Alibi Bill

(circa 1915)

In 1914 Joseph Byron Totten, an actor, writer, and director, purchased a large farm in Voluntown, Connecticut, not far from the Rhode Island border. Soon he was churning out silent features and shorts, staging them on his farm and in nearby environs, including downtown Westerly, Rhode Island, which he often used for "big city" scenes. One of the first of these features was Alibi Bill, a western based on a play Totten had written for a 1912-'13 Broadway run.

"I certainly received big thrills," Totten told a Providence Journal reporter in 1938, "because when we took scenes on Westerly streets, people drove in for miles in buggies and autos to watch us. They stopped all traffic to look at the made-up actors and actresses. Little did we realize what a tremendous industry motion pictures would develop into..."