|
Search By:
|
USA |
|
||
|
1906-1910 |
||||
|
1906 |
||||
 |
||||
| 24/2 - | Carl Laemmle, a German immigrant, opens the White Front Theater, Chicago’s first nickelodeon. [MORE] |
|||
| 6/4 - | The first cartoon film is copyrighted. [MORE] [ADD] | |||
| 25/4 - | Vitagraph and Pathe begin publication of trade journal Views and Film Index. [MORE] [ADD] | |||
| 26/4 - | The first film screening is held in Hawaii. [MORE] [ADD] | |||
 |
||||
| May - | William Fox opens a projection room at 700 Broadway in New York. [MORE] [ADD] | |||
| Jun - | Biograph construct a new film stage at their East 14th Street studio. [MORE] [ADD] | |||
 |
||||
| 23/7 - | Harry Aiken and John R. Freuler found the Western Film Exchange in Chicago, which becomes the center of the exchange industry with fifteen exchanges controlling 80% of the US film rental business. [MORE] [ADD] | |||
| 25/7 - | Vitagraph open a new $25,000 studio in the Flatbush area of Brooklyn. [MORE] [ADD] | |||
| Oct - | Carl Laemmle founds the Carl Laemmle Film Service distribution company. [MORE] [ADD] | |||
 |
||||
|
Oct - |
James Stuart Blackton makes two animated features: Humorous Phases of a Funny Face and The Haunted Hotel. [MORE] [ADD] | |||
| – Nickelodeons spread rapidly across the country. [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
| – The Keith Organisation begins converting vaudeville theatres into nickelodeons. [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
| – Exchange companies begin putting their names on films’ main titles to prove ownership. [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
| – Edison’s projectors enjoy a 131% increase in sales over the previous year. At $135 each, they generate sales of over $182,000. [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
| – A shortage of American films results in an influx of foreign movies. Pathe films account for one-third of the films shown in the US. [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
 |
||||
| – Vitagraph offer Florence Turner a job as wardrobe mistress at $18 a week, plus an extra $5 when she appears in a film. She will go on to become famous as The Vitagraph Girl. [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
| Other Films of Note | ||||
 |
||||
| Daniel Boone: or Pioneer Days in America (Edwin S. Porter) [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
| Dream of a Rarebit Fiend (Edwin S. Porter) [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
| The Secret of Death Valley (Lubin) [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
|
1907 |
||||
 |
||||
| Feb - | George K. Spoor and Gilbert M. “Broncho Billy” Anderson form the Essanay Co., whose named is derived from the men’s initials – S & A. The new studio is based at 501 Wells St., Chicago, and its first picture is entitled An Awful Skate or The Hobo on Rollers. [MORE] [ADD] | |||
| Mar - | Daniel H. Bell and Albert S Howell form The Bell & Howell Co., America’s first manufacturer of cameras and lenses, in Chicago. Their first product is the Kinedrome projector. [MORE] [ADD] | |||
 |
||||
| 12/4 - | George Kleine, Samuel Long and Frank Marion form the Kalem Company. Their first film is The Runaway Sleighbelle. [MORE] [ADD] | |||
| Jul - | Edison’s film production moves from New York to a purpose-built studio in the Bronx. [MORE] [ADD] | |||
| Oct - |
Jeremiah Kennedy, a consultant engineer, assumes the position of director of Biograph. He lays off many of the studio’s staff in an attempt to ease its financial difficulties. [MORE] [ADD] |
|||
 |
||||
| 4/11 - | Thomas Edison meets with George Kleine (Kalem), J. Stuart Blackton and Albert Smith (Vitagraph), George K. Spoor (Essanay), William L. Selig, Siegmund Lubin, Georges Melies and Jacques-Emile Berst (Pathe) to form a motion picture cartel that will put an end to the legal battles that have plagued the industry since its birth. It is also designed to crush competitors of the established studios. [MORE] [ADD] | |||
