In various trade magazines, including the 2 Aug 1913 Moving Picture News, the new All-Star Feature Corporation of New York City announced “To All the World” that, with playwright Augustus Thomas as its “Director General of Productions,” the firm would be filming “America’s Greatest Plays With Distinguished Stage Celebrities.” The movies would be made “on a scale of magnificence and splendor never yet attempted by Film Makers.” All-Star’s first release, due in early September, would be an adaptation of Thomas’s own popular Broadway play, Arizona, “with Cyril Scott and a big cast of original Arizona favorites. Staged and produced under personal direction of the Author, at a cost of $25,000.00.”
       Quoted in the 2 Aug 1913 Moving Picture News, All-Star Feature President Harry R. Raver stated that the “Canby Ranch,” one of the story’s main locations, “is actually being built on Staten Island. We have 175 acres there for that purpose. Everything is being done to reproduce the typical Arizona atmosphere. Mr. [Henry Allen] Farnum [sic]…is in charge of the construction work of exterior settings. He has reproduced Fort Grand from the ground up. … The costumes were specially made by the Russell Uniform Company. Every actor who has a military part in ‘Arizona’ was sent to Russell’s to be measured and fitted for a uniform suitable to the period. Of course, we had to subject some of these uniforms to rough usage in order not to have the soldiers appear as if they were rigged up for a dress parade.”
       An item in the 23 Aug 1913 Moving Picture News reported that Arizona was “nearing completion. Augustus Thomas and [assistant director] Laurence McGill have been handling an army of men and horses during the past three weeks.” The All-Star executives had already seen “the first three thousand feet of positive film.”
       According to an article called “All Star Completes ‘Arizona’” in the 30 Aug 1913 Moving Picture News, “Tents have been dismantled and Fort Grant, where a week ago bustle and activity reigned supreme, now presents a scene of desolation. The Canby Ranch, famous in Mr. Thomas’ play, has been torn down and the debris cleared away. This ranch house and adjoining buildings formed perhaps the most unique background ever used in a picture subject of the type of ‘Arizona.’ No scenery was used in its construction. ‘Use lumber, lathe and plaster and make every setting realistic,’ was the order given by Augustus Thomas when he first took command of the production department of the All Star.” The article mentioned that the film’s cavalrymen, real U.S. soldiers, had returned to their nearby base (Fort Wadsworth, on Staten Island, NY), “and the Broadway stars who enacted the principal parts” had gone back to their theatrical productions. Thomas’s play, which had been a worldwide success over the previous dozen years, consisted of only four acts spread over three sets, but for the film he developed the story into 210 acts. Along with hand-picked professional stage actors, including “a real Chinaman…to portray the Canby cook,” the director hired only real cowboys and cavalrymen. “No stage soldiers or alleged cowpunchers for Augustus Thomas.”
       An advertisement in the 27 Sep 1913 Moving Picture News bragged that Thomas’s Arizona, “America’s Greatest Play,” was now “America’s Biggest Film,” with “Six Parts, 210 Scenes, and 150 Actors.”
       For information on other versions of Thomas's play, see Douglas Fairbanks's Arizona (1918).