The movie that ‘destroyed’ Soquel

Jun 25, 2023

In 1925, Bob Jones, manager of the St. George Hotel in Santa Cruz, was introduced to film director Irving Cummings, most likely by Bob’s old friend, film actor George O’Brien. O’Brien was the son of a popular San Francisco police chief and spent his boyhood summers in Santa Cruz. O’Brien had always been a bit of a celebrity due to his father, friends of Santa Cruz Police Chief Frank Hannah, and the local sheriff, Jim Holohan, who’d previously been U.S. Marshall in San Francisco. During World War I, O’Brien became Heavy Weight Boxing Champion of the Pacific Fleet, then went to Hollywood as a stuntman, before joining his Santa Cruz buddy Pat Connor, to get jobs as film extras. Western director John Ford snatched O’Brien from obscurity to star in his 1924 blockbuster “The Iron Horse.” Cummings had been directing since 1921 and had just joined Fox Studios in 1925, and signed George O’Brien to star in his new movie “The Johnstown Flood,” which Cummings felt could be the next “Iron Horse” type of blockbuster.

Bob Jones said there was certainly dramatic potential in a story about the worst flood in American history, especially since it could have been prevented. Cummings agreed, but feared even 36 years later, the companies responsible for the Johnstown disaster were still defensive, having never been brought to justice. To avoid a lawsuit, Cummings decided to go with a script that blamed the disaster on an unscrupulous logging baron, who needed a deep reservoir to move his logs through the river. Bob Jones admitted he might know a thing or two about the disaster, because he covered the story in person back in 1889, as a reporter for the Chicago Daily News.

Although Johnstown had a population of 30,000, its steel and iron works were major contributors of canons for the Union Army, and iron for the Transcontinental Railroad. In 1880, B.F. Ruff bought an abandoned reservoir and dam, once used for a canal boat system, and joined industrialist Henry Clay Frick to create a country club. Five drainage pipes were removed that had kept the reservoir no more than 10 feet deep, and filled the reservoir 60 feet deep, creating the 3-mile-long Lake Conemaugh. Around it they built the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club and cottages, selling memberships to industrial titans. They lowered the top of the dam to build a road on it, stocked the lake with bass, and placed a grate over the spillway to prevent the fish from escaping. Since the dam was not designed for water levels over 10 feet, it constantly sprang leaks, which were patched with mud and straw. A member of the club offered to repair the structure at his own expense, but the club rejected his offer, which required draining the lake first. On May 31, 1889, a rainstorm started filling the lake 1-foot an hour, the grate over the spillway was clogged, and the improper patching material got saturated, weakening the dam.

Several horsemen warned those downstream that the dam would collapse, but after a while, nobody believed them. When the dam gave way, it wiped out three small towns before reaching Johnstown 14 miles downstream, at which point the 40-mile-an-hour wall of water was now a solid mass of houses, debris, animals and humanity. Many shrieks and prayers came from those clinging to rooftops and flotsam. When the flood reached the iron mills, the suddenly cooled molten-metal furnaces caused repeated explosions, raining shrapnel on those nearby. A tight log jam kept people from rising above the water or clubbed them to death when they climbed up between the logs. The town’s stone railroad bridge acted as a dam where debris built up, and the waters turned into a vortex circling around the town. Oil from an overturned tanker car burst into flames on the water, and the swirling tide carried people helplessly into the inferno. After the waters receded, shell-shocked survivors wandered the mountains of gruesome destruction, while spontaneous executions happened of those robbing the dead. The brick schoolhouse was turned into a morgue, with desks used to hold the bodies of its former students. More than 2,208 people lost their lives.

A review of such sobering details filled Cummings with a commitment to convey the humanity of this ill-fated community. He told Bob Jones that he was scouting locations in Southern California, but hadn’t quite found what he wanted. Jones brought out some photos he’d taken to promote the beauty of Santa Cruz County for conventions and tourists. Some were of local industries, such as logging. He gave a set of photos to Cummings, who took them back to Hollywood and got raves of approval, especially for Jones’ artistic camerawork.

Bob Jones was credited with landing this production for Santa Cruz. On Halloween 1925, Cummings, his wife, and a company of 80 came to the St. George Hotel for a two-month stay. On Nov. 2, Jones personally worked with the cinematographer George Schneiderman, to capture rainstorm and cloud effects for the film. Another day, a crew arrived by train with three boxcars full of properties, and within an hour were on their way to a location site in a convoy of seven cabs. Jones had promised them all the transportation they needed from the Santa Cruz Cab Co., forcing its owner John Mowry to add a number of new cabs for this demand. Four miles up Empire Grade, the crew set to work building a cabin, well, and farm for the film’s Burger family, acted by the brooding Paul Panzer, and his sweet movie daughter, Janet Gaynor. Panzer and one of the grips had been in the Santa Cruz production of “Thunder Mountain” earlier that year with Santa Cruz actress ZaSu Pitts. Janet Gaynor had graduated high school in San Francisco in 1923, then moved to Los Angeles, where a supporting role in “The Johnstown Flood” would be her 12th film.

