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1901: Pathé Increases Production
!n 1901 Charles Pathé set in motion a plan to become the world's major manufacturer of films by increasing production at his rue du Polygone studio and ploughing profits from sales directly back into the company ("I didn't invent cinema," he would later claim, "but I did industrialise it."). The majority of the 70 films produced by Pathé in 1901 were made by three men: Ferdinand Zecca, Lucien Nonguet and Georges Hatot. Initially, the company produced copies of English films such as La Loupe de grand-maman and Rêve et réalité, but it wasn't long before they began making original subjects. Of these three men, Zecca was the most accomplished, and produced a number of memorable films.
Chief amongst them in 1901 was L'Histoire d'un crime; a filmic version, told in seven tableaux, of the narrative of a waxworks exhibit at the Musée Grévin in 1899, the film made groundbreaking use of structure and editing, and achieved a new level of realism. It told the story of an honest carpenter driven to burglary, and ultimately murder, after losing all his money in a card game. Much of the story is told in flashback in the form of a short series of dream images in the upper corner of the screen above the sleeping prisoner's head, and concludes with the man's execution. Reputedly, the film was halted before the final execution scene so that women and children could leave the screening.
In the following years, Pathé's annual output would dwarf the company's output in 1901. The profits made from these films were immense; cheap to make, sales of each film averaged around 350 prints.
Pathé only had to sell 15 prints of each film to break even. [ADD]
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