Moviemaking in Overland Park
One of William Strang’s plans to make Overland Park a “place where things happen” involved establishing a movie town in the business district. According to the Olathe Mirror, a Frenchman visited Overland Park in January of 1916 to entice farmers and local businessmen to invest in a film-making company. The following month, the Mirror reported that “the first pictures of the Overland Park Film Company were shown at the Strang Hall. The scenes were taken along the Santa Fe Trail between Olathe and Kansas City and proved quite interesting to all who saw them.”
William Strang’s role in the organization of the film company is unclear; however, the location of the movie studios at Aviation Field and the plots of the films produced suggest he was directing these activities. Strang needed to raise capital in 1916, as his interurban line was losing customers to automobile travel. Perhaps in an attempt to raise money to save the Strang Line, he sold his beloved Aviation Park to the Overland Park Film Manufacturing Company; an announcement of the sale appeared in the Kansas City Star on April 23, 1916. Overland Park was to house a movie city that would rival California and New York studios. The company purchased 90 acres of land and built or remodeled 5 buildings to house their studios. The article also announced the release of a silent film produced by Strang entitled “waiting at the Church.” The film was to be released in Kansas City picture houses; admission was 25 cents.
Strang’s movie combined his promotional talents and interest in motion pictures to produce a film in which the hero was a Strang Line interurban car. “Waiting at the Church” was a dramatic comedy that related the story of a groom trying to reach the church in time for his wedding. After his automobile ran out of gas and a railway handcar malfunctioned, the wedding party boarded a Strang Line car and completed the final leg of their journey. The humorous and exciting scene was filmed along the Strang Line.
Strang’s next movie — and probably his last — was centered around a dramatic scene in which a pilot was rescued from his burning plane by two Red Cross nurses. Overcome by shyness as the nurses approached him for the rescue scene, the pilot kept the women at arm’s length. The women giggled during the scene and the film was all but ruined.
The Overland Park Film Manufacturing Company made aviation films and planned to make home movies, or “domestic pictures.” The Company’s advertisements described them as “private reels [which would be] ordered by families to preserve the home circle in characteristic home life.” This and other filmmaking projects never materialized, and the company ended in bankruptcy.
--ALBUM vol. 7, no. 4 ( summer 1994)