New York: W.N. Perrin & Company, [1918].
Price: $3,500.00
Hardcover. Film corporation stock book. Oblong octavo. Green boards with red canvas spine and gilt lettering. Wear to the spine ends, writing on the cover, and with 22 of the 50 stock certificates still attached, an additional six present but loose, and eight certificate receipts removed, very good or better. A stock book for the Mexican War Film Corporation, one of several motion picture production companies owned and operated by Harry Aiken, who has Signed two of the stock receipts. Aiken was an early film producer best known for his role in bringing D.W. Griffith's *Birth of a Nation* to the screen. The Mexican War Film Corporation only produced one picture, the lost 1914 silent *The Life of General Villa*, a feature-length mixture of documentary and dramatic recreations starring Pancho Villa (who used his advance and share of the profits to help fund the Mexican Revolution). The events surrounding the production of the film were made into the 2003 television movie *And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself* with Antonio Banderas in the title role and Jim Broadbent as Aiken. A rare surviving document from a notable lost film.
Item #341676
