Chocolate Dynamite is a lost 1914 American silent comedy film produced by the Biograph Company and according to some modern references, directed by either Lionel Barrymore or Edward Dillon. Little is known about many aspects of this short, which had an approximate running time between six and seven minutes. No Biograph studio records have been found that conclusively identify its director or mention by name a single actor in the production. Records do document that the motion picture was based on "Captured by Dynamite", a short story written by Helen Combes. They also document that the comedy was filmed in New York City and was actually completed in late August 1913, a full six months before the company officially released it to theaters. During the picture's initial distribution in the United States, it was shipped on a "split reel", a term used in the silent era to describe a reel that held more than one motion picture. The film reel for Chocolate Dynamite also included Because of a Hat, another Biograph comedy short.
No theatrical copy, negative footage, contact prints, or film stills from this motion picture are listed in major film repositories or library collections in North America or Europe. This comedy is therefore presumed to be lost.
Plot The film's storyline centered on the young daughter of a woman who manages a small general store. Few descriptions of the comedy have been located in copies of 1914 film-industry publications available in library collections and in online reference sites such as the Internet Archive and the Media History Digital Library. A two-sentence synopsis of the plot can be found in the February 28, 1914 issue of the New York trade journal The Moving Picture World, which simply states, "The night May's mother is indisposed tramps break into the store. May settles them with dynamiteno explosion, but quite as effective."BIOGRAPH"/"Chocolate Dynamite (Feb. 28)", The Moving Picture World (New York, N.Y.), February 28, 1914, volume 19, number 9, p. 1142. Retrieved via Internet Archive, June 23, 2023. Two weeks later, in its March 14 issue, The Moving Picture World provides a bit longer description of the comedy, although it is a summary that offers greater insight into the varying emotional tones of the characters and settings rather than any details about the story's performers or any particulars about some scenes:
Fortunately, despite the lack of insightful summaries of the comedy's plot in contemporary trade papers and journals, a brief but very helpful description of the story and a five-page, scene-by-scene typed outline of the film's shooting sequences survive in the Library of Congress."MOTION PICTURE PHOTO PLAY ENTITLED CHOCOLATE DYNAMITE"/"Copyright 1914 By Biograph Company 807 East 175th Street New York City", seven-page typed manuscript originally submitted to the United States government in February 1914 to obtain copyright protection for Biograph's film; documents held under collection heading "Chocolate Dynamite. Motion picture copyright descriptions collection. Class L, 1912-1977", L2233, in the Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division of the Library of Congress (LOC), Washington, D.C.; five of the seven pages of the manuscript comprise an outline subtitled "Description of Scenes". Retrieved via LOC's online collection search, June 27, 2023; hereinafter cited "LOC copyright, 1914". The outline also includes transcriptions of the motion picture's intertitles or "Sub-titles", along with their specific locations between scenes in the footage. All of this paperwork was part of the documentation that Biograph submitted to the federal government in February 1914 to obtain copyright protection for the production prior to its release to theaters. The plot's description in those copyright papers is given as follows:
Cast In the early 1980s, after examining all surviving studio records and other assorted period documentation relating to films produced by Biograph from 1908 through 1913, the four compilers of the 1985 reference D. W. Griffith and the Biograph Company pointedly state about Chocolate Dynamite, "No material survives from which the cast can be determined". The previously noted 1914 copyright documents also do not identify by name any of the cast members in the comedy, although those documents do provide a basic accounting of the five principal roles in the "photoplay" and indicate the scenes in which each actor appeared.: May, the "heroine" (unknown performer) May's mother (unknown performer) Burglar number 1 (unknown performer) Burglar number 2 (unknown performer) Sheriff (unknown performer)
Production
According to studio records also cited in the reference D. W. Griffith and the Biograph Company, the comedy was shot in New York City and filming was "finished" on August 28, 1913, a full six months before the short's release. The company at that time was in the process of completing the move of its studio operations and offices from a converted brownstone mansion at 11 East 14th Street in the city's borough of Manhattan to much larger, state-of-the-art facilities in another borough, The Bronx, and located there at 807 East 175th Street.Bitzer, G. W. Billy Bitzer: His Story. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1973, pp. 50–51. Retrieved via Internet Archive, June 16, 2023; hereinafter cited as "Bitzer". ."Where 'Biographs' Are Made: A Film Studio de Luxe", article in Motography (Chicago, Illinois), September 20, 1913, volume X, number 6, p. 194. Retrieved via Internet Archive. While the interior scenes for Chocolate Dynamite may have been shot at the Bronx site, Biograph records state only that the picture was filmed in "New York". By the late summer of 1913, at the very time this comedy was in production, the company remained in the final stages of transitioning to its new facilities and completing the constructing of support buildings and installing updated equipment. It is possible then that this very modest motion picture was either among the first to be filmed at the new studio on 175th Street or perhaps was one of the last films to be shot at the old Manhattan studio on 14th Street.