The leading lady was Florence Gilbert, who started as Mary Pickford’s double, then made her name in a series of films based on the New Yorker Magazine comic adventures of a dandy named Van Bibber. Gilbert adored the natural beauty of Santa Cruz. Jack Smith and Roy Davidson were the geniuses behind the special effects, tasked with documenting all buildings and landscapes they needed to render in miniature. Because the buildings had to be destroyed, it was important that the miniature boards demolish like real buildings.

The film crew went to the Steen & Ley Lumber Co. in Bonny Doon, to film tree felling, log sawing and activities by a cast of mostly authentic loggers. At the “Camp Meal House,” servings were posted for 6 a.m., noon and 5:30 p.m. George Reed plays the cook. He started in films as Jim in “Huckleberry Finn,” then played often uncredited roles in 133 films, but in 1934 was opposite ZaSu Pitts in the film “Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch.” He was also in seven feature-length Dr. Kildare films in the 1940s.

Another scene was taken in downtown Boulder Creek, showing the Rex Hotel, the gable of the Odd Fellows Hall, and the bell cupola of the Boulder Creek Fire Department. The Ben Lomond truss bridge south of town is seen, with its sign: “$10 FINE FOR RIDING OR DRIVING ON OR OVER THIS BRIDGE FASTER THAN A WALK,” just as Janet Gaynor speeds across the bridge on horseback. Near Henry Cowell Big Trees was the seasonal suspension bridge, composed of a series of box frames hung from a single steel cable, on which a plank walk was laid along with a railing. Bob Jones directed the film crew to a tree-framed view of Soquel.

Then in the town, panicked town residents hear news of the flood in front of Chase’s Cash Store, at the corner of Soquel Drive and Main Street (later site of the Union 76 Gas Station). The interior and exterior of the Soquel Congregational Church was used for the wedding scene, featuring most of the actual congregation. After two months in Santa Cruz, the crew went to Moccasin Creek Dam on Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite, also filming other scenes on the back lot at Fox Studios. Unnamed extras included Carol Lombard as a bridesmaid, Clark Gable drinking at the bar, and Gary Cooper as a flood survivor.

When the film was released, a special showing was held in the Soquel Congregational Church. The special effects were so realistic for their time, that the sight of recognizable local buildings being destroyed, sent one man out to see if Soquel was still there. The filmmaking experience had been so enjoyable, director Cummings returned again to the St. George Hotel to shoot his next film, “The Midnight Kiss” with Janet Gaynor. Cummings later became known for musicals and films of Shirley Temple, who had a Brookdale summer cottage. Meanwhile, “Johnstown” was supposed to be Florence Gilbert’s big break, but Gaynor stole the picture and went on to stardom, while Gilbert retired to raise a family. Later, Gilbert’s husband was unfaithful to her on the set of a Tarzan film, so she divorced him and married Tarzan’s creator, Edgar Rice Burroughs. In 1927, George O’Brien and Janet Gaynor co-starred in the award-winning “Sunrise,” listed as one of the all-time film masterpieces.

James Mockoski is a Santa Cruz native, graduate of UCSC, and now works at Zoetrope Studios for Francis Ford Coppola. In his expertise as an archivist and film restorer, Mockoski has always had at the back of his mind an interest in finding and preserving films made in Santa Cruz. One was the 2017 restoration of “Mothers of Men,” having tracked down the only copy left of a rare 1917 Women’s Suffrage film, shot almost entirely in Santa Cruz. This time he found the only copy left of “The Johnstown Flood” of 1926, also filmed almost entirely in Santa Cruz County, and restored it in collaboration with Robert A. Harris.

Even existing films on nitrate stock are in the process of deterioration and need to be copied and restored before they disappear forever. Restoration techniques have advanced such that voids in the flaking film emulsion can be corrected in a seamless manner, and Mockoski’s restorations are almost like new. This restoration had its film debut May 28 in Pennsylvania for the Johnstown Area Heritage Association, to commemorate the historic disaster. Mockoski recently gave a private showing to the Santa Cruz History Forum in appreciation of their contribution to the restoration funding of “Mothers of Men.” Additional showings of “Johnstown Flood” are being arranged, and a Blu-ray of the film will be available in October.

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