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Essanay Studios, officially the Essanay Film Manufacturing Company, was an early American motion picture studio. The studio was founded in 1907 in Chicago by George Kirke Spoor and Gilbert M. Anderson, originally as the Peerless Film Manufacturing Company, then as Essanay on August 10, 1907. Essanay is probably best known today for its series of Charlie Chaplin comedies produced in 1915-1916. In late 1916, it merged distribution with other studios and stopped issuing films in the fall of 1918. According to film historian Steve Massa, Essanay is one of the important early studios, with comedies as a particular strength. Founders Spoor and Anderson were subsequently awarded special Academy Awards for pioneering contributions to film.
Dennis Waterman was an English actor and singer. He was best known for his tough-guy leading roles in television series including The Sweeney, Minder and New Tricks, singing the theme tunes of the latter two.
The Lubin Manufacturing Company was an American motion picture production company that produced silent films from 1896 to 1916. Lubin films were distributed with a Liberty Bell trademark.
Rastus is a pejorative term traditionally associated with African Americans in the United States. It is considered offensive.
A Brewerytown Romance is a lost 1914 American silent comedy film produced by the Lubin Manufacturing Company, starring Eva Bell, Raymond McKee, Frank Griffin, and Oliver Hardy.
William Andrew Quirk was an American stage and silent-film actor. He performed in more than 180 films between 1909 and 1924. Born in Jersey City, New Jersey, he died in Los Angeles, California. Gem Motion Picture Company produced a series of "Billy"-titled pictures starring Quirk.
How Brown Saw the Baseball Game is an American short silent comedy film produced in 1907 and distributed by the Lubin Manufacturing Company. The film follows a baseball fan named Mr. Brown who overdrinks before a baseball game and becomes so intoxicated that the game appears to him in reverse motion. During production, trick photography was used to achieve this effect. The film was released in November 1907. It received a positive review in a 1908 issue of The Courier-Journal that reported the film was successful and "truly funny". As of 2021, it is unclear whether the print of the film has survived. The identities of the film cast and production crew are unknown. Film historians have noted similarities between the plot of How Brown Saw the Baseball Game and How the Office Boy Saw the Ball Game. It is a comedy film directed by Edwin S. Porter, having released a year before How Brown Saw the Baseball Game.
The Bold Bank Robbery is a 1904 short crime film produced and distributed by the Lubin Manufacturing Company. The silent film depicts a group of burglars who plan and execute a successful bank heist. Company employee Jack Frawley was the film's director, also coming up with the story and serving as cinematographer; the cast's identities are unknown. The silent film was the first Lubin Manufacturing Company release to feature an original narrative.
Cinema of Ghana also known as the Ghana Film Industry nicknamed Ghallywood, began when early film making was first introduced to the British colony of Gold Coast in 1923. At the time only affluent people could see the films, especially the colonial master of Gold Coast. In the 1950s, film making in Ghana began to increase. Cinemas were the primary venue for watching films until home video became more popular. The movie industry has no official name as yet since consultations and engagements with stakeholders has been ongoing when a petition was sent to the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture which suspended the use of the name Black Star Films.
Freddie Crump, also referred to as Freddy Crump, Fred Crump and Rastus Crump was a drummer from the United States. He performed in various vaudeville productions including with Gonzelle White in Cuba, performed in Europe, and was featured in several films. He was African American.
Edgar Jones was an American actor, producer, writer, and director of silent films. He starred in and directed the adaptation of Mildred Mason's The Gold in the Crock. He also starred in and directed Siegmund Lubin films including Fitzhugh's Ride. He established a film production business in Augusta, Maine that produced original stories and adaptations of Holman Day novels.
Julia Calhoun was an American actress during the silent film era. She appeared on stage and in comedy films including early ones with Oliver Hardy from at least 1914 on into the 1920s.
Alkali Ike is a series of short comedy films released during the silent film era by Essanay Studios and later by Universal Pictures. Gilbert M. Anderson was involved with producing them and directed several. Augustus Carney portrayed Alkali Ike, and Harry Todd co-starred in the film series as the character Mustang Pete. Margaret Joslin and Lily Branscombe also appeared in many installments of the series.
The Melancholy Dame is a 1929 American comedy short film by an African-American cast. Al Christie based it on the Octavus Roy Cohen comedy series called "Darktown Birmingham", published in the Saturday Evening Post. Arvid Gillstrom directed it and Evelyn Preer played the title role.
Sambo is a film series that was produced by Siegmund Lubin in the United States from 1909 until 1911. It met with success and was succeeded by the Rastus series. The films followed on the success of British author Helen Bannerman's 1899 children's book The Story of Little Black Sambo and an era of enormous popularity for minstrel performances and songs including earlier films in the "coon" tradition. The films have been described as farces.
Harry S. Palmer was an animator in the United States. About 20 of his films are preserved in the Library of Congress. He worked at Gaumont Film Company's American division in Flushing, New York.
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.
James Forten School (1822–?), originally known as Mary Steet School then Lombard Street Colored School and later Bird School or Mr. Bird's School, was the first public school for African Americans in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The Barber is a 1916 short comedy film by William D. Foster. The silent film was shot in black and white.
Mattie Edwards (1866–1944) was an American actress who appeared in vaudeville theatre shows and early silent film productions from the 1880s through the 1930s. An African-American, she grew up in Fort Smith, Arkansas and spent her early life as a Deputy Marshal for the town. Later, she joined the P. G. Lowery minstrel group and then films produced by Essanay Studios. She moved between multiple film studios in the years following, including Williams and Walker Co. films in the 1900s, Lubin Motion Picture Company and Ebony Film Company films in the 1910s, before ending her major roles in Comstock-Elliot company and Oscar Micheaux films in the 1920s. She had several smaller film roles and ongoing theatre roles in the decades after, before dying in 1944 at the age of 78.
References
- 1 2 Richards, Larry (September 17, 2015). African American Films Through 1959: A Comprehensive, Illustrated Filmography. McFarland. ISBN 9781476610528 – via Google Books.
- ↑ "Advertisement for". Free Library of Philadelphia.
- ↑ Visions of Africa: 4 silent films. September 14, 2009. OCLC 767721152 – via Open WorldCat.
- ↑ Stein, Daniel (May 3, 2012). Music Is My Life: Louis Armstrong, Autobiography, and American Jazz. University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-0472051809 – via Google Books.
- ↑ Brown, Joshua (1991). History from South Africa : alternative visions and practices. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. p. 335. ISBN 9780877228486.
- ↑ Cripps, Thomas (1993). Slow fade to black: the Negro in American film, 1900-1942. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press. p. 23. ISBN 0195021304.
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