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1921

Australia 

– The Federal Government creates the Commonwealth Cinema and Photographic branch to produce government documentaries. [MORE] [ADD]

China 

– The China Film Research Society produce Yen Rei-sun, the country’s first feature film, which is directed by Pun-Yen Ren and premieres in Shanghai.   It is based on a sensational murder case. [MORE] [ADD]

Denmark

– Lau Lauritzen founds the Palladium Company.  [MORE] [ADD]

Censors ban Daniel Bompard’s La Brute (The Beast). [MORE] [ADD]

Deputies are shown a Gaumont documentary about the transformation of engines of war into tractors at the Palais-Bourbon. [MORE] [ADD]

The invitation-only opening of the Madeleine cinema in Paris features J. Gordon Edwards' 1919 Wolves of the Night, and Mary Pickford’s Little Lord Fauntleroy.  [MORE] [ADD]

Rene Leprince takes advantage of the Labour Day parade at Mointceau-les-Mines to film scenes for l’Empereur des pauvres. [MORE] [ADD]

Cinema attendances drop dramatically during a heatwave due to the lack of air conditioning in cinemas. [MORE] [ADD]

Severin Mars, the star of Abel Gance’s J’Accuse, dies of a heart attack at the age of 48 shortly after completing his directorial debut, Le Coeur Magnifique. [MORE] [ADD]

French distributors refuse to pay the Fox Corporation’s asking price of 700,000 francs to screen the boxing match between Frenchman Georges Carpentier and victorious American fighter Jack Dempsey. [MORE]

Aime Simon-Gerard, D’Artagnan in Henri Diamant-Berger’s serial of Les Trois mousquetaires, buys the horse he rode in the film. [MORE] [ADD]

Armand Bernard, the prefect of Alpes-Maritimes, bans all films with scenes of crime, theft or murder. [MORE] [ADD]

Charlot, Louis Delluc’s analysis and criticisms of Charlie Chaplin’s films, is published. [MORE] [ADD]

Jacque Feyder’s l’Atlantide is released.   The film, the most expensive French production to date, is filmed on location in the Hoggar desert, and stars Stacia Napierkowska, Jean Angelo and Louis Aubert.  [MORE] [ADD]

Jean Epstein’s book, Bonjour Cinema, is released shortly after he makes his cinematic debut as assistant director to Louis Delluc on Le Tonnerre. [MORE] [ADD]

Drastic cutting of Musidora’s and Jacques Lasseyne’s Pour Don Carlos by one-fifth of its original length, fails to win over moviegoers. [MORE] [ADD]

On the anniversary of Napoleon’s death, a gala screening of Dominique Bernard-Deschamps L’agonie des aigles is held at the Opera de Paris to help War Widows and Orphans.  [MORE] [ADD]

– The Heraute Colour film process is used on L’amour eternel.  [MORE] [ADD]

Dr. Wilhelm von Kaufmann, actress Henny Porten’s new husband, gives up his medical practice in order to produce his wife’s films. [MORE] [ADD]

Fritz Lang’s Der Mude Tod premieres in Berlin.   The film is co-written with his future wife Thea von Harbou. [MORE] [ADD]

Paul Leni and Leopold Jessner’s Hintertreppe is released.   The expressionist work stars Henny Porten, William Dieterle and Fritz Korner. [MORE] [ADD]

– Ufa production company takes over Decla-Bioskop.  [MORE] [ADD]

– Partially financed by secret state investment, the Ufa production company opens new studios at Neubabelsberg, near Potsdam. [MORE] [ADD]

– German film production reaches a peak of 646 films.  [MORE] [ADD]

Great Britain 

The Ministry of Health publishes Causes and Prevention of Blindness: Interim Report regarding eye problems associated with the lights used during filming.   The Kinematograph Manufacturers Association immediately undertakes to change its practices. [MORE] [ADD]

During a visit to his homeland, comedy star Charlie Chaplin receives an enthusiastic welcome from huge crowds.   He enjoys social events with literary figures Sir J. M. Barrie, H. G. Wells, and Rebecca West, and revisits scenes of his impoverished childhood in East London. [MORE] [ADD]

– Producer George Clark begins construction of Beaconsfield Studios.  [MORE] [ADD]

– The Nederlandsche Bioscoop Bond (NBB – Dutch Union for Cinematography) is founded. [MORE] [ADD]

– The Astra production company goes bankrupt.  [MORE] [ADD]

– Bilet Pherat, the first Indian film with a contemporary setting, is released.   It also marks the directorial debut of Dhirendranath Ganguly. [MORE] [ADD]

– Kanjibhai Rathod’s Bhakta Vidur becomes the country’s first victim of censorship when it is banned in Madras. [MORE] [ADD]

Italy 

The Italian Minister of Fine Arts gives French director Luiz Moratz permission to shoot scenes for his film La Terre du diable amongst the ruins of Vesuvius. [MORE] [ADD]