| Nov - | Chicago passes America’s first local censorship ordinance “prohibiting the exhibition of obscene and immoral pictures commonly shown in Mutoscopes, Kinetoscopes, Cinematographs and penny arcades.” [MORE] [ADD] | |||
| – E. E. Norton develops a sound film system. [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
| – After they are refused membership to the Variety Artists Federation, film projectionists form their own trade union, The Bioscope Operator’s Association. [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
| – The Selig-Polyscope Co. makes the first westerns actually filmed in the real west. [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
| – The Saturday Evening Post reports that nickelodeon attendance has reached 2 million people a day. [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
 |
||||
|
– Louis B. Mayer buys his first nickelodeon. [MORE] [ADD] |
||||
| – William Fox founds the Greater New York Film Exchange. [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
 |
||||
| – Siegmund Lubin moves his studio to ‘Lubin Building’ in the center of Philadelphia’s business district. [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
| – Edison projector sales reach $481,000, a 130% increase over the previous year. [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
 |
||||
| – D. W. Griffith enters the film industry as an actor for the Edison Co at a wage of $5 per day. [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
| – Vitagraph become the major American movie producer and begins to organise the making of their films by assigning responsibility for all aspects of the making of the film to a director. [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
| – The Warner Brothers open the Duquesne Amusement Supply Company, a film exchange, in Pittsburgh. [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
| Other Films of Note | ||||
 |
||||
| The Boy, The Bust and the Bath (Vitagraph) [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
|
Jack the Kisser (Edwin S. Porter) [MORE] [ADD] |
||||
| Lightning Sketches (J S Blackton) [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
| The Mill Girl (Vitagraph) [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
|
Rescued from an Eagle’s Nest (J. Searle Dawley) [MORE] [ADD] |
||||
| The Teddy Bears (Edwin S. Porter) [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
| The Unwritten Law: a Thrilling Drama Based on the Thaw-White Tragedy (Lubin) [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
| When We Were Boys (Selig) [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
|
1908 |
||||
 |
||||
| 5/2 - |
Henry Marvin, Vice President of Biograph, buys the patent to the Latham Loop. [MORE] [ADD] |
|||
| 20/2 - |
Five days after replacing William E. Gilmore as Edison’s Vice President, Frank L Dyer, the inventor’s lawyer and biographer, imposes a $5,000 annual license fee on film distributors. [MORE] [ADD] |
|||
| 1/3 - |
Edison forms the Association of Edison Licensees to regulate film distribution. Biograph refuse to join. [MORE] [ADD] |
|||
| 5/5 - |
Kalem’s Ben Hur is the subject of legal action by the estate of author Lew Wallace after the film company fails to acquire the rights to the story. In a landmark decision, Kalem lose the case and are forced to withdraw the film from distribution pending an appeal. [MORE] [ADD] |
|||
| May - |
The National Cameraphone company opens a factory and studio in New York for synchronised sound apparatus. [MORE] [ADD] |
|||
 |
||||
| 14/7 - |
D. W. Griffith directs his wife Linda Arvidson in The Adventures of Dollie, in his directorial debut. The film opens on this day at the Union Square Theatre in New York. [MORE] [ADD] |
|||
| Jul - |
William "Bronco Billy" Anderson takes an Essanay unit to Colorado to film westerns. [MORE] [ADD] |
|||
| 17/8 - |
D. W. Griffith becomes Biograph’s main director at a salary of $50 per week following the departure of Wallace McCutcheon. [MORE] [ADD] |
