The Motion Picture Patents Company, founded in December 1908 and effectively terminated in 1915 after it lost a federal antitrust suit, was a trust of all the major US film companies and local foreign-branches, the leading film distributor and the biggest supplier of raw film stock, Eastman Kodak. The MPPC ended the domination of foreign films on US screens, standardized the manner in which films were distributed and exhibited within the US, and improved the quality of US motion pictures by internal competition. It also discouraged its members' entry into feature film production, and the use of outside financing, both to its members' eventual detriment.
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.
John Bunny was an American actor. Bunny began his career as a stage actor, but transitioned to a film career after joining Vitagraph Studios around 1910. At Vitagraph, Bunny made over 150 short films – many of them domestic comedies with the comedian Flora Finch – and became one of the most well-known actors of his era.
Florence Turner was an American actress who became known as the "Vitagraph Girl" in early silent films.
The Selig Polyscope Company was an American motion picture company that was founded in 1896 by William Selig in Chicago, Illinois. The company produced hundreds of early, widely distributed commercial moving pictures, including the first films starring Tom Mix, Harold Lloyd, Colleen Moore, and Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. Selig Polyscope also established Southern California's first permanent movie studio, in the historic Edendale district of Los Angeles.
Laurence Norwood Trimble was an American silent film director, writer and actor. Trimble began his film career directing Jean, the Vitagraph Dog, the first canine to have a leading role in motion pictures. He made his acting debut in the 1910 silent Saved by the Flag, directed scores of films for Vitagraph and other studios, and became head of production for Florence Turner's independent film company in England (1913–1916). Trimble was most widely known for his four films starring Strongheart, a German Shepherd dog he discovered and trained that became the first major canine film star. After he left filmmaking he trained animals exclusively, particularly guide dogs for the blind.
Henry Lewis Solter was an American silent film actor and director.
Kenneth Casey was an American composer, publisher, author, and child movie star in early silents.
Marcus McDermott was an Australian actor who starred on Broadway and in over 180 American films from 1909 until his death.
Jean, also known as the Vitagraph Dog (1902–1916), was a female collie that starred in silent films. Owned and guided by director Laurence Trimble, she was the first canine to have a leading role in motion pictures. Jean was with Vitagraph Studios from 1909, and in 1913 went with Trimble to England to work with Florence Turner in her own independent film company.
Wally Van was an American actor and film director of the silent era.
James W. Morrison was an American actor and author. He appeared in 187 films between 1911 and 1927.
William Tefft Johnson, Jr., better known as Tefft Johnson, was an American stage and film actor, and film director and screenwriter. He appeared in 131 films between 1909 and 1926.
Harry Temple Morey was an American stage and motion picture actor who appeared in nearly 200 films during his career.
Anthony E. Wills, sometimes given as Anthony E. Willis, was an American playwright, novelist, author of short stories, and theatrical producer. A native of Brooklyn, New York, Wills began his career as an author writing short stories. In 1901 his only novel, Monsieur Paul De Fere, was published by The Abbey Press. From 1902 until his death ten years later he devoted himself to writing plays; producing nearly forty works for the theatre. Several of his plays were performed by the Wills Amusement Company; a professional theatre troupe which Wills founded in 1907. The first play the organization performed was Wills' The Lost Trail which the company brought to Broadway in 1908. After his death in 1912 at the age of 32, Vitagraph Studios purchased the film rights to his entire body of work in 1913. That studio made three silent films based on stories by Wills: A Regiment of Two (1913), Our Wives (1913), and Too Many Husbands (1914).
A Cure for Pokeritis is a 1912 short silent film starring John Bunny and Flora Finch. After Bunny's death in 1915, a re-release was announced with the alternative title A Sure Cure for Pokeritis. The film, a domestic comedy, depicts a woman who stops her husband's gambling habit by having her cousin stage a fake police raid on his weekly poker game. It was one of many similar shorts produced by Vitagraph Studios—one-reel comedies starring Bunny and Finch in a domestic setting, known popularly as "Bunnygraphs" or "Bunnyfinches"—whose popularity made Bunny and Finch early film stars. The film has been recognized as an historically important representative of its period and genre.
My Official Wife is a 1914 American silent film directed by James Young and starring Clara Kimball Young, Harry T. Morey and Rose E. Tapley.
The Pickwick Papers is a 1913 three-reel silent film based on the 1837 novel of the same name by Charles Dickens. The film was produced by Vitagraph Studios and features John Bunny in the title role of Samuel Pickwick.
Earl Triplett Montgomery was a film director, writer, and comedian who performed in silent films including as the character Hairbreadth Harry. He established the producing company Earl Montgomery Comedy Company. Joe Rock partnered with him at Vitagraph.
