Keystone Studios

Keystone Studios was an early film studio founded in Edendale, California on July 4, 1912 by New York Motion Picture Company owners Mack Sennett, Adam Kessel, and Charles O. Baumann. It was known as the Keystone Pictures Studio, and referred to by The Keystone Film Company at its office; the name was taken from the side of a passing Pennsylvania Railroad train car, with one of the nicknames of Pennsylvania being "the Keystone State".

Keystone filmed in and around Glendale and Silver Lake within the Los Angeles area for several years, and its films were distributed by the Mutual Film Corporation between 1912 and 1915. The original main building was the first totally enclosed film stage and studio in history - as of 2021 is still standing at 1712 Glendale Blvd in Echo Park, Los Angeles, where it serves as a storage facility.

The studio is best remembered for its silent film era under Sennett, who became known as the "King of Comedy". Within the main builiding, he brought to life the slapstick antics of the Keystone Cops, the poster children of Police Are Useless, and the Sennett Bathing Beauties. Trademark features of Keystone comedies were hair-raising car chases and custard pie warfare, especially in the Keystone Cops series.

Charlie Chaplin got his start in films here when Sennett hired him in 1914, fresh off a successful vaudeville career to make silent films. He quickly became a star performer and film director in the single year he worked there, participating in thirty-five films. Other actors who got their start at Keystone are:

Keystone Studios became an autonomous production unit of the Triangle Film Corporation with D. W. Griffith and Thomas H. Ince in 1915. Sennett left in 1917 to produce his own independent films (which were eventually distributed through Paramount), and Keystone gradually declined, ending its run in 1935 after declaring bankruptcy. Much of the lighting and studio equipment was bought by Reymond King, who started the "Award Cinema Movie Equipment" company in Venice in November of the same year.

Keystone Studios is the Trope Namer for:

Keystone Cops

Filmography:

At Coney Island
The Bangville Police
A Busy Day
Caught in a Flue
Caught in the Rain
Chicken Chaser
Cohen Saves the Flag
Court House Crooks
The Danger Girl
Dangers of a Bride
A Dash of Courage
Dough and Dynamite
The Face on the Bar Room Floor (1914 film)
Fatty Again
Fatty and Mabel Adrift
Fatty and Mabel at the San Diego Exposition
Fatty and Minnie He-Haw
Fatty and the Broadway Stars
Fatty and the Heiress
Fatty Joins the Force
Fatty's Chance Acquaintance
Fatty's Finish
Fatty's Gift
Fatty's New Role
Fatty's Plucky Pup
Fatty's Reckless Fling
Fickle Fatty's Fall
The Flirting Husband
Gentlemen of Nerve
Getting Acquainted
Haystacks and Steeples
He Did and He Didn't
Hearts and Sparks
Her Friend the Bandit
His Musical Career
His New Profession
His Prehistoric Past
His Trysting Place
Hoffmeyer's Legacy
An Incompetent Hero
Kid Auto Races at Venice
The Knockout
Laughing Gas (1914 film)
A Little Hero (film)
Mabel and Fatty Viewing the World's Fair at San Francisco
Mabel at the Wheel
Mabel's Adventures
Mabel's Blunder
Mabel's Lovers
Mabel's Married Life
Mabel's New Hero
Mabel's Wilful Way
Mack at It Again
Making a Living
The Masquerader (1914 film)
A Misplaced Foot
Miss Fatty's Seaside Lovers
My Valet
The New Janitor
The Nick of Time Baby
A Noise from the Deep
The Property Man
The Pullman Bride
Recreation (film)
The Rounders (1914 film)
A Rowboat Romance
A Social Cub
The Sultan's Wife
Tango Tangles
Teddy at the Throttle
A Thief Catcher
Those Love Pangs
Tillie's Punctured Romance (1914 film)
Twenty Minutes of Love
The Water Dog
The Water Nymph
When Love Took Wings
Whose Baby?

Keystone Studios provides examples of the following tropes:

Silent Age of Hollywood: One of the many defining studios of the era.