The Mills of the Gods | |
---|---|
Directed by | Ralph Ince |
Written by | George P. Dillenback (story) |
Starring | Rosemary Theby |
Distributed by | Vitagraph |
Release date |
|
Country | United States |
Languages | Silent English intertitles |
The Mills of the Gods is an American silent film. It was the first three-reel "feature" directed by Ralph Ince; production company Vitagraph entrusted him with this longer project after being impressed by his work on the two-reel Double Danger. [1]
The Mills of the Gods was released domestically on November 4, 1912. [2] The novel by George P. Dillenback was reissued by Grosset & Dunlap in a hardcover printing featuring stills from the film. [3]
The film played in Rotterdam at the Parisien Theater from January 24 to 30, 1913, followed by a run at Amsterdam's Cinema Palace from February 28 to March 6. [4] At the same time, at least one print was working its way through New Zealand, where it played in Sydenham in late February, [5] in Whanganui in March, [6] and in North Otago in May. [7]
Mack Sennett was a Canadian-American producer, director, actor, and studio head who was known as the "King of Comedy" during his career.
A feature film or feature-length film, also called a theatrical film, is a narrative film with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole presentation in a commercial entertainment program. The term feature film originally referred to the main, full-length film in a cinema program that included a short film and often a newsreel. Matinee programs, especially in the US and Canada, in general, also included cartoons, at least one weekly serial and, typically, a second feature-length film on weekends.
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Lady Babbie is a lost 1913 American silent drama film produced by the United States division of the French film company Eclair. The featurette was written and directed by Oscar A. C. Lund, a native of Sweden, who also costarred in the three-reeler opposite Barbara Tennant as Lady Babbie. That role was loosely based on a popular character originally performed by American actress Maude Adams in the 1897 Broadway production The Little Minister, a play adapted from the 1891 novel of the same title by Scottish writer J. M. Barrie. Filming for this motion picture was done at Eclair's studio facilities in Fort Lee, New Jersey and on location at Lake George, New York.
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On the morning of June 13, 1914, a disastrous fire and a series of related explosions occurred in the main film vault of the Lubin Manufacturing Company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Several possible causes for the blaze were cited at the time, one being "spontaneous combustion" of highly flammable nitrate film, which was the motion picture industry's standard medium for cameras throughout the silent era and for the first two decades of "talking pictures". Millions of feet of film were consumed in the flames, including most of the master negatives and initial prints of Lubin's pre-1914 catalog, several of the company's recently completed theatrical prints ready for release and distribution, a considerable number of films produced by other studios, inventories of raw and stock footage, hundreds of reels documenting historic events that occurred between 1897 and early 1914, as well as other films related to notable political and military figures, innovations in medical science, and professional athletic contests from that period. While this fire was not a decisive factor in Lubin's decline and bankruptcy by September 1916, costs associated with the disaster only added to the corporation's mounting debts, which led to the closure or sale of its remaining operations the following year.