The 'American Mutoscope and Biograph Company', was a motion picture company founded in 1895 and active until 1928. It was the first company in the United States devoted entirely to film production and exhibition, and for two decades was one of the most prolific, releasing over three thousand short films and twelve
feature films.
[1][2]
A
new corporation with the same name was incorporated in California in 1991.
[3]
Founding
The company was started by
William Kennedy Laurie Dickson, an inventor at
Thomas Edison's laboratory who helped pioneer the technology of capturing moving images on film. Dickson left Edison and joined with inventors
Herman Casler,
Henry Marvin and businessman
Elias Koopman to incorporate the 'American Mutoscope Company' in
New Jersey in December
1895. The firm manufactured the
Mutoscope, and made flip-card movies for it, as a rival to Edison’s
Kinetoscope for individual “peep shows”, making the company Edison’s chief competitor in the nickelodeon market. In the summer of 1896 the Biograph projector was released, offering superior image quality to Edison’s Vitascope projector. The company soon became a leader in the film industry, with distribution and production subsidiaries around the world including the British Mutoscope Company. In 1899 it changed its name to the 'American Mutoscope and Biograph Company', and in 1909 to simply the 'Biograph Company'.
[4]
To avoid violating Edison’s motion picture patents, Biograph cameras from 1895 to 1902 used a large-format film measuring 2-23/32 inches (68 mm) wide, with an image area of 2 × 2½ inches, four times that of Edison’s
35 mm format. The camera used friction feed, instead of Edison’s sprocket feed, to guide the film to the aperture. The camera itself punched a sprocket hole on each side of the frame as the film was exposed at 30 frames per second, double Edison’s speed.
[5][6]
A patent case victory in March 1902 allowed Biograph and other producers and distributors to use the less expensive 35 mm format without an Edison license, although Biograph did not completely phase out 68 mm production until autumn of 1903.
[7]
Biograph offered prints in both formats to exhibitors until 1905, when it discontinued the larger format.
[8][9]
Biograph films before 1903 were mostly “actualities”: documentary footage of actual persons, places and events, each film usually less than two minutes long. The occasional narrative film, usually a comedy, was typically shot in one scene, with no editing. Spurred on by competition from Edison and British and European producers, Biograph production from 1903 onward was increasingly dominated by narratives. As the stories became more complex, the films became longer, with multiple scenes to tell the story, although an individual scene was still usually presented in one shot without editing. Biograph's production of actualities ended by 1908 in favor of the narrative film.
With the increased reliance on narrative films, Biograph moved in
1903 from its rooftop studio on
Broadway in
New York City to a converted
brownstone mansion on East 14th Street in Manhattan, its first indoor studio, and the first movie studio in the world to rely exclusively on artificial light ''(
photo)''. Biograph moved again in
1913, as it entered feature film production, to a new, state-of-the-art studio on 175th Street in the
Bronx ''(
photo)''.
D.W. Griffith
Director D.W. Griffith joined Biograph in 1908 as a writer and actor, but within months became their principal director. He helped establish many of the conventions of narrative film, including
cross-cutting to show events occurring simultaneously in different places, the
flashback, the
fade-in/fade-out, the interposition of closeups within a scene, and a moderated acting style more suitable for film. Although Griffith did not invent these techniques, he made them a regular part of the film vocabulary. Griffith’s prolific output, often one new film a week, and willingness to experiment in many different
genres helped the company become a major commercial success. Many early movie stars were Biograph performers, including
Mary Pickford,
Lionel Barrymore,
Lillian Gish,
Dorothy Gish,
Robert Harron,
Florence Auer,
Carol Dempster,
Alan Hale, Sr.,
Blanche Sweet,
Harry Carey,
Mabel Normand,
Henry B. Walthall and
Dorothy Davenport.
Mack Sennett honed his craft as an actor and director of comedies at Biograph.
