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USA

1919

The Static Club of America and the Cinema Camera Club merge to form the American Society of Cinematographers.  [MORE] [ADD]

Turn in the Road, King Vidor’s first feature-length film, is released by the Brentwood Film Co.  [MORE] [ADD]

Debut director Oscar Micheaux makes the first feature film intended for a black audience.   The Homesteader is financed by fellow farmers from North Dakota.  [MORE] [ADD]

The United Artists Corporation is formed by four of Hollywood’s biggest names.   Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and D. W. Griffith, believing themselves to be exploited by the major Hollywood studios, become equal shareholders of  their own production company, with former Paramount board member, Hiram Abrams, in charge.  [MORE] [ADD]

Norma Talmadge stars in Chester Withey’s The New Moon as a princess who protects Russian women from evil Bolsheviks.  [MORE] [ADD]

D. W. Griffith’s Broken Blossoms is released.   It stars Lillian Gish as a waif-like girl beaten by her brutal father (Donald Crisp) and loved by a dope-smoking Chinaman (Richard Barthelmess).  [MORE] [ADD]

Mary Pickford Corporation’s first film is released.   Daddy Longlegs stars Pickford and is directed by Marshall Neilan, while Charles Rosher is behind the camera.   Pickford, one of the co-founders of United Artists, consolidates her position as the nation’s favourite actress with the film.  [MORE] [ADD]

Thin Ice, Vitagraph’s second feature starring Corinne Griffith and Alice Terry is released.   The film is directed by Thomas R. Mills, and features Charles Kent, Jack McLean and Walter Miller.  [MORE] [ADD]

D. W. Griffith’s True Heart Susie, starring his regular female leading actress Lillian Gish, is released.  [MORE] [ADD]

Adolph Zukor signs 17-year-old Mary Miles Minter, intending to build her into a rival of Mary Pickford.  [MORE] [ADD]

Charlie Chaplin begins work on The Kid, his first feature film.   His co-star will be four-year-old Jackie Coogan.  [MORE] [ADD]

Comedy actor Harold Lloyd is almost killed when a prop bomb he is holding for a photograph at the Witzel Studio in downtown L.A. explodes.   Lloyd loses the thumb and forefinger of his right hand.  [MORE] [ADD]

His Majesty, The American, United Artists’ first film is premiered on the opening night of the Capital in New York, the world’s largest cinema.   The film stars (and is also produced by) Douglas Fairbanks.   The film cost $300,000 to make.  [MORE] [ADD]

Premiere of Feline Follies, considered to be the first Felix the Cat cartoon (although his character is called Master Tom).  [MORE] [ADD]

Backstage, starring and directed by Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle is released.   It also features Molly Malone and Buster Keaton.  [MORE] [ADD]

Lon Chaney causes a stir in his role in The Miracle Man, thanks to the grotesque make-up he wears for the part of  ‘The Frog,’ a partially paralysed beggar.  [MORE] [ADD]

Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks, two of the co-founders of  United Artists, lay plans to make a film together in Santiago, Chile.  [MORE] [ADD]

Cinema circuit owner Marcus Loew establishes Loew’s Incorporated with a capital of $27 million, with a view to acquiring Metro Pictures.  [MORE] [ADD]

Male and Female, Cecil B. DeMille’s film version of J. M. Barrie’s stage play, The Admirable Crichton is released.   Gloria Swanson stars as Lady Mary Lasenby, and Thomas Meighan plays the self-sufficient butler.  [MORE] [ADD]

‘The Man You Love to Hate’ Erich Stroheim’s first directorial effort is released.   Blind Husbands premieres at the Capitol.   Sam de Grasse and Francelia Billington star as a married couple whose marriage is threatened by an amorous Austrian military officer (Stroheim).  [MORE] [ADD]

Gloria Swanson marries Herbert Somborn after divorcing actor Wallace Beery.  [MORE] [ADD]

Famous Players-Lasky publish the first issue of weekly news magazine, Paramount Magazine.  [MORE] [ADD]

– Sam Goldwyn establishes Eminent Writers Pictures in an attempt to entice eminent authors into writing for the screen.  [MORE] [ADD]

– Technicolor move from a two-colour additive colour film experiment to a two-colour subtractive process.  [MORE] [ADD]

– Walt Disney and Ubbe Iwwerks form Iwerks-Disney Commercial Artists.  [MORE] [ADD]

– The first film in Max Fleischer’s ‘Out of the Inkwell’ cartoon series featuring Koko the Clown is released.  Koko is based on rotoscoped footage of Max’s brother Dave Fleischer.  [MORE] [ADD]

– Walter Lantz begins working for the Bray Studio.  [MORE] [ADD]

Other Films of Note

The Girl Who Stayed at Home (D. W. Griffith)  [MORE] [ADD]

The Red Lantern (Albert Capellani)  [MORE] [ADD]

Why Change Your Wife? (Cecil B. DeMille)  [MORE] [ADD]