If not for inventor Thomas Edison's iron grip over the nascent film industry, and a few defiant trailblazers, movies as we know them might have never come to be.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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It's raining out, so you hustle inside. You grab your popcorn with extra butter and your Diet Coke, and you settle into a cozy red leather chair. The lights go down, and there's no place you'd rather be. The movie theater. And today's film has a timeless theme. The underdog who stands up to the bully... You sit through it, and it's okay.
Not gonna win any awards, but perfect for a lazy afternoon when you have nothing better to do. Anyway, who doesn't love a good bully beatdown? But here's the twist. The story of how the movie industry was born is much more interesting than anything we might watch in a theater.
And it came at a time when people made their own rules, and the constant threat of violence created a dangerous vacuum for a few brave souls to step into. This is the story of a group of renegade visionaries, the death and spectacular rebirth of the first movie star, and a battle for supremacy with the most famous and cutthroat inventor in the world.
And all of it came together to shape not only our culture, but the actual geography of our country itself. And this story, this is a real Bully Beatdown. On today's episode, the spectacular and improbable birth of Hollywood. This is a twist of history. It's summer, 1909 in New York City.
43-year-old Carl Lemley sits on the passenger side of a Ford Model T as one of his employees drives him through a seedy part of town. In the distance, Carl sees Singer Tower, one of the tallest buildings in the world, and he's blown away. Carl has recently moved back to New York after living in Chicago for years.
And as somebody who grew up in a small German village filled with centuries-old buildings, Manhattan's new skyscrapers seem like something out of science fiction. Carl tells his employee to pull over. The employee looks scared, but he follows Carl's orders. Carl gets out and tells him to wait there and to be ready to drive when the time comes. Karl turns onto a narrow street.
He walks past a few people scattered on the sidewalk, and they eye him like he might be their next meal. Or like maybe he's a cop. Carl doesn't flinch. He knows he stands out here in his tailored suit. Honestly, he's used to standing out everywhere. Because Carl is only 5'2", and even his friends say he looks like a little elf.
But his size has forced him to learn how to fight people a lot bigger than him from an early age. So he isn't intimidated by anyone. Especially not the people he's passing on this street. He knows why these people are here. To sell goods on the black market.
Some deal in opium, which has just recently become harder to get a doctor's prescription for, and some just sell legal items like liquor and cigarettes at a discount price. Carl spots the man he's come to see, lingering in the shadows near the end of the street. The man approaches, holding a wooden box that's almost too big for one person to hold.
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