In January of 1910, D.W. Griffith, and
Lee Dougherty with the rest of the Biograph acting company, traveled to Los Angeles. While the purpose of the trip was to shoot the film ''Ramona'' in authentic locations, it was also to determine the suitability of the
West Coast as a place for a permanent studio. The group set up a small facility at Washington Street and Grand Avenue (where the
Los Angeles Convention Center now stands). After this, Griffith and his players decided to go a little further north to a small village they had heard about that was friendly, and had beautiful floral scenery. They decided to travel there, and fell in love with this little place called
Hollywood. Biograph then made the first film ever in Hollywood called ''
In Old California'', a Latino melodrama about the early days of Mexico-owned California.
[10] Griffith and the Biograph troupe then filmed other short movies at various locations, then travelled back to New York. After the east coast film community heard about
Hollywood, other film companies began to migrate there. Biograph’s little film launched
Hollywood as the future movie capital of the world. Biograph opened a studio at Pico and Georgia streets in downtown Los Angeles in 1911, and sent a film crew to work there each year until 1916.
Griffith left Biograph in October 1913, after finishing ''
Judith of Bethulia'', unhappy with their resistance to larger budgets,
feature film production, or giving onscreen credit to him and the cast. With him went many of the Biograph actors, his cameraman
Billy Bitzer, and his production crew. As a final slight to Griffith, Biograph delayed release of ''Judith of Bethulia'' until March 1914, to avoid a
profit-sharing arrangement the company had with him.
[11]
Decline
In December 1908, Biograph joined Edison in forming the
Motion Picture Patents Company in an attempt to control the industry and shut out smaller producers.
[12] The "Edison Trust,” as it was nicknamed, was made up of Edison, Biograph,
Essanay Studios,
Kalem Company,
George Kleine Productions,
Lubin Studios,
Georges Méliès,
Pathé,
Selig Studios, and
Vitagraph Studios, and dominated distribution through the
General Film Company. The Motion Picture Patents Co. and the General Film Co. were found guilty of antitrust violation in October 1915, and dissolved.
[13]
Shielded by the Trust, Biograph had been slow to enter feature film production. Biograph contracted with the theatrical firm of
Klaw & Erlanger in 1913 to produce movie versions of the latter’s plays. Their first released feature, ''Classmates'', came out in February 1914, after sixty-nine other American features had been released in 1912–1913.
[14] With the exodus of the studio’s best actors with Griffith, Biograph was unable develop a marketable
star system as the independent companies were doing, and after the Trust’s fall, Biograph found itself behind the times. The Biograph Co. released its last new feature-length films in 1915, and its last new short films in 1916.
[15] Biograph spent the remainder of the silent era reissuing its old films, and leasing its Bronx studio to other producers. When the Biograph Company fell on financial hard times, the studio facilities were acquired by one of Biograph Company's creditors, the
Empire Trust Company, although Biograph Company continued to manage the studio.
Herbert Yates acquired the Biograph Company studios and film laboratory facilities in 1928.
Biograph Studios in the
Bronx was made a subsidiary of his
Consolidated Film Industries in 1928.
[16][17] The studio and laboratory facilities burned down in 1980.
[18]
New company
Producer
Thomas R. Bond II and his father, the late
Tommy Bond (1926–2005), who played “Butch” in
Our Gang (also known as “The Little Rascals”), started the new California corporation,
3 which is headquartered in downtown
Los Angeles. President and CEO Thomas Bond said the company is looking to develop a 10,000- to 40,000-square-foot production facility in downtown Los Angeles.
[19]
Biograph has released one DVD, ''The Rascals'', hosted by
Tommy Bond.
[20]
The company also says that it will soon offer both new and historical "Mutoscope" short films for wireless and mobile devices.
[21]
In 2003,
Dennis Hope donated title to over 1,700 acres on the
Moon to Biograph for use as a filming location.
[22] Bond stated that he planned to start filming there by 2008.
[23]
The film is to be a documentary titled ''A Trip to the Moon''.
