David Kiehn is a Fremont, California film historian with a knack for uncovering little known and fascinating aspects of local history.
His Broncho Billy and the Essanay Film Company (Farwell Books) broke new ground in telling the story of the early film superstar and the films he made in nearby Niles, California. Kiehn’s book helped put the historic Niles district – part of the city of Fremont – on the film history map. It was described as “the most important new film history book to be published” in 2003 by one film historian.
Kiehn is also involved in local efforts to help preserve a historic sponsored film, Twin Peaks Tunnel (1917), made to promote the development of Western portions of The City.
And earlier this year, Kiehn shook-up the film and local history communities with his discovery that the well known Miles Brothers’ film, A Trip Down Market Street, was not made in 1905 – as everyone had believed (including the Library of Congress) – but in 1906. Kiehn pinned down the date through a combination of historical research and an examination of little noticed details in the film itself.
Kiehn’s remarkable detective work – some of it performed in the San Francisco Public Library – is the subject of a segment on 60 Minutes which airs tomorrow, October 16th, at 7 pm on CBS.
In the 60 Minutes segment, “Market Street 1906,” Morley Safer reports on the mystery of the 100-year-old film that we only now know was made in San Francisco just days before the 1906 earthquake. The 60 Minutes crew, including Safer, had spent time in Niles in August shooting material for the segment.
The Oakland Tribune reported today that the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum will project 60 Minutes on the “big screen” in their Edison Theater – the same venue where they show silent films every Saturday night.
The Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum is located at 37417 Niles Blvd. in Fremont, California. For further information, call (510) 494-1411 or visit the Museum’s website at www.nilesfilmmuseum.org/.
A twelve minute DVD featuring the 60 Minutes segment with Kiehn will be released in early November. It will be available through amazon.com and at the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum gift shop.
For more info: An earlier article on the David Kiehn’s appearance on 60 minutes was published in Classic Images, and can be found at http://www.nilesfilmmuseum.org/60_minutes-promo.htm
Thomas Gladysz is an arts journalist and author. Recently, he wrote the introduction to the new “Louise Brooks edition” of Margarete Böhme's classic book, The Diary of a Lost Girl (PandorasBox Press). He will speak about this new book at the San Francisco Public Library on November 14. More at www.thomasgladysz.com.
Comments
That 1906 film A Trip Down Market Street is such a bittersweet one to watch. It's amazing to see such a vibrant San Francisco, with people running in front of the camera and seemingly no traffic laws, no crosswalks, no marked trolley stops, etc. And yet, it's impossible to avoid the thought that the only recognizable part of the scene is the Ferry Building in the background: everything else was destroyed just a week after the film was made, when the earthquake and fires hit. It's such a local treasure!
Elizabeth Urbach
San Jose Tea Examiner
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