Direction The identity of this film's director remains uncertain. Two namesLionel Barrymore and Edward Dillonare cited as the possible head of this production. After examining all available Biograph studio records for the noted period from 1908 through 1913, the four compilers of the 1985 reference D. W. Griffith and the Biograph Company question whether Barrymore actually directed the project. Their doubt is indicated by the inclusion of a question mark in that reference's attribution to the short's director: "Lionel Barrymore?". There is another reference to Lionel overseeing the film's production in Margot Peters' 1990 biography of the three famous Barrymore siblings titled The House of Barrymore. That secondary source lists Lionel in a filmography as "(d[irector] only)" of Chocolate Dynamite.Peters, Margot. "THEATRE AND FILM CHRONOLOGIES"/"Lionel Barrymore"/"1913", The House of Barrymore (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990), p. 533. . There is, however, no corroborating document given in this workneither a Biograph record, a period trade publication, nor any specific personal papers of Barrymore'sthat confirms this credit.
The crediting of Edward Dillon is also unverified by contemporary studio records, but his name is given as the director in Early Cinema History Online, a database created and still maintained, as of 2023, by Derek Long, an assistant professor of Media and Cinema Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignLong, Derek. Early Cinema History Online (ECHO), "Chocolate Dynamite", database of Media and Cinema Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Retrieved June 30, 2023; hereinafter cited as "ECHO". Dillon already had five years of experience at Biograph as a screen actor by the time Chocolate Dynamite was filmed, specializing in comedic performances in numerous company releases. He also worked as the director of the company's comedy unit, serving in that capacity until an unspecified date in 1913.Graham and others, p. 279.
Screenplay and filming outline The screenplay for this film is based on a short story, "Captured by Dynamite," credited to the "authoress" Helen Combes. Combes is also recognized in earlier Biograph records for writing the "scenario" for one other company film, the eight-minute comedy Their One Good Suit, which was released in March 1913, five months before the production of Chocolate Dynamite and almost a year before the initial distribution of this short.Graham and others, p. 175. That same year Combes authored too the storyline for Love, the Winner, a drama produced by Selig Polyscope Company, another major film company based in Chicago, not in New York."Love, the Winner", ECHO.
The documents submitted by the Biograph Company in 1914 to obtain copyright protection for this film include the basic outline used by the production's director and cinematographer for planning, shooting, and editing the picture. Five pages of that typed document comprise a running list of camera shots by set locations as well as points where intertitles were inserted between scenes. Portions of the sequential entries selected from pages one and two of this outline provide some insight into the short's general structure:
Page 1 "Eagle Title [Biograph logo]: Chocolate Dynamite (Farce Comedy)" "Sub-title: Ma's zealous young daughter becomes boss of the store" "Room: Girl sitting on table" "Sub-title: Something's got to happen quick" "Exterior: Two men standing in foreground" "Sub-title: But mother disobeys her boss" "Interior of store: Lady and girl walking across floor"... Page 2 "...Interior of store: Girl in store" "Exterior of house: Men crouching near window" "Interior of store: Girl near safe" "Exterior of house: Men crouching near window" "Interior of store: Girl standing in foreground" "Exterior of house: Men crouching near window" "Interior of store:" [no action notation, likely generic shot]
Release, promotion, and distribution On February 28, 1914, Biograph officially released Chocolate Dynamite and its split-reel companion, the 580-foot comedy Because of a Hat starring Charles Murray."Because of a Hat", 580 feet, film offerings of The Magnet Film Company, a motion picture exchange in London, U.K.; advertisement in supplement to British trade publication The Bioscope (London), April 23, 1914, p. xxi. Retrieved via Internet Archive, June 25, 2023."Feb. 28—Saturday", news item about Chocolate Dynamite and Because of a Hat on split-reel, Variety (New York, N.Y.), February 20, 1914, p. 24. Retrieved via Internet Archive, June 28, 2023. The studio did not actively promote either one of these brief films in the weeks prior to and after their release, opting instead to provide only minimal information about them to trade journals and newspapers. Very limited promotion of such "little" films was not an unusual practice by 1914, a time when most American film studios were rapidly expanding their investments in making and advertising much longer, far more elaborate multiple-reel productions.Abel, Richard. Silent Film (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1996), pp. 6-7. .Bitzer, pp. 88–90. Not surprisingly then, a survey of those publications reveal neither basic assessments of the shorts' plots nor even moderately detailed descriptions of any scenes in them.
Foreign marketing