Carroll Fleming — The Personal Side of the Pictures (1914) 🇺🇸

November 25, 2025

In the early days of the Hippodrome, Fred Thompson of Thompson and Dundy who built the huge playhouse, said: “We’ve had five million people in the Hippodrome, and I’ll wager every one of them is a friend of Carroll Fleming’s.”

This remark may have been the source of Mr. Fleming’s popular appellation — “the man with ten million friends” — for, since then, he has doubled the number. He always believed in giving everybody a dollar and a half’s worth for his dollar, and it was he who really made Thompson and Dundy’s success in the biggest theater of its sort in the world.

Around the World and Under Many Flags both were his. The hundreds of thousands who saw these productions marveled at the flawless mechanism on a stupendous scale which made possible the smoothness of the performance. Every detail of the complicated action moved like clockwork. Yet none of the machinery could be detected, and the artistic illusion was complete.

Mr. Fleming wrote and staged the opening attraction, Andersonville. Among other famous Hippodrome features to his credit are Pioneer Days, Marching Through Georgia and Gypsy Life. His work especially in handling American subjects, hitherto untouched — producing historical pageant and extravaganza with vivid American coloring — entitles Mr. Fleming to an unique position among native artists.

In 1911, Lee Shubert, president of the Hippodrome Company which succeeded Thompson and Dundy, offered Mr. Fleming the general stage directorship, which position he filled for three years. In the spring of 1914, he resigned for a much needed rest and, on his return, from a vacation trip abroad, decided to enter the field of motion pictures.

Here, it seemed to him, his opportunities would be boundless. He would have all out-of-doors to work in and would not be hampered by the limitations of the stage. The late Charles J. Hite, president of the Thanhouser Film Corporation, hearing of Mr. Fleming’s intention immediately engaged him.

Mr. Fleming wasted no time in getting his bearings in the motion picture studio. He first tried his hand at a comedy — Lost — a Union Suit — one of the funniest playlets of the many laughmakers Thanhouser has produced. Then he plunged right into a venture particularly to his liking — the filming of Beating Back, the life story of Al Jennings, one time “Railroad Robin Hood” of Oklahoma. The adventures of this notorious reformed outlaw were told in an autobiographical series in The Saturday Evening Post in collaboration with Will Irwin, and on these thrilling chapters Mr. Fleming based his six-reel production. Not only does the film graphically reproduce life in the West, but it is true to every detail of Jennings’ career, his early life as bandit and train robber, his punishment, downfall and ultimate regeneration.

Jennings and Mr. Irwin came on to New Rochelle to co-operate with the Thanhouser producer. They mapped out the scenario together, and Jennings starred in his own role under Mr. Fleming’s direction. He was a pretty big star to handle — and simultaneously he was running for governorship of Oklahoma. But Mr. Fleming, who is all enthusiasm, brawn, brain, art, sinew and speed, put the thing through jn the manner for which he is famous.

“Never skimp on a picture when art is at stake,” he said recently. “Put in everything that will be seen to advantage in the film. Give the people everything you can for their money — and more.”

The early training of the Thanhouser producer, even before his experience in the Hippodrome, equipped him admirably for the all-round, live-wire work of feature photoplaywright and director. Starting life with a Kentucky birthright, he began to write when very young. Newspaper work and magazine free lancing in New York led to writing for the stage and then to handling theatrical productions. In 1899 he staged Sis Hopkins, which ranked with The Old Homestead and Way Down East. Later, in collaboration with his wife, Florence Fleming, he wrote The Master Hand, in which Nat Goodwin starred.

Combining the abilities of the playwright with those of a producer on the Hippodrome scale, Mr. Fleming, though he has been directing before the camera for less than six months, already towers among the few big men in the profession. The Mutual has Ince, Griffith, Sennett [Thomas H. Ince | D. W. Griffith | Mack Sennett] — a combination which alone would be hard to beat. With Fleming added to the famous trio, the Mutual Program easily leads in big subjects handled in a big way. Mr. Fleming’s latest productions at Thanhouser are The Varsity Race, The Diamond of Disaster and The Madonna of the Poor.

The Diamond of Disaster, a two-reel Oriental subject, is a masterpiece of artistic production. The plot is woven about the legend of a famous diamond of British India which rivalled the sinister “Spanish opal” in ill omen. Mr. Fleming staged a particularly beautiful effect in the scene at the court of the Raja, reproduced on this page. The settings and costumings are magnificent, the action thrilling and brilliantly handled.

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