Rolfe Photoplays

Last updated
Rolfe Photoplays
Industry Motion picture
Founded1915[ citation needed ]
FounderB.A. Rolfe
Defunct1920[ citation needed ]
Key people
Maxwell Karger
B.A. Rolfe's "Houdini Serial", 1919 Mastermystery-1919poster.jpg
B.A. Rolfe's "Houdini Serial", 1919
Silent movie The Master Mystery (1919). Running time: 09:39. Episode of a serial in fifteen episodes with magician and escape artist Houdini in the lead.

Rolfe Photoplays Inc., originally B. A. Rolfe Photoplays Company, was an American motion picture production company established by musical entertainer B.A. Rolfe. Its productions were primarily filmed on the East Coast, usually in and around Fort Lee, New Jersey, although the company also filmed in California. Its films were distributed through an agreement with Louis B. Mayer's Metro Pictures Corporation.

Between 1915 and 1918, B.A. Rolfe used Rolfe Photoplays Inc. to produce forty-nine silent films, several of which were collaborations with director/screenwriter Oscar A.C. Lund including the 1916 drama " Dorian's Divorce " starring Lionel Barrymore. As well, he used the corporate name "B.A. Rolfe Photoplayers Inc." and "B.A. Rolfe Productions" to produce another three films including the 1919 fifteen-part mystery serial The Master Mystery starring Harry Houdini. Maxwell Karger was an executive at the studio. [1] By 1920, the B.A. Rolfe production companies ceased operating.

Films

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Florence La Badie</span> American actress

Florence La Badie was an American-Canadian actress in the early days of the silent film era. She was a major star between 1911 and 1917. Her career was at its height when she died at age 29 from injuries sustained in an automobile accident.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elsie Jane Wilson</span> Australian film director

Elsie Jane Wilson was a cinema actress, director, and writer during the early film era. She took part in the productions of the silent film era and starred in over thirty films. Between the years of 1916 and 1919, Wilson was credited for producing, writing two films, and directing eleven films. She was best known in the genres of dramas and comedy dramas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Viola Dana</span> American actress (1897–1987)

Viola Dana was an American film actress who was successful during the era of silent films. She appeared in over 100 films, but was unable to make the transition to sound films.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Metro Pictures</span> Defunct American film studio

Metro Pictures Corporation was a motion picture production company founded in early 1915 in Jacksonville, Florida. It was a forerunner of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The company produced its films in New York, Los Angeles, and sometimes at leased facilities in Fort Lee, New Jersey. It was purchased in 1919.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ruth Roland</span> American actress

Ruth Roland was an American stage and film actress and film producer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grace Cunard</span> American actress

Grace Cunard was an American actress, screenwriter and film director. During the silent era, she starred in over 100 films, wrote or co-wrote at least 44 of those productions, and directed no fewer than eight of them. In addition, she edited many of her films, including some of the shorts, serials, and features she developed in collaboration with Francis Ford. Her younger sister, Mina Cunard, was also a film actress.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marion Fairfax</span> American actress, playwright and producer (1875–1970)

Marion Fairfax was an American screenwriter, playwright, actress, and producer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marshall Neilan</span> American actor (1891–1958)

Marshall Ambrose "Mickey" Neilan was an American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, whose work in films began in the early silent era.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">B. A. Rolfe</span> American musician

Benjamin Albert Rolfe was an American musician known as "The Boy Trumpet Wonder" who went on to be a bandleader, recording artist, radio personality, and film producer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frank Powell</span> Canadian actor and director

Frank Powell was a Canadian-born stage and silent film actor, director, producer, and screenwriter who worked predominantly in the United States. He is also credited with "discovering" Theda Bara and casting her in a starring role in the 1915 release A Fool There Was. Her performance in that production, under Powell's direction, quickly earned Bara widespread fame as the film industry's most popular evil seductress or on-screen "vamp".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dorothy Dalton</span> American actress

Dorothy Dalton was an American silent film actress and stage personality who worked her way from a stock company to a movie career. Beginning in 1910, Dalton was a player in stock companies in Chicago; Terre Haute, Indiana; and Holyoke, Massachusetts. She joined the Keith-Albee-Orpheum Corporation vaudeville circuits. By 1914 she was working in Hollywood.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marguerite Snow</span> American actress

Marguerite Snow was an American silent film and stage actress. In her early films she was billed as Margaret Snow.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mignon Anderson</span> American actress (1892-1983)

Mignon Anderson was an American film and stage actress. Her career was at its peak in the 1910s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cleo Madison</span> American actress

Cleo Madison was a theatrical and silent film actress, screenwriter, producer, and director who was active in Hollywood during the silent era.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clara Whipple</span> American actress

Clara Whipple(néeClara or Clarissa or Clarise Brimmer Whipple; November 7, 1887 – November 6, 1932) was an American actress who flourished in theatre from 1913 to 1915 and in silent film from 1915 to 1919. She was also a silent film scenario writer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Agnes Vernon</span> Silent Screen American actress

Agnes Vernon was an American film actress of the silent era. While still in her teens, she experienced a meteoric ascent from obscurity to box-office sensation. After turning twenty-three and a movie career fading away, she abandoned the silver screen forever. Vernon performed in over 90 films between 1913 and 1922. She completed most of her roles under contract with Universal Pictures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hedda Vernon</span> German actress

|yearsactive = 1912–1925 }} Hedda Vernon was a German actress, screenwriter, and film producer. She was a prominent star of the early Weimar Republic, and had her own film production company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Astra Film Corp</span> American film production company

Astra Film Corp was an American film production company that produced silent films. Louis J. Gasnier was the company's president. George B. Seitz co-founded it. It was making films by 1916. It became Louis J. Gasnier Productions after Seitz left.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dawson Film Find</span> 1978 discovery of 533 silent-era films

The Dawson Film Find (DFF) was the accidental discovery in 1978 of 372 film titles preserved in 533 reels of silent-era nitrate films in the Klondike Gold Rush town of Dawson City, Yukon, Canada. The reels had been buried under an abandoned hockey rink in 1929 and included lost films of feature movies and newsreels. A construction excavation inadvertently uncovered the forgotten cache of discarded films, which were unintentionally preserved by the permafrost.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bluebird Photoplays</span> American film production company

Bluebird Photoplays was an American film production company that filmed at Universal Pictures studios in California and New Jersey, and distributed its films via Universal Pictures during the silent film era. It had a $500,000 studio in New Jersey.

"It was a subsidiary of Universal Pictures and employed Universal stars and used Universal’s facilities but the pictures were marketed independently from Carl Laemmle’s umbrella company."—Anke Brouwers

References

  1. Gmür, Leonhard (November 14, 2013). Rex Ingram: Hollywood's Rebel of the Silver Screen. epubli. ISBN   9783844246018 via Google Books.
  2. https://www.adirondackalmanack.com/2014/12/benny-rolfe-of-brasher-falls-pioneer-of-silent-films.html
  3. https://www.loc.gov/item/s1229l09723/
  4. https://www2.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b98c570bd