Year

Country

Home

People

Films

Articles

Store

The History of Cinema: 1914

Gt. Britain - Turkey

Great Britain 

Newly-founded Neptune Films builds a studio in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire.   It is the most technologically advanced studio in the UK to date, boasting the first purpose-built dark stage in Europe at over 70ft long. [ADD]

The World, the Flesh and the Devil, starring Frank Esmond and Rupert Harvey, is released in Kinemacolor and trade shown on this date. [ADD]

The World, the Flesh and the Devil premieres at the Holborn Empire, London. [ADD]

25-year-old G. B. Samuelson founds Worton Hall Studios in Islesworth, west London.   The studio’s first production is A Study in Scarlet featuring James Bragington in the screen’s first depiction of Conan Doyle’s legendary sleuth.   The official opening date of the studio is 1^st July. [ADD]

Eugene Lauste’s £25,000 contract with two English backers to develop the Phonocinematophone is scuppered by the outbreak of war in Europe. [ADD]

– Marquis Serra founds the Windsor Film Company and opens a studio in Windsor Road, Catford, South London. [ADD]

– Tower Halls Studio is taken over by Pyramid Films. [ADD]

– The Union film studio at Alexandra Palace is used to house Belgian refugees, followed later by prisoners of war. [ADD]

– Gaumont begins construction of a new glass-roofed studio in Lime Grove, Shepherds Bush, west London.   It reaches 30ft at its highest point and its floor space measures 90ft x 40ft. [ADD]

– Charles Urban moves into Bushey Lodge, Teddington and purchases nearby Weir house for his Kinemacolor company.   However, his rights to Kinemacolor soon expire and he moves to the Boathouse Inn Studio at Kew Bridge. [ADD]

India 

– Dadasaheb Phalke releases Satyavan Savitri, his third film.   By now, his films are so popular that distributors require 20 prints of each film instead of just one.   All three of Phalke’s films are exhibited in London.  Phalke also attempted to explain the film-making process in a short, How Films are Made, and later in a series of essays for the Marathi journal, Navyug. [ADD]

– Abdulally Essoofally acquires the Alexandri Theatre in Bombay (Mumbai) in partnership with Ardeshir Irani  [ADD]

– R. Venkalah and R. S. Prakash build Madras’s first permanent cinema, The Gaiety. [ADD]

Italy 

Histoire d’un Pierrot, directed by Count Baldassarre Negroni and starring Francesca Bertini, is distributed with music. [ADD]

Giovanni Pastrone’s Cabiria is released in Turin.   The film took six months to shoot and runs for nearly three hours.   Making use of technical accomplishments such as overhead cranes, special effects, lighting and cameras mounted on trolleys, the film resembles nothing that has come before.   The intertitles are written by celebrated writer Gabriele D’Annunzio. [ADD]

Japan 

The Tenkatsu film company is formed in Japan.   It builds studios in Tokyo and Osaka and produces 15 films per month. [ADD]

– Nippon Kinetophone makes a number of short sound films before going out of business. [ADD]

Turkey

Cevat Boyer and Murat Bey open the country's first cinema hall. [ADD]

- Film-making begins in Turkey with a 150-metre documentary film, Ayastefanos'taki Rus Abidesinin Yikilisi (The  Demolition  of   the    Russian    Monument    at  St. Stephen) filmed by reserve army officer Fuat Uzkinay shortly after the Ottoman empire's entry into the Great War.  A General Enver's establishes a film centre and several more scenes are shot during the war. [ADD]

Other Key Films of 1914

The German Spy Peril (Will Barker) [ADD]

Bank Ban (Mihaly Kertesz) [ADD]

Katusha (Kiyumatsu Hosoyama) [ADD]

Anna Karenina (Vladimir Gardin) [ADD]

A Child of the Big City (Evgeni Bauer) [ADD]

Chrysanthemums (Pyotr Chardynin) [ADD]

Cold Souls (Evgeni Bauer) [ADD]

The Kreutzer Sonata (Vladimir Gardin) [ADD]

Life in Death (Evgeni Bauer) [ADD]

Silent Witnesses (Evgeni Bauer) [ADD]

The Girl from Marsh Croft (Victor Sjostrom) [ADD]