The Father of Westerns Made Over 800 Films

The Big Picture

• Thomas H. Ince produced 800 films and was known as “The Father of Westerns,” revolutionizing assembly line filmmaking in Hollywood.
• Ince’s innovative studio “Inceville” centralized film production and established clear industry roles, setting the standard for Hollywood studios.
• Ince’s mysterious death in 1924 was popularized in the film
  The Cat’s Meow
  , showcasing the drama and legacy of his significant impact on filmmaking.

Western films were some of the first movies ever made. The ruggedness of the characters, the trick riding and shooting, and the lonely plains of the American frontier were romantic places that American audiences rapidly fell in love with. The American cowboy is iconic. He is a symbol synonymous with American individualism, tenacity, and morality. But it all had to start somewhere. Someone has to make the films, distribute them, and get them to the people. So, just who was this person? With an impressive 800 films under his belt, Thomas H. Ince is considered “The Father of Westerns.” Ince would revolutionize the entire film industry and made more Western films than anyone else probably ever will. They even made a movie about his life, The Cat’s Meow, starring Kirsten Dunst.

Who Was Thomas H. Ince, the “Father of Westerns”?

Thomas H. Ince was an American silent-film era filmmaker and producer and, according to biographer Marc Wanamaker‘s book, The Movie, he was responsible for producing 800 films, a truly staggering amount of celluloid. He was born November 16, 1882, in Newport, Rhode Island, to a family of English immigrants and was the middle child of three sons and a daughter. Ince’s life in filmmaking started early. At the age of seven, his entire family moved to Manhattan to pursue work in the theater, where they all worked as actors. Ince made his Broadway debut as a teenager in the play Shore Acres by James A. Herne in 1893 and would later work as a clerk for theatrical manager Daniel Frohman. Growing up in such an environment gave Ince a keen eye for the industry.

His first production company was short-lived. He formed an unsuccessful vaudeville company known as Thomas H. Ince and His Comedians in the Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, where he would learn the art of producing. According to Ince, hebegan his career as a director in 1910 with an ex-employee of an old acting troupe he belonged to. Then came his big break. That same year, a director over at the Independent Motion Pictures Company was unable to complete work on a feature film. Ince was bold and suggested to the company that they hire him. They did, and the rest is more or less history. Ince was able to prove himself, and this led to more work and experience within the industry.

How Did Thomas H. Ince Revolutionize the Film Industry?

Thomas Ince revolutionized the entire film industry by creating assembly line filmmaking at what was to be the first major Hollywood Studio called “Inceville” in Palisades Highland. The studio was a giant monolith for filmmaking. Inceville was over 73 square kilometers wide and stretched nearly eight miles between Santa Monica and Malibu. It was the first studio of its kind and featured silent stages, production offices, and printing labs. There was a massive commissary there that could feed hundreds of employees, as well as dressing rooms and prop-houses. For the first time, everything needed to make a film was in one centralized location. This would allow him to make movies much more quickly. He could write, film, cut, assemble, and deliver a movie to a theater within a week. In 1913 alone, he produced 150 two-reeled films, most of which were Western films, and was instrumental in popularizing the genre.

Inceville was a prototype for every Hollywood studio that would follow after him. Ince was innovative in that he would clearly define industry roles. In earlier films, the director and the cameraman often oversaw production. Ince changed this by establishing a central authority over production. He lived in a house that stood over the studio, where he would organize productions. He was the first to hire separate producers, directors, cameramen, and screenwriters. Previously, these roles would have been looser and amalgamated. Nobody was sure what the production roles on a film set would be, and the crew would wear multiple hats and collaborate on whatever was needed. This was too slow, so Ince leaned on his early production knowledge and streamlined the process. Film preservationist David Shepard best described Ince’s impact on filmmaking in the book The American Film Heritage:

“He was so proficient at every aspect of filmmaking that even films he didn’t direct have the Ince-print because he exercised such tight control over his scripts and edited so mercilessly that he could delegate direction to others and still get what he wanted. Much of what Ince contributed to the American film took place off the screen; he established production conventions that persisted forbears, and, though his career in films lasted only fourteen years, his influence far outlived him.”

‘The Cats Meow’ Is a Movie About Thomas H. Ince’s Mysterious Death

Ince died at the age of 44 under some pretty mysterious circumstances. Although the official cause of death was heart failure, rumors of murder, mystery, and jealousy quickly spread. After a landmark deal with William Randolph Hearst’s Cosmopolitan Productions, Ince died mysteriously on the mogul’s yacht during a birthday celebration. While Ince’s wife denied these claims and insisted that it was simply heart failure, the incident was popularized, and the drama was fueled by a 2001 film called The Cats Meow. The film was directed by Peter Bogdanovich and stars Kirsten Dunst as Ince’s wife and Cary Elwes as Ince, with Eddie Izzard and Jennifer Tilly in supporting roles.

The film is a sensationalized version of the events surrounding Ince’s death that essentially takes its plot from the rumors surrounding it. Ince’s success, the film posits, creates animosity between him and several people whose careers and lives were at a crossroads. Most of the rumors surround a claim that Hearst shot Ince in the head after being mistaken for Charlie Chaplin, a ludicrous Hollywood Babylon-type claim easily disproved by forensics. However, the wild accusations make for an entertaining movie and are a testament to the mystery and legacy of a man who changed the face of filmmaking forever. Ince gave the world modern films and, more than that, helped cement the Western genre as a core feature of American cinema.

The Cat’s Meow is available to stream on Tubi.

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