Thomas J. Slater, author of June Mathis: The Rise and Fall of a Silent Film Visionary on the "NitrateVille" Podcast

June Mathis had a prolific and storied career as a female screenwriter during the prime years of silent era film.  She was the screenwriter for ''THE TRAIL TO YESTERDAY", based on a Charles Seltzer novel (1913).  

In April of 2025, The University of Kentucky Press published "June Mathis: The Rise and Fall of a Silent Film Visionary" by Thomas J. Slater who is a professor emeritus of English at Indiana University of Pennsylvania; and who has written several other books and authored publications on the history of film.

Professor Slater's book contains two chapters on Ms. Mathis's time at METRO PICTURES and other women writer at Metro when The Trail to Yesterday was produced in 1918.

I have this book on order and look forward to gleaning any insights that may advance knowledge into the production of The Trail to Yesterday for the purposes of understanding more about this history.  

For more information on the book release, author Thomas J. Slater, and to order a copy, see the link below:

June Mathis - The University Press of Kentucky

Below is a brief description of Ms. Mathis from the University of Kentucky's website page for the book:

"Along with thousands of other girls who hoped to escape tedious employment and domesticity, June Mathis (1887–1927) started acting as a young teen. After more than a decade of stepping onto stages across the US, she moved into the burgeoning film business and behind the camera to begin a prolific career as a screenwriter and producer for profound movies like The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921) and Blood and Sand (1922). With her expert use of melodrama and masterful technique, Mathis would eventually become the first female head writer at Metro Pictures.

In June Mathis: The Rise and Fall of a Silent Film Visionary, Thomas J. Slater illuminates Mathis's important and complicated life and work, not only detailing her discovery of the silent movie superstar Rudolph Valentino and her involvement on the original screenplay for Ben-Hur (1925) but also her prowess in all aspects of production."

For an interview with the author, see this link below to the NitrateVille Podcast: Episode 119: "First Women of Hollywood • The Visionary June Mathis"  

Note: The interview with Professor Slater begins at 44:40-min into the podcast. Click on the timeline to skip to that portion of the interview (below).

There is also a recent YouTube video interview with Thomas J. Slater on the 'Ira's Everything Bagel' podcast, titled: "Noshing With Thomas J. Slater, Author, "June Mathis: The Rise and Fall of a Silent Film Visionary"   

Finally, See our blog post of June Mathis back in 2021, that provided a short bio piece from available literature (link below).  

https://trailtoyesterday.blogspot.com/2021/06/june-mathis-scenario-writer-for-trail.html

Richard A Rowland - President of Metro Pictures (1915-1919)

Richard A. Rowland was a studio executive and film producer who had a long-storied career in the motion picture business.  At the time “The Trail To Yesterday” was produced in May of 1918 at Metro Pictures Corp, Rowland was its president.

 

Born December 8, 1880, in Pittsburgh, his father, James Richard Roland, operated a carbon lamp company.  When Richard was 18-years old, his father died, and he took over his father's carbon lamp business and then successfully expanded the company into the motion picture lighting business. 

Rowland also entered the film business in 1905 as a distributor with offices in the Pittsburgh and Ohio areas.  Later he sold the business to the General Film Company in 1910 and became a millionaire at the age of 30.

In 1914, Al Lichtman, former sales manager of Famous Players, organized Alco Film with Richard Rowland and Louis B Mayer and co-owners, but the venture ended-up in receivership by the end of that same year, due in part by another managing partner (Walter Seely), who depleted cash reserves by moving money into other entities as a tax-avoidance scheme.

Then acting quickly, a meeting of shareholders organized the Metro Pictures Corporation in January of 1915 with Richard Rowland as President, James B Clark as vice president and Louis B Meyer as secretary.  Metro Pictures in 1915 was at the start of an inflection point in silent film era.  The inflection being the production primarily of feature-length films shown in new larger theaters along with quality productions as experience and technology progressed with time.  Although still on the scene, the Vaudeville era had been eclipsed by a movie industry that was maturing into big business. 

This was also a time when film production companies began vertically integrating; buying and building movie theaters to establish a critical mass of screens; sponsoring the production of their own motion pictures in order to ensure their company-owned theaters had plenty of content to keep seats filled.  Additionally, Metro Pictures developed distribution channels within the United States and overseas.

Richard Rowland moved his family to NY as Metro Pictures Corp grew.  Metro Pictures subsequent success and eventual integration as Metro-Goldwin-Meyer (MGM), launched Richard Rowland's long career in the industry. 

Then in 1919 the company was sold to Marcus Loew.  Rowland and Clark stayed with Loew's venture.   This marked Loew's entrance into film production in addition to his theaters and Vaudeville houses. 

At this time Richard Rowland headed a separate company to handle Metro's film distribution, gaining headlines for distribution deals: "President of Metro Pictures Returns from Abroad with Photo-Drama "L'Atlantide – Obtains American Rights for the film”- The Morning Telegraph NY 12-18-21.

Two years later Rowland became the general manager of First National in 1922. Rowland was recognized as a specialist on story properties and personally credited with the success of the "Four Horseman of the Apocalypse while with First National; a film which he produced.

In 1931 he joined Fox Film Corp as Vice president of the New York production executive.   After leaving Fox he associated with Universal and MGM until 1936.  Later with Paramount and Republic working under Moe Siegal.  Then he went independent, releasing through United Artists.  His last venture as producer was "Cheers for Miss Bishop". 

In December 1942 he joined 20th Century Fox and was on the staff until the time of his death on 12 May 1947 at age 66.

Also in his later years, he was a professor at Columbia University, where he wrote several academic articles on the role that film played in modern culture. In one of his essays, titled American Classic, he argues that Marx Brothers films are classics that will stand the test of time (wikipedia).

