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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.
June Mathis was an American screenwriter. Mathis was the first female executive for Metro/MGM and at only 35, she was the highest paid executive in Hollywood. In 1926 she was voted the third most influential woman in Hollywood, behind Mary Pickford and Norma Talmadge. Mathis is best remembered for discovering Rudolph Valentino and writing such films as The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921), and Blood and Sand (1922).
Tsuru Aoki was a Japanese stage and screen actress whose career was most prolific in the United States during the silent film era of the 1910s through the 1920s. Aoki may have been the first Asian actress to garner top billing in American motion pictures.
Film Booking Offices of America (FBO), registered as FBO Pictures Corp., was an American film studio of the silent era, a midsize producer and distributor of mostly low-budget films. The business began in 1918 as Robertson-Cole, an Anglo-American import-export company. Robertson-Cole began distributing films in the United States that December and opened a Los Angeles production facility in 1920. Late that year, R-C entered into a working relationship with East Coast financier Joseph P. Kennedy. A business reorganization in 1922 led to its assumption of the FBO name, first for all its distribution operations and ultimately for its own productions as well. Through Kennedy, the studio contracted with Western leading man Fred Thomson, who grew by 1925 into one of Hollywood's most popular stars. Thomson was just one of several silent screen cowboys with whom FBO became identified.
Thomas B. Ricketts was an English-born American stage and film actor and director who was a pioneer in the film industry. He portrayed Ebenezer Scrooge in the first American film adaptation of A Christmas Carol (1908), and directed one of the first motion pictures ever made in Hollywood. After directing scores of silent films, including the first film to be released by Universal Pictures, Ricketts became a prominent character actor.
Claudette Colbert (1903–1996) was an American actress who won the Academy Award for Best Actress in It Happened One Night (1934). Born Émilie Claudette Chauchoin, she had early passions for a career in fashion design. Although she is more generally remembered for her film work, Colbert's show business career began on stage, and theatrical work remained part of her professional life for six decades. It was her friend, Anne Morrison, an aspiring playwright, who nudged her towards the acting profession. She chose the professional name of Claudette Colbert, using a family name three generations removed on her father's side.
The AFI Catalog of Feature Films, also known as the AFI Catalog, is an ongoing project by the American Film Institute (AFI) to catalog all commercially-made and theatrically exhibited American motion pictures from the birth of cinema in 1893 to the present. It began as a series of hardcover books known as The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures, and subsequently became an exclusively online filmographic database.
Hawthorne of the U.S.A. is a 1919 American silent comedy adventure film directed by James Cruze and starring Wallace Reid and Lila Lee. The film is based on the play of the same name by James B. Fagan. It had run on Broadway in 1912 with Douglas Fairbanks in the title role. The scenario for the film was written by Walter Woods. The film was produced by Famous Players–Lasky, and distributed by Famous Players under the Paramount-Artcraft Picture banner.
Tongues of Flame is a 1924 American silent melodrama film produced by Famous Players–Lasky and distributed through Paramount Pictures. It is based on a novel by Peter Clark MacFarlane and was directed by Joseph Henabery. The film starred Thomas Meighan and Bessie Love. It was produced by Famous Players–Lasky and distributed by Paramount Pictures.
Huck and Tom is a surviving American comedy-drama film directed by William Desmond Taylor and released in 1918. The scenario by Julia Crawford Ivers is derived from Mark Twain's novels The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884). Robert Gordon and Jack Pickford reprise the title roles from the 1917 version of Tom Sawyer, a successful adaptation that was also directed by Taylor.
Under Suspicion is a 1918 American silent film comedy-mystery directed by Will S. Davis and starring Francis X. Bushman and Beverly Bayne. Based upon the short story "The Woolworth Diamonds" by Hugh C. Weir that appeared in The Saturday Evening Post, it was produced and distributed by Metro Pictures.
The Eternal Flame is a 1922 American silent adventure drama film directed by Frank Lloyd and starring Norma Talmadge, Adolphe Menjou, and Wedgwood Nowell.
African American cinema evolved at just about the same pace as white cinema, and although the role of Black women in early silent film has only recently begun to receive popular and academic attention, Black women were involved in Black cinema from the very start of U.S. film history. In their own day, Maria P. Williams was called the first Black woman filmmaker for her work on The Flames of Wrath (1923) and Tressie Souders was also honored with the same distinction for her work in A Woman’s Error (1922). Others have argued that that distinction belongs to Madame E. Toussaint Welcome's war documentary Doing Their Bit (1916) or Eloyce King Patrick Gist for Hell Bound Train. What's certain is that Black women were contributing as screenwriters, actors, directors and producers from the earliest days of film.
Maria Priscilla Thurston Williams (1866–1932) was a newspaper editor, film producer, author, and scriptwriter. She is credited as the first African-American woman film producer for the silent crime drama The Flames of Wrath in 1923. A one-time school teacher, Williams had a history of activism, independence and interest in the liberal arts, which led her first to newspapers, then to film production, script-writing and acting and, finally, to memoir with her 1916 book My Work and Public Sentiment, in which she identified herself as a national organizer and speaker with the Good Citizens League, and stated that ten percent of the proceeds would go to suppressing crime among African Americans.
The Right to Be Happy is an American silent film from 1916 that draws inspiration from Charles Dickens' 1843 Novella, A Christmas Carol. This film was Universal's first attempt at making a Feature film based on Dickens' novella. Throughout the silent era, it stood as the first and only feature film adaptation of A Christmas Carol by an American or foreign film company. The movie was directed by Rupert Julian and supported by a cast of Universal Bluebird players, including Rupert Julian, Claire McDowell, and Harry Carter.
Mothers of Men is a 1917 silent film directed by Willis Robards, promoting woman's suffrage. The seven-reel drama is considered lost. A five-reel re-edited version also directed by Robards was released in 1921—following ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment—under the title Every Woman's Problem. This version survives through a single 35mm print preserved by the British Film Institute. The 1921 re-release was restored in 2016, in a collaboration between the BFI and the San Francisco Silent Film Festival.
African American cinema is loosely classified as films made by, for, or about Black Americans. Historically, African American films have been made with African-American casts and marketed to African-American audiences. The production team and director were sometimes also African American. More recently, Black films featuring multicultural casts aimed at multicultural audiences have also included American Blackness as an essential aspect of the storyline.
The Unattainable is a 1916 American Black and White silent drama directed by Lloyd B. Carleton. The film is based on the story by Elwood D. Henning. The photoplay stars Dorothy Davenport and Emory Johnson.
The Human Gamble was a 1916 American silent Short film directed by Lloyd B. Carleton. The film is based on the story and screen adaptation by Calder Johnstone. The drama stars Dorothy Davenport, Emory Johnson, and a cast of Universal contract players.
This is a list of known on-screen appearances made by Joe Martin (orangutan), a film star of the 1910s and 1920s.
References
- ↑ "Maria P. Williams – Women Film Pioneers Project" . Retrieved 2021-10-06.
- ↑ "Washed away: lost films by female directors". British Film Institute. Retrieved 2021-10-06.
- 1 2 3 "'Flames of Wrath' and the Pioneering African-American Women of Silent Cinema". Film School Rejects. 2021-02-28. Retrieved 2021-10-06.
- ↑ "A Spotlight on Female African American Filmmakers of Early Cinema (1916-1928)". The Cinephiliac. 2016-02-02. Retrieved 2021-10-06.
- ↑ "AFI: Catalog". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved 2021-10-06.