The Manufacture de Films pour Cinématographes, often known as Star Film, [a] was a French film production company run by the illusionist and film director Georges Méliès. [1]
The Manufacture de Films pour Cinématographes, often known as Star Film, [a] was a French film production company run by the illusionist and film director Georges Méliès. [1]
On 28 December 1895, Méliès attended the celebrated first public demonstration of the Lumière Brothers' Kinetoscope. The event, held in a room at 14 Boulevard des Capucines in Paris with one hundred chairs and an entry price of ₣1, demonstrated the practicality of film cameras and projectors. According to later recollections by Méliès, he immediately approached Antoine Lumière and offered to buy a Lumière projector for his own experimentation; Lumière refused. Méliès went on to make repeated offers, all similarly turned down. [2] Méliès next turned to the British film experimenter Robert W. Paul, and in February 1896, obtained an Animatographe projector for ₣1,000, along with a collection of short films, some by Paul and some by Edison Studios. Méliès projected these for the first time at his theater of illusions, the Théâtre Robert-Houdin, in April 1896. [2]
Meanwhile, having studied the principles on which Paul's projector ran, Méliès designed a makeshift camera. With the help of a mechanic, Lucien Korsten, he built it in the workshop of the theater, using parts recycled from machines used in his illusions. [2] On 2 September 1896, Méliès, Korsten, and an associate, Lucien Reulos, obtained a patent on their work, christened the Kinétograph, and on 2 December Méliès created the Star Film trademark, with the slogan "The Whole World Within Reach." [3]
The American branch of the company was managed by Méliès' older brother Gaston Méliès and produced films in New York City, San Antonio, Texas and Santa Paula, California. Its most significant film was The Immortal Alamo (1911). [4]
Georges Méliès had produced films in France, which had become popular around the world. Some distributors began infringing Méliès' work, especially in the United States. Méliès asked his brother Gaston to go to the United States and guard Méliès copyrights.
Gaston arrived in New York City in 1902 and began distributing his brother's films. By 1903, Gaston began making films himself, mostly documentaries. The films were not successful. The company moved to San Antonio looking for warmer winters and leased 20 acres including a two-story house and large barn that became the Star Film Ranch movie studio. [4] Star Film Company was the earliest non-Texas production company to operate in Texas. [5]
The studio had actors Edith Storey, Francis Ford, and William Clifford under contract along with writer Anne Nichols. The studio also hired local ranchers and cowboys to give its Westerns genuine character. The films were normally one reel in length with an average running time of 15 minutes. Of the 70 films made in San Antonio, only three are known to have survived. [4]
Star Film moved to California in April 1911. Gaston originally planned to relocate to Santa Barbara but chose Santa Paula instead, perhaps because the scenery was better, or perhaps because it was less expensive. In Santa Paula, he built stages across from a resort called Sulphur Mountain Springs, where the troupe rented rooms. Financially, things started going wrong for Gaston. His popular stars, Edith Storey and William Clifford moved to other companies. His California films were not as profitable as the Texas films had been. In November 1911, Gaston met with Vitagraph Studios in New York and sold fifty percent of his company, including his brother's negatives and distribution rights. [6]
On July 24, 1912, Gaston, his wife and a crew of 14 left for a Pacific and Asian voyage to make movies in exotic locales. Documentaries and dramas were filmed at various locations including Tahiti, Bora Bora, New Zealand, Rarotonga, Australia, Java, Cambodia and Japan. The footage was sent to New York for processing, but much of the footage arrived damaged because of the harsh conditions in which the negatives were shot or mishandling in transit. What was released met with an unappreciative audience and bad reviews in the trade press. [6]
Gaston stopped the tour in 1913 and settled in Corsica, where he died two years later. Gaston's son Paul sold what was left of the company to General Film Company in 1917. It was believed that bad blood developed between the Méliès brothers, but recent research indicates that despite losses in the American branch, Georges received all payments he was due. [6]
The Lumière brothers, Auguste Marie Louis Nicolas Lumière and Louis Jean Lumière, were French manufacturers of photography equipment, best known for their Cinématographe motion picture system and the short films they produced between 1895 and 1905, which places them among the earliest filmmakers.
