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Serialized space: Chinatown iconography in Universal’s The Master Key
Department of Media Studies, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-4615-0878
2022 (English)In: Early Popular Visual Culture, ISSN 1746-0654, E-ISSN 1746-0662, Vol. 20, no 4, p. 412-426Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Late in 1914, Universal released The Master Key, a motion picture serial in 15 installments. Robert Z. Leonard directed and starred, and the project was marketed as the ‘most expensive serial yet’. The weekly film release was paralleled by a syndicated newspaper feuilleton, illustrated by stills from the motion pictures. Stills were also incorporated into an illustrated reissue of Fleming Wilson’s story, as well as in promotional materials, like illustrated ads and a 20-page poster stamp album published by the Wentz Printing Company. By way of a cross-media investigation of the (1914) serial The Master Key, this study contributes a case in point of how film stills circulated outside the movie theater. The film material has been reported lost, but some reels have been preserved at the Library of Congress. One of the preserved reels contains the episode set in San Francisco’s Chinatown. For this paper, various materials from The Master Key’s-cross media release have been acquired through online fan forums and collectible auctions. Following recent historical studies on film serials and the ”seriality” of stock characters, Chinatown scenes and the picturesque and efforts to write spatial film history, this paper argues that the proliferation of film images across media formats conceptualized The Master Key’s imagery of San Francisco Chinatown as a ”serialized” space, standardizing cinematic iconography in the public eye.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
London: Routledge, 2022. Vol. 20, no 4, p. 412-426
Keywords [en]
Silent film, serials, Chinatown, film distribution, Orientalism
National Category
Studies on Film
Research subject
Film studies
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:oru:diva-110648DOI: 10.1080/17460654.2022.2093243ISI: 000826012600001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85134174932OAI: oai:DiVA.org:oru-110648DiVA, id: diva2:1826245
Available from: 2024-01-11 Created: 2024-01-11 Last updated: 2024-01-11Bibliographically approved

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Fahlstedt, Kim K.

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