Japan 

– The Institute for Cinema Studies is founded. [MORE] [ADD]

Lithuania

– Feognijus Dunajevas shoots the first local newsreel. [MORE] [ADD]

New Zealand

– Pioneer filmmaker Rudall Hayward makes The Bloke from Freeman's Bay.   His Uncle Henry considers it to be so bad that he offers his nephew £50 to burn it.  [MORE] [ADD]

Victor Sjostrom’s version of Selma Lagerlof’s Korkarlen, in which he co-stars with Hilda Borgstrom, is released. [MORE] [ADD]

– Ray Milton Hartmann founds the educational Schul- und Volks-Kino in Berne.  [MORE] [ADD]

Charlie Chaplin’s first feature film, The Kid, premieres at Carnegie Hall in New York.   1 1/2 years in the making, it stars Chaplin with newcomer Jackie Coogan in the title role.   Chaplin receives a $1.5million advance from First National plus 50% of the net after First National recover the advance. [MORE] [ADD]

Rex Ingram’s The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse is released and propels its young star, Rudolph Valentino, towards superstardom.   The film is still making money in November following a recall of the prints so that Valentino can be given star billing rather than the support status he was originally afforded. [MORE] [ADD]

Abel Gance holds a screening of the American version of his acclaimed J’Accuse for press and cinema owners at the Ritz in New York. [MORE] [ADD]

The animated short The Goose that Laid the Golden Egg, the first of cartoonist Paul Terry’s Aesop’s Film Fables, is released. [MORE] [ADD]

Serial star Pearl White is discovered alive and well after being lost in the mountains for more than 16 hours. [MORE] [ADD]

Following scathing French reviews of Fred Niblo’s The Three Musketeers, its star, Douglas Fairbanks, vows “never to put a foot in France again”  [MORE] [ADD]

Fred Niblo’s The Three Musketeers, starring Douglas Fairbanks, is released, further consolidating the star’s position as an action hero and marking a move away from his usual light comedies. [MORE] [ADD]

The Federal Trade Commission accuses Famous Players-Lasky of block-booking, the practice whereby exhibitors must take packages of films unseen in order to obtain copies of major films. [MORE] [ADD]

D. W. Griffith builds a $150,000 replica of an 18^th century French village for his latest film, Orphans of the Storm. [MORE] [ADD]

Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle is charged with the rape of actress Virginia Rappe, who died of peritonitis following a party held by Arbuckle at the Saint Francis Hotel in San Francisco.   Arbuckle pleads his innocence after Maude Delmont, a friend of Rappe’s, accuses him of the rape. [MORE] [ADD]

Cecil B. DeMille’s film version of Arthur Schnitzler’s scandalous 1890’s play, Anatol, is released.   The Affairs of Anatol stars heartthrob Wallace Reid and Gloria Swanson. [MORE] [ADD]

Sun-Life Pictures release A Lucky Dog, which was filmed in 1919.   The film is noticeable only for the fact that it marks the first pairing of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.   Hardy plays a thief who robs Laurel at gunpoint. [MORE] [ADD]

The Sheik, directed by George Melford and starring Rudolph Valentino, is released.   Supporting cast includes Agnes Ayres, Patsy Ruth Miller, George Waggner, Frank Butler, Lucien Littlefold and Adolphe Menjou. [MORE] [ADD]

Following Metro Pictures refusal to increase Rudolph Valentino’s weekly salary to $450, the actor moves to Paramount, who offer him $500. [MORE] [ADD]

Max Linder’s Be My Wife is released.   As well as co-starring with Alta Allen, the French comedian also produced and directed. [MORE] [ADD]

Ernst Lubitsch arrives in America to promote his film The Loves of Pharaoh, and to consider offers from Hollywood producers. [MORE] [ADD]

Henry King’s version of Joseph Hergesheimer’s Tol’able David is released.   Richard Barthelmess, the star,  purchased the film rights from director D. W. Griffith for $7,500, and formed his own production company, Inspiration Pictures, to get the film made. [MORE] [ADD]

Paramount Pictures announce that they produced a total of 101 feature films in 1921 – the most ever produced by a single studio to date. [MORE] [ADD]

– First National and United Artists both open distribution branches in France.  [MORE] [ADD]

– George W. Bingham is awarded a patent for his Widescope film system, which uses 70mm stock which is slit during processing and screened on two interlocked 35mm projectors. [MORE] [ADD]

– The 8,000-seater Capitol Theater in New York becomes the world’s largest cinema.  [MORE] [ADD]

Sergei Eisenstein is admitted to the GVIRM (State Filmmakers Institute of Higher Education). [MORE] [ADD]

Lenin publishes his Thesis on Propaganda and Production in which he states that the cinema must be used to further ideological development. [MORE] [ADD]