[24]
See also
★
Biograph Studios
★
Cinema of the United States
★
History of cinema
★
List of film formats
★
List of Hollywood movie studios
References
1. The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures Produced in the United States: Film Beginnings, 1893–1910 — A Work in Progress: v. A, Elias Savada (Editor), , , Scarecrow Press, , ISBN 0-8108-3021-3
2. American Film-Index 1908–1915: Motion Pictures, July 1908–December 1915, , Einar, Lauritzen, Film-Index, 1976, ISBN 91-7410-001-7
3. California Secretary of State - California Business Search - Corporation Search Results
4. The New Historical Dictionary of the American Film Industry, , Anthony, Slide, Scarecrow Press, 1998, ISBN 0-8108-3426-X
5. The Biograph Camera, Billy Bitzer, , , The Operating Cameraman,
6. The Emergence of Cinema: The American Screen to 1907, , Charles, Musser, University of California Press, 1994, ISBN 0-520-08533-7
7. Continued Legal Battles
8. D.W. Griffith and the Origins of American Narrative Film: The Early Years at Biograph, , Tom, Gunning, University of Illinois Press, 1993, ISBN 0-252-06366-X Accessed via Google Print.
9. Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How It Threatens Creativity, , Siva, Vaidhyanathan, New York University Press, 2003, ISBN 0-8147-8807-6 ''Accessed via Google Print''.
10. Film Facts, , Patrick, Robertson, Billboard Books, 2001, ISBN 0-8230-7943-0 Although ''In Old California'' was the first movie shot specifically in Hollywood, Biograph had already filmed ''A Daring Hold-Up in Southern California'' in Los Angeles in 1906. Biograph Bulletins, 1896–1908, , Kemp R., Niver, Locare Research Group, 1971, The Selig Polyscope Company made pictures in the Los Angeles area in 1908 and 1909, and began construction of a movie studio in Edendale, just east of Hollywood, in 1909.
11. The Transformation of Cinema 1907–1915, , Eileen, Bowser, University of California Press, 1990, ISBN 0-520-08534-5
12. Motion Picture Patents Company
13. Company Records Series -- Motion Picture Patents Company
14. The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures: Feature Films, 1911–1920, , Patricia King (ed.), Hanson, University of California Press, 1989, ISBN 0-520-06301-5
15. American Film-Index, 1916–1920: Motion Pictures, January 1916–December 1920, , Einar, Lauritzen, Film-Index, 1984,
16. The Vanishing Legion: A History of Mascot Pictures, 1927–1935, , Jon, Tuska, McFarland & Company, 1999, The last trade of Biograph stock was reported by ''The New York Times'' on December 27, 1928, p. 39. The last of the Biograph film copyrights expired in 1945, without any of them having been renewed for a second term. Film Superlist: Motion Pictures in the U.S. Public Domain, , Walter E., Hurst, Hollywood Film Archive, 1992–1994,
17. Screen News Here and in Hollywood Empire Trust Company, one of Biograph's creditors, had acquired the Bronx studio, but retained Biograph to manage it. Empire Trust later reassigned management to one of its own subsidiaries, The Actinograph Corp., which held it until 1948. R. H. Hammer, Biograph's general manager going back to its Griffith days, donated what remained of Biograph's film collection to the Museum of Modern Art in 1939, around the time Biograph's Bronx studio was closed. Iris Barry, "Why Wait for Posterity?" ''Hollywood Quarterly'', January 1946, pp. 131–137. Reprinted in ''Hollywood Quarterly: Film Culture in Postwar America, 1945–1957''.
18. "Bronx Blaze Damages Old Biograph Studios," ''The New York Times'', July 9, 1980, p. B4.
19. Old Downtowner Returns
20. The Rascals (2004) (V)
21. Wireless Entertainment - Mutoscopes American Mutoscope & Biograph Co.
22. Space Age Publishing Company
23. Space Division
24. Upcoming Movies
External links
★
Biograph’s Biography, Jennifer M. Wood, , , MovieMaker,
Original company
★
★ ''(note: not complete after 1903)''
★ ''(note: not complete)''
★
Mutoscope and Biograph
New company
★
American Mutoscope and Biograph Company corporate website
★
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