couple lived "some 15 minutes drive [apart] in the Paso Robles hills, [Moore] in her own splendid homestead."</ref><ref>Senses of Cinema, 2007: "King Vidor's romance with Colleen Moore (b. 1900) is already a Hollywood legend. They first met in 1921, when he was married to his boyhood sweetheart, Florence Vidor: he directed Colleen in "The Sky Pilot." They fell in love, and their affair continued until 1924."</ref>

''[[Love Never Dies (1921 film)|Love Never Dies]]'' (1921) is a "rural love story" with a spectacular disaster scene depicting a locomotive and box cars derailing and plunging into a river below. The dramatic presentation of rivers served as a standard motif in Vidor films. Impressed with this Vidor sequence, producer [[Thomas H. Ince]] helped to finance the picture.<ref>Baxter 1976, p. 13-14</ref>

In 1922, Vidor produced and directed films that served as vehicles for his spouse, Florence Vidor, notable only for their "artificiality". These works conformed to the [[Comedy of manners|comedies of manners]] and romantic melodramas that were typical of his contemporary, [[Cecil B. DeMille]] at [[Famous Players–Lasky]] studios. Later, Vidor admitted to being overawed by DeMille's talents. Florence Vidor, in her later career, frequently starred in DeMille productions.<ref>Baxter 1976, p. 14: Vidor is quoted as saying that "DeMille made me want to give up directing.", and p. 17: "the artificiality of his films with Florence Vidor."</ref>

Vidor's next picture, ''[[Conquering the Woman]]'', was an unabashed imitation of DeMille's outstanding drama ''[[Male and Female]]'' (1919), starring [[Gloria Swanson]]. Vidor followed up with ''Woman, Wake Up'' and ''The Real Adventure'' (both 1922) and each depicting a female struggling successfully to assert herself in a male dominated world. As such, these may be considered as early examples of feminist-oriented cinema, but with entirely conventional endings.<ref>Baxter 1976, p. 14</ref><ref>Berlinale 2020, 2020: "Vidor tackled women's issues early on, for instance in the silent The Real Adventure (1922), about a young wife seeking career recognition and success".</ref>

By the early 1920s, Florence Vidor had emerged as a major film star in her own right and wished to pursue her career independent of her spouse. The couple divorced in 1926, and shortly thereafter Florence married violinist [[Jascha Heifetz]]. Vidor would soon marry model and future film actress [[Eleanor Boardman]].<ref>Baxter 1976, pp. 14–15, p. 18, marriage to Boardman</ref>

Vidor Village went bankrupt in 1922 and Vidor, now without a studio, offered his services to the top executives in the film industry.<ref>Baxter, 1976, p. 11: Vidor "struggled, finally without success" to keep the studio running. Also pp. 14–15 on antecedents to Vidor's first divorce.</ref>