|||
 |
||||
| 19/9 - |
David Horsley’s Centaur Film Company of Bayonne releases A Cowboy Escapade, it’s first film. [MORE] [ADD] |
|||
| 16/10 | Mack Sennett appears in The Curtain Pole, directed by D W Griffith and co-starring Griffith’s wife, Linda Arvidson [MORE] [ADD] | |||
| Winter - |
The Kalem Company moves to Florida. Its first film, A Florida Feud or Love in the Everglades is released in December. [MORE] [ADD] |
|||
| 17/12 - |
Thomas Edison forms The Motion Pictures Patent Trust (MPPC). The Trust's membership comprises of Biograph, Vitagraph, Selig, Kalem, Essanay, Lubin, George Kleine, Pathe and Melies. Its intention is to prevent any organisations outside of the trust from producing or selling films in the US without paying the trust for the privilege. [MORE] [ADD] |
|||
| 18/12 - |
The MPPC begins issuing licenses under the pooled patents arrangement. [MORE] [ADD] |
|||
| Other Films of Note | ||||
 |
||||
| After Many Years (D.W. Griffith) [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
|
1909 |
||||
| Jan - | Trade paper The Nickelodeon is first published. [MORE] [ADD] | |||
| 8/2 - | D. W. Griffith directs his wife, Linda Arvidson, in Edgar Allan Poe's The Sealed Room, which is released today. [MORE] [ADD] | |||
|
|
||||
| 12/3 - | Cinema owner and distributor Carl Laemmle and director William Rainous form Independent Motion Pictures, a breakaway company from Vitagraph, in response to the MPPC restrictions, and adopt an imp as their emblem. [MORE] [ADD] | |||
| 20/3 - | Independent filmmakers excluded from Edison’s Motion Pictures Patents Company form a rival cartel. [MORE] [ADD] | |||
| 25/3 - | The National Board of Censorship, established by the People’s Institute and Dr. Charles Sprague Smith in New York, holds its first meeting. [MORE] [ADD] | |||
| 14/4 - | Distributors Adam Kessel and Charles Baumann found Bison Life Films in New York. Their first film, Disinherited Son’s Loyalty, is released in May. [MORE] [ADD] | |||
|
|
||||
| Apr - | Former scrap metal dealer Louis B. Mayer and Nat Gordon found the Gordon-Mayer cinema circuit. [MORE] [ADD] | |||
 |
||||
| 10/6 - | Three days after the release of her screen debut, The Violin Maker of Cremona, Mary Pickford again appears for D. W. Griffith in The Lonely Villa. [MORE] [ADD] | |||
| 15/6 - | Independent filmmakers reach a secret agreement with Eastman-Kodak for supplies of safety film. [MORE] [ADD] | |||
 |
||||
| 1/8 - | Edwin S. Porter resigns as head of Edison, after reaching a production output of one 15-minute film every three days, to found Rex Motion Pictures with William H. Swanson. [MORE] [ADD] | |||
| 8/9 - | G. M. Anderson, accompanied by cameraman Jesse Robbins, moves his Essanay film company west, finally settling in Niles, California. [MORE] [ADD] | |||
| 11/9 - | The Film Renters’ Protective Association is established to combat the threat of the MPPC [MORE] [ADD] | |||
| 18/9 - | Vitagraph release the first reel of their four-reel version of Les Miserables, believing the public will not watch a film lasting over an hour. [MORE] [ADD] | |||
|
|
||||
| 10/10 - | D. W. Griffith’s Pippa Passes, starring Gertrude Robinson, becomes the first film to receive a notice in the New York Times due to its technical innovations. [MORE] [ADD] | |||
| Oct - | Powers Picture Company is established. [MORE] [ADD] | |||
 |
||||
| 1/11 - | William Selig opens California’s first film studio on the site of a Chinese laundry in the sleepy town of Hollywood. [MORE] [ADD] | |||
| 25/11 - | The first film censorship action on a local scale is taken in the US. [MORE] [ADD] | |||
| Nov - | Actors working for theatrical producers Klaw and Erlanger are forbidden from appearing in films. [MORE] [ADD] | |||
| Nov - | The New York Motion Picture Company begins production in California. [MORE] [ADD] | |||
| 11/12 - | Kinemacolor is exhibited for the first time at Madison Square Garden in New York. [MORE] [ADD] | |||
