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USA |
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1920 |
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| 12/1 - |
Oscar Micheaux’s Within Our Gates, a film about race relations and lynching, is released. The film is censored and suppressed. [MORE] [ADD] |
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| Jan - |
Loew’s Incorporated take over Metro Pictures. [MORE] [ADD] |
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| 5/2 - |
F. K. Lane, undersecretary of State for the Interior, suggests to studio heads that they can help their country by making anti-Bolshevik propaganda films. [MORE] [ADD] |
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| 16/2 - |
After recovering from health problems, Max Linder returns to Hollywood to make a second attempt at cracking the American market, bolstered by the praise of Charlie Chaplin, who rates Linder’s films as some of the most notable ever made. [MORE] [ADD] |
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| 22/2 - |
First National release The River’s End, starring Lewis Stone and Marjorie Daw. Victor Heerman and Marshall Neilan co-direct. [MORE] [ADD] |
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| 16/3 - |
Maurice Tourneur’s 55-minute Treasure Island is released. It stars Lon Chaney, Shirley Mason and Charles Ogle. [MORE] [ADD] |
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| 28/3 - |
Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks marry following years of tabloid gossip that they have been enjoying an extramarital affair. [MORE] [ADD] |
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| 31/3 - |
Samuel Goldwyn invites celebrated Belgian writer Maurice Maeterlinck to Hollywood to work under contract. [MORE] [ADD] |
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| 2/4 - |
John Barrymore stars in John S. Robertson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for Famous Players-Lasky Corporation. The film cements Barrymore’s popularity as a movie star, despite receiving some criticism for his theatrical performance. The actor is supported by Nita Naldi and Brandon Hurst. [MORE] [ADD] |
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| 14/4 - |
The Attorney-General of California charges America’s Sweetheart, Mary Pickford with perjury and bigamy following her recent marriage to Douglas Fairbanks. The couple married less than a month after the annulment of the actress’s marriage to actor Owen Moore. [MORE] [ADD] |
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| 30/4 - |
The Pittsburgh Harmony Butler Rail Co. introduce trains with cinema carriages. [MORE] [ADD] |
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| 31/5 - |
Louis B. Mayer forms Louis B. Mayer Productions with capital of $5 million. [MORE] [ADD] |
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| 15/6 - |
Filming of Seven Years Bad Luck begins at Universal City. The film is financed by its star, French comedian Max Linder, who sold his car and mortgaged various personal effects to raise the money. [MORE] [ADD] |
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| 10/7 - |
High and Dizzy, the first film made by Harold Lloyd following completion of Haunted Spooks, in which he lost part of his hand when a prop bomb exploded, is released. Lloyd’s popularity grows as he signs a new contract for Hal Roach. [MORE] [ADD] |
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| 13/7 - |
D. W. Griffith floats 500,000 shares in his new D. W. Griffith Corporation to raise finance for new studios at Mamaroneck, near New York City. [MORE] [ADD] |
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| 13/7 - |
Lillian Gish directs her sister, Dorothy, in Remodeling Her Husband. [MORE] [ADD] |
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| 2/8 - |
Ormer Locklear, Hollywood’s first stunt pilot, and stuntman Milton ‘Skeets’ Elliott perish in an airplane crash on the last day of filming The Skywayman. The crash is reputed to have been included in the released film, although no prints are believed to exist. [MORE] [ADD] |
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| 20/8 - |
Erich von Stroheim’s The Devil’s Pass Key is released to rave reviews. The film stars Una Trevelyn, Sam de Grasse, Clyde Filmore, Maude George and Mae Busch. [MORE] [ADD] |
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| 20/9 - |
D. W. Griffith and Lillian Gish break their successful film partnership when Gish agrees a three-year contract with the Frohman Amusement Company. Griffith replaces Gish with Carole Dempster, the star of his 1919 film, The Girl Who Stayed Home. [MORE] [ADD] |
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| 25/10 - |
Rex Ingram begins directing his wife Anne Terry, Wallace Beery and Rudolph Valentino in Metro Pictures’ The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. [MORE] [ADD] |
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| 9/11 - |
Charlie Chaplin and Mildred Harris are divorced after protracted legal wranglings. The couple reach a settlement whereby Harris receives $100,000 and a share of the community property acquired since their marriage in October 1918. [MORE] [ADD] |
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| 5/12 - |
The Mark of Zorro, starring Douglas Fairbanks and directed by Fred Niblo, is released. [MORE] [ADD] |
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| 28/12 - |
The cinema industry suffers a depression due to a lack of overseas markets. Production is down 50% resulting in 5,000 out of work. [MORE] [ADD] |
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– The Durwood brothers buy a cinema in Kansas City, the first of the Durwood – and later AMC – chain. [MORE] [ADD] |
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– Harry Cohn founds the CBC Sales Co., which he soon renames Columbia Pictures Corporation. [MORE] [ADD] |
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– Lee de Forest invents an optical film soundtrack that runs between the picture and one row of sprockets. He calls his invention the Phonofilm. [MORE] [ADD] |
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– Milton Fields employs Walt Disney to produce twelve cartoons he calls Newman’s Laugh-O-grams. [MORE] [ADD] |
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– Both Paramount and Fox Films open distribution branches in France. [MORE] [ADD] |
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– In 1920, the US exports 188.5 million feet of film, 25% of which goes to Great Britain. [MORE] [ADD] |
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Other Films of Note |
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The Butterfly Man (Ida May Park) [MORE] [ADD] |
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Humoresque (Frank Borzage) [MORE] [ADD] |
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The Last of the Mohicans (Clarence Brown, Maurice Tourneur) [MORE] [ADD] |
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The Mollycoddle (Victor Fleming) [MORE] [ADD] |
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The Toll Gate (Lambert Hillyer) [MORE] [ADD] |
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Way Down East (D. W. Griffith) [MORE] [ADD] |
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