The following is an overview of the events of 1896 in film, including a list of films released and notable births.
George Kirke Spoor was an early film pioneer who, with Gilbert M. "Broncho Billy" Anderson, founded Essanay Studios in Chicago in 1907. He was a founding partner of V-L-S-E, Incorporated, a film distribution firm, in 1915.
The Alamo: Shrine of Texas Liberty is a 1938 American black-and-white Western war film directed by Stuart Paton and produced by H. W. Kier and Norman Sheldon. The film was a two-reel short produced in a couple of weeks in San Antonio, Texas. The film was done in pantomime and audio was done by narration and organ music.
Actuality film is a non-fiction film genre that uses footage of real events, places, and things, a predecessor to documentary film. Unlike documentaries, actuality films are not structured into a larger narrative or coherent whole. During the era of early cinema, actualities—usually lasting no more than a minute or two and usually assembled together into a program by an exhibitor—were just as popular and prominent as their fictional counterparts. The line between "fact" and "fiction" was not as prominent in early cinema as it would become once documentaries became the predominant non-fiction filmmaking form. Actuality as a film genre is related to still photography.
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Robert William Paul was an English pioneer of film and scientific instrument maker.
Viva Max! is a 1969 comedy film directed by Jerry Paris and starring Peter Ustinov, Jonathan Winters and John Astin. The film was written by Elliott Baker based on the 1966 novel of the same name by James Lehrer.
Gaston Méliès was a French film director who worked primarily in the United States. He was the brother of the film director Georges Méliès.
The decade of the 1890s in film involved some significant events.
The Last Command is a 1955 American Western film directed by Frank Lloyd starring Sterling Hayden, Anna Maria Alberghetti, Richard Carlson, Arthur Hunnicutt, Ernest Borgnine and J. Carrol Naish based on the life of Jim Bowie and the Battle of the Alamo.
Edith Storey was an American actress during the silent film era.
The Immortal 32 was a relief force of thirty-two Texian Militia from the Gonzales Ranger Company who reinforced the Texians under siege at the Alamo. They are "immortalized" as the only unit to answer the To the People of Texas & All Americans in the World letter. Along with the other Alamo defenders, they were all killed and burned after the Battle of the Alamo.
The Immortal Alamo is an American silent film released on May 25, 1911. The Immortal Alamo is the earliest film version of the events surrounding the 1836 Battle of the Alamo. The film was directed by William F. Haddock and produced by Gaston Méliès. The film's cast included Francis Ford, Edith Storey, William A. Carroll, and one hundred cadets from the Peacock Military Academy. The film was said to be 10 minutes in length and focused on the formula of "pretty girl, shy hero, and a villain" during the battle.
Georges Méliès (1861–1938) was a French filmmaker and magician generally regarded as the first person to recognize the potential of narrative film. He made about 520 films between 1896 and 1912, covering a range of genres including trick films, fantasies, comedies, advertisements, satires, costume dramas, literary adaptations, erotic films, melodramas, and imaginary voyages. His works are often considered as important precursors to modern narrative cinema, though some recent scholars have argued that Méliès's films are better understood as spectacular theatrical creations rooted in the 19th-century féerie tradition.
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Marie-Georges-Jean Méliès was a French magician, actor, and film director. He led many technical and narrative developments in the early days of cinema, primarily in the fantasy and science fiction genres. Méliès rose to prominence creating "trick films" and became well known for his innovative use of special effects, popularizing such techniques as substitution splices, multiple exposures, time-lapse photography, dissolves, and hand-painted colour. He was also one of the first filmmakers to use storyboards in his work. His most important films include A Trip to the Moon (1902) and The Impossible Voyage (1904).
Conjuring is a 1896 French silent trick film directed by Georges Méliès, who is also the actor doing the "conjuring".
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