Vitagraph Studios, also known as the Vitagraph Company of America, was a United States motion picture studio. It was founded by J. Stuart Blackton and Albert E. Smith in 1897 in Brooklyn, New York, as the American Vitagraph Company. By 1907, it was the most prolific American film production company, producing many famous silent films. It was bought by Warner Bros. in 1925.
James Stuart Blackton was a British-American film producer and director of the silent era. One of the pioneers of motion pictures, he founded Vitagraph Studios in 1897. He was one of the first filmmakers to use the techniques of stop-motion and drawn animation, is considered a father of American animation, and was the first to bring many classic plays and books to the screen. Blackton was also the commodore of the Motorboat Club of America and the Atlantic Yacht Club.
James Oliver Curwood was an American action-adventure writer and conservationist. His books were often based on adventures set in the Hudson Bay area, the Yukon or Alaska and ranked among the top-ten best sellers in the United States in the early and mid 1920s, according to Publishers Weekly. At least one hundred and eighty motion pictures have been based on or directly inspired by his novels and short stories; one was produced in three versions from 1919 to 1953. At the time of his death, Curwood was the highest paid author in the world.
The Prospect Studios is a lot containing several television studios located at 4151 Prospect Avenue in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, at the corner of Prospect and Talmadge Street, just east of Hollywood. For more than fifty years, this facility served as the West Coast headquarters of the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) before the network moved its main headquarters to the Walt Disney Studios in 1996. From 1949 to 1999, ABC-owned Los Angeles television station KABC-TV was also located there. The station moved to a new state-of-the-art facility located on a portion of Disney's Grand Central Creative Campus (GC3) in nearby Glendale, California, in December 1999. The Walt Disney Company, which acquired ABC, continues to own and operate the facility to this day.
Jean Bart was a French-born American playwright and screenwriter. She began writing silent film scenarios under her married name in 1915, but after America entered the Great War she adopted as a pen name that of the French naval hero, Jean Bart. Her greatest success came with the long-running Broadway melodrama, The Squall (1926). She had two other plays produced on Broadway by 1932, and continued writing scenarios and screenplays up through 1945.
Robert Joseph Connelly was an American child actor of silent films. He is one of the first male child stars of American motion pictures beginning his career in 1913 at the age of four.
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes; or, Held for Ransom is a 1905 American silent film directed by J. Stuart Blackton for Vitagraph Studios. It was the second film based on Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, following the 1900 Mutoscope trick film Sherlock Holmes Baffled, and is usually regarded as the first attempt to film a "serious" Holmes adaptation. The scenario was by Theodore Liebler based on elements of Conan Doyle's 1890 novel The Sign of the Four.
The Heart of Maryland is a lost 1921 American silent film feature produced and distributed by the Vitagraph Company of America. It is based on David Belasco's 1895 play, The Heart of Maryland.
The Suspect is a 1916 American silent drama film directed by S. Rankin Drew, starring Anita Stewart and produced by the Vitagraph Studios. The film marked Frank Morgan’s film debut.
The Single Track is a lost 1921 American silent melodrama film directed by Webster Campbell and starring Corinne Griffith. The film is based upon a story by Isabelle Ostrander writing under the pseudonym Douglas Grant. The film was produced and distributed by Vitagraph.
The Glory of Yolanda is a 1917 American silent romantic drama film directed by Marguerite Bertsch and starring Anita Stewart. It was produced by the Vitagraph Company of America and distributed by V-L-S-E, a releasing company whose name is composed of the initials of Vitagraph, Lubin, Selig and Essanay.
The Maelstrom is a 1917 silent film drama directed by Paul Scardon. It stars Dorothy Kelly, Earle Williams and Julia Swayne Gordon. Thomas Ince produced along with the Vitagraph Company.
My Wild Irish Rose is a lost 1922 American silent drama film directed by David Smith and based on Dion Boucicault's 19th century play The Shaughraun. It was produced and released by the Vitagraph Company of America.
The Cambric Mask is a 1919 American silent drama film directed by Tom Terriss and starring Alice Joyce and Maurice Costello. It was produced and distributed by the Vitagraph Company of America.
Barney Bernard was an American stage and screen actor. Bernard always looked older than he was which allowed him to play aging ethnic Jewish characters. He established an onstage partnership with Alexander Carr and the two starred in the successful play Potash and Perlmutter beginning in 1913. Prior to the 'Potash' success, Bernard was in the first Ziegfeld Follie revue, Ziegfeld Follies of 1908 and had also appeared in a few stage musicals with Al Jolson, La Belle Paree (1911) with Kitty Gordon, Vera Violetta (1911) with Gaby Deslys, The Whirl of Society (1912) with Jose Collins.
The Song of the Soul is a lost 1918 silent film drama directed by Tom Terriss and starring Alice Joyce. It was produced by the Vitagraph Company of America and distributed by V-L-S-E.
Salvation Joan is a lost 1916 silent film directed by Wilfrid North and starring Edna May. It was produced by the Vitagraph Company of America and released by V-L-S-E(Vitagraph, Lubin, Selig, Essanay). Though an original screen story, it bears a close resemblance to Edward Sheldon's Salvation Nell which was filmed several times.
Dead Men Tell No Tales is a 1920 American silent adventure film directed by Tom Terriss and starring Catherine Calvert. It was produced by Terriss and the Vitagraph Company of America with distribution by Vitagraph.
The Black Gate is a 1919 American silent mystery film directed by Theodore Marston and starring Earle Williams, Ruth Clifford, Harry Spingler, J. Parks Jones, and Clarissa Selwynne. The film was released by Vitagraph Company of America in November 1919.
The Broken Silence is a feature-length 1922 American film. An adaptation of a short story by James Oliver Curwood, it was directed by Dell Henderson for Pine Tree Pictures productions, and distributed by Arrow Film Corp. The Broken Silence is a melodrama love story involving a murder and devoted siblings, set in Canada's Northwest. Thomas F. Fallon adapted the screenplay.
