Dreams for Sale: The Rise and Fall of the Triangle Film Corporation

While Hollywood has known many turbulent times since the movie industry settled in Southern California, none have been so filled with raw creative energy (or have been so financially profitable) as the World War I era, when men with little more than vision set about to mold the fantastic potential of moving strips of celluloid into vast personal fortunes. Although a few were successful, most were left by the wayside in the struggle. Dreams for Sale is the story of one man whose vision far exceeded his achievements, and in a sense tells the story of all those who failed in their bid to bring order from the chaos of early moviemaking.

Master showman, financial wizard and successful promoter, Harry Aitken catapulted overnight from the presidency of the Mutual Film Corporation to his own Triangle Films, almost solely on the strength of his foresight in backing D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation. A revolutionary creature in the industry, the $5 million Triangle Film Corporation was created to uplift the Dreams for Sale, which audiences bought in increasing quantities; and yet, within a year, this fortuitous combination of the best talents in the business - D.W. Griffith, Thomas H. Ince and Mack Sennett - was virtually bankrupt.

Historians have credited Triangle with hastening the consolidation within the film industry and acknowledged its powerful star roster, but have sadly neglected the reasons for its failure. Author Kalton C. Lahue is the first to part the curtains of time and delve into the cause behind the collapse of a company that virtually all of its contemporaries agreed possessed the potential to dominate the entire industry, and in doing so sheds a new insight on the ethical and business practices that accompanied the growth of the movies from an arcade attraction to one of the largest industries in the United States.

Out of the ashes of Triangle's remains came many of the stars who would dominate the screen during the rest of the silent era - William S. Hart, Douglas Fairbanks, Norma Talmadge, Lillian Gish, Roy Stewart, Bessie Love, Dorothy Dalton, and many others. The careers of Griffith, Ince and Sennett escaped unscathed and went on to new glory, but Harry Aitken paid the price for his vision
and returned home to Wisconsin, the victim of his own dream.

About the Author
A New England Yankee transplanted to California, Kalton C. Lahue is the author of a rapidly expanding list of cinema histories. Living next door to a theatre as a small boy, Mr. Lahue grew up with motion pictures, eventually entering theatre business for a time before the U.S. Army borrowed him for active duty as a combat photographer in Korea during the 1950-53 hostilities. A graduate of both the University of Vermont and San Jose State College with a deep and abiding interest in the medium as an entertainment form, Mr. Lahue turned to the silent cinema for a hobby which became first an obsession and then a profession, taking more and more of his time away from the field of innovative education. A member of The Society for Cinema Studies, he now resides in Hollywood, with his wife Julie, a talented research assistant in her own right, and son Kevin Carlyle, also an avid movie fan. He is also the author of Bound and Gagged, Clown Princes and Court Jesters, and Winners of the West.