|
|
||||
| 30/12 - | G. M. Anderson plays cowboy hero Bronco Billy for the first time in Bronco Billy’s Redemption. [MORE] [ADD] | |||
| Dec - | Carl Laemmle and associates form Industrial Film Company, the first to specialise in films for industrial, educational and archive purposes. [MORE] [ADD] | |||
| – American Mutoscope and Biograph Company changes its name to American Biograph Company. [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
| – Vitagraph issues its first multi-reel films. [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
| – Champion Film Company build a studio in Coytesville, New Jersey. They disguise the appearance of the studio in an attempt to avoid the attention of Edison’s MPPC. [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
|
|
||||
| – Siegmund Lubin sells his chain of theatres to form the Lubin Manufacturing Company, and begins building a new studio in North Philadelphia. [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
| Other Films of Note | ||||
 |
||||
|
Napoleon – The Man of Destiny (J. Stuart Blackton) [MORE] [ADD] |
||||
| The Bride of Lammermoor (Vitagraph) [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
|
A Corner in the Wheat (D. W. Griffith) [MORE] [ADD] |
||||
|
The Medicine Bottle (D. W. Griffith) [MORE] [ADD] |
||||
|
Mr and Mrs Jones series (D. W. Griffith) [MORE] [ADD] |
||||
|
1910 |
||||
|
|
||||
| 20/1 - | D. W. Griffith arrives in Los Angeles, California to complete filming of The Newlyweds, a film he started shooting in New York. He remains with his troupe to film a further 24 films before returning to New York in April. [MORE] [ADD] | |||
| 1/2 - | Edison continues his experiments with sound, producing Kinetophone short sound films at West 43rd Street before moving to his studios at Decatur Avenue in the Bronx. [MORE] [ADD] | |||
| 2/2 - |
Vitagraph release the five-reel Life of Moses, which cost $50,000 to shoot. [MORE] [ADD] |
|||
|
|
||||
| 10/2 - |
The MPPC forms its own distribution company, The General Film Company, in an attempt to control regional distributors. The Trust's main opponents include William Fox, Carl Laemmle and Adolph Zukor. [MORE] [ADD] |
|||
 |
||||
| 16/5 - |
Charles Pathe’s American production company, Pathe-Americain, issues its first release, The Girl from Montana, starring Pearl White, which was filmed at its studio in Bound Brook, NJ. [MORE] [ADD] |
|||
| 2/7 - |
A fire in which numerous negatives are lost devastates Vitagraph’s New York studio. [MORE] [ADD] |
|||
 |
||||
| 30/11 - |
Gaston Melies builds a studio in Texas. [MORE] [ADD] |
|||
 |
||||
|
– Winsor Mckay makes an animated film, Gertie the Trained Dinosaur for his vaudeville act. [MORE] [ADD] |
||||
 |
||||
|
– Carl Laemmle’s IMP company launches the star system by promoting former Biograph Girl Florence Lawrence through a major publicity campaign after luring her away from his rivals. [MORE] [ADD] |
||||
|
– The first purchase of rights to a novel – Ramona, by Helen Hunt Jackson – is made. [MORE] [ADD] |
||||
|
– The Nestor Studio is the first to be built in Hollywood. [MORE] [ADD] |
||||
|
– Siegmund Lubin begins making medical and scientific films at his “Lubinville” studio in North Philadelphia. [MORE] [ADD] |
||||
|
– The first reportedly independent African American film is made. The Railroad Porter is a short comedy directed by William Foster in Chicago and financed by Henry Abbott Sengstacke of the Chicago Defender newspaper. [MORE] [ADD] |
||||
| Other Films of Note | ||||
 |
||||
|
A Midsummer Night’s Dream (J. Stuart Blackton) [MORE] [ADD] |
||||
|
Frankenstein, or Prometheus unbound (J. Searle Dawley) [MORE] [ADD] |
||||
| An Arcadian Maid (D. W. Griffith) [MORE] [ADD] | ||||
|
A Child of the Ghetto (D. W. Griffith) [MORE] [ADD] |
||||
|
In Old California (D. W. Griffith) [MORE] [ADD] |
||||
|
Ramona (D. W. Griffith) [MORE] [ADD] |
||||
|
A Romance of the Western Hills (D. W. Griffith) [MORE] [ADD] |
||||
USA: 1911