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13/5/1898: Edison Takes on Biograph
Encouraged by the swift capitulation by both Maguire & Baucus and Webster & Kuhn's International Film Company, and bothered, no doubt, by an 11% drop in film sales to $75,250 and a failure to increase film profits, Thomas Edison embarked on a further round of litigation against competitors he claimed were infringing on his patent for the Kinetoscope. Theatre impresarios Marcus Klaw and Abe Erlanger received a warning from Dyer & Dyer, Edison's legal representatives, warning them against exhibiting foreign films in the USA after they imported the Lumieres' Passion film into the States. The partners, who themselves had gained a monopolistic control over theatrical bookings in the USA, were no doubt unimpressed at becoming victims of a man attempting to emulate, in the world of the cinema, their own exploits in that of the theatre.
On the 13th July, another scalp was claimed when J. Stuart Blackton of the Vitagraph Co. made an out of court settlement with William Gilmore, director of the Edison Manufacturing Co., agreeing that he and his partner, Albert E. Smith, would work under license to Edison. On a visit to Blackton and Smith's premises, Edwin Porter and his boss, Eugene Elmore, of the American Cinematograph Company, had discovered dupes of many of the Spanish-American war films shot for Edison by William Paley. Caught red-handed, Blackton and Smith had no choice but to accede to Edison's demands.
Edison's next targets were to prove a little more difficult, however. Both Siegmund Lubin in Philadelphia, who was sued on 10th January, and the American Mutoscope and Biograph Co. (13th May) chose to fight Edison's claims. In fact, the Biograph Co's equipment had been designed with just such a consequence in mind, and great care had been taken to ensure their machines were sufficiently different from Edison's to (hopefully) defeat any litigation from 'the Old Man'. Biograph were also in the fortunate position of having financial backing from the banks, who installed Jeremiah J. Kennedy, an engineer formerly involved with large industrial organisations, as their representative within the Biograph organisation. As a result, Edison's litigation against American Mutoscope & Biograph would drag on for many years - and end a decade later with an unlikely alliance that would have far-reaching repercussions for the American movie industry. [ADD]
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