His career brought top personalities to the screen and Richard Rowland was credited with discovering Rudolph Valentino, Frances X Bushman and Harold Lockwood (early screen stars). Recognized by the motion picture industry, Rowland has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame located at 1541 Vine Street.

Sources:

         - Reporter 5-13-47
         - Variety 5-13-47
         - Marcus Loew Buys Metro Co. 1/6/20 (chronicle telegraph)
         - Variety 9-2-21
         - The morning telegraph, NY 11-26-22
         - Variety 6-13-28
         - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_A._Rowland
         - THE PITTSBURGH PRESS, SUNDAY FEB 16, 1964
         - Lion of Hollywood, by Scott Eyman c2005
         - Hollywood East by Diana Altman c1992 

Robert B. Kurrle - Cinematographer

Robert B. Kurrle (February 2, 1890 – October 27, 1932) was the primary cinematographer on The Trail to Yesterday.  Over the course of his career he shot 70-films that spanned 16-years beginning in 1916.  

Kurrle started as a photographer, focusing on aerial photography from an open cockpit Curtiss biplane in 1909.

In 1916 he photographed his first film "Her Great Price" directed by Edwin Carewe (director of 'The Trail to Yesterday') and worked for Metro Pictures until 1921.  

After his work for Metro Pictures, Kurrle was a freelance photographer shooting an additional 15-films with Edwin Carewe in the 1920's, and Kurrle collaborated with top directors including Merian C. Cooper, Michael Curtiz, William Dieterle, Alfred G. Green, Mervyn LeRoy, Raoul Walsh and William Wellman.

                                      Robert B. Kurrle - 1916 (Source: Wikipedia)

Kurrle was a member of the American Society of Cinematographers  was also one of the inaugural members of the International Photographers branch of I.A.T.S.E. (International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees).

Robert Kurrle over the course of his career was lauded as "..a master of his profession" by American Cinematographer (July 1924, p.13).  He was known as one of the best liked members of the camera profession. 

With regard to his credit on "The Trail to Yesterday", no additional information has been found with specific regard to his work on the film.  

Sources and links:

https://theasc.com/articles/wrap-shot-resurreccion

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kurrle

Trail To Yesterday Restoration Featured in Green Valley (Arizona) News

Click sentence below to follow link to article:

Article written on the restoration of "The Trail To Yesterday" in the Green Valley Arizona News by journalist Mary Glen Hatcher

 

Arizona International Film Festival

 

I completed a 10-min scene from the silent era movie "The Trail To Yesterday", that I have been restoring over the past several years.  Filmed in Arivaca, Arizona (1918), will be shown this coming Tuesday April 25th, 8pm at the Screening Room, Tucson as part of the 31st Arizona International Film Festival.

The scene I will be exhibiting is "Act 3 - Revenge of Dakota" and is a 10-minute piece digitally restored and produced from a surviving Dutch distributed version of a 35mm nitrate film print. The restored scene will include the original music score and restored Inter-titles. The piece will be presented as a ‘work-in-progress’ and proof-of-concept for the restoration approaches I am employing towards the future completion of this feature-length studio film from that era.

Hope you can make it out to see the film, or other films at the Arizona International Film Festival
https://www.facebook.com/azfilmfest

Link to the "Revenge of Dakota page at the AIFF
http://filmfestivalarizona.com/film-detail.php?id=1127

9-Minute Restored Scene from Trail To Yesterday to be Screened in Arivaca, Arizona

Working to complete for the Arivaca Film Exhibition, the restoration of a 9-minute scene from the silent era movie "Trail To Yesterday" filmed in Arivaca in 1918. This restored image of Swedish-American actor Anna Q Nilsson, is one of 6,900 restored frames that make-up the scene to be screened in Arivaca - but is just a fraction of the entire feature-length running-time of this film that will require many more months of restoration and assembly.

Screening info here: https://www.facebook.com/arivacafilmfestival

or http://www.arivacafilmfestival.com

Administration

The administrative side of film restoration is an extremely important aspect of a successful project.  Since I have no formal schooling or training in this field, I'm employing my 'project management' skills to break this complex restoration into manageable tasks and to document progress for each phase of the project.

The reels of film were scanned at the archive in a high-definition digital format and arrived on hard-drives containing approximately 2-Terrabytes of data. The digital file format is a movie-industry standard known as DPX.  In a digital DPX container, each frame of the film has its own numbered file, with each frame about 16-18 megabytes in size. 

I decided the best way for me to manage the restoration of a feature-length movie is to break the film down into separate file folders, each containing a scene from the movie.  I developed a spreadsheet where each scene in the movie was given a serial number.  There are 595-scenes in this film and 147-Intertitles.

An example showing a portion of the developed spreadsheet is provided below.  Each row represents a scene in the film and the columns provide for data and information documentation for each phase of the restoration project.

Starting at left, the spreadsheet provides the scene number.  For example, R2-124, means the scene was from Reel 2 and the 124th scene of that reel.  The numbered frames are given next. R2-124 has 58-frames in the scene.  At 16-frame per second, the scene is 3.9-seconds long (column E).  The spreadsheet provides a simple description of the scene - column 'F'.  Column 'G' gives a condition comment based on my review of the frames.  This gives me an idea of what I'm getting into and the software tools required to tackle the degradation issues for that scene.  

The 'progress' status of that scene's restoration, notes from a concluded restoration and the file location of the finished scene are provided in columns H-J.  

A spreadsheet is a versatile tool for project management. It can be expanded and modified as needed to accommodate an evolving project scope.  

At this writing, every scene has now been documented and this example 'screen-shot' from the master spreadsheet, provides a framework for proper organization and documentation of this restoration going forward.