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The Biograph Company, also known as the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, was a motion picture company founded in 1895 and active until 1916. It was the first company in the United States devoted entirely to
film production Filmmaking or film production is the process by which a Film, motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, beginning with an initial story, idea, or commission. Production then continues through screen ...
and exhibition, and for two decades was one of the most prolific, releasing over 3000 short films and 12
feature film A feature film or feature-length film (often abbreviated to feature), also called a theatrical film, is a film (Film, motion picture, "movie" or simply “picture”) with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole present ...
s. During the height of
silent film A silent film is a film without synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, w ...
as a medium, Biograph was the most prominent U.S. film studio and one of the most respected and influential studios worldwide, only rivaled by
Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
's UFA,
Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...
's
Svensk Filmindustri SF Studios is Sweden’s largest film studio. It is involved in production, distribution, and movie theater market chains (both Swedish and international, including American) with headquarters in Stockholm and local offices in Oslo, Copenhagen ...
and
France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
's
Pathé Pathé SAS (; styled as PATHÉ!) is a French major film production and distribution company, owning a number of cinema chains through its subsidiary Pathé Cinémas and television networks across Europe. It is the name of a network of Fren ...
. The company was home to pioneering director
D. W. Griffith David Wark Griffith (January 22, 1875 – July 23, 1948) was an American film director. Considered one of the most influential figures in the history of the motion picture, he pioneered many aspects of film editing and expanded the art of the n ...
and such actors as
Mary Pickford Gladys Louise Smith (April 8, 1892 – May 29, 1979), known professionally as Mary Pickford, was a Canadian-American film actress and producer. A Canadian pioneers in early Hollywood, pioneer in the American film industry with a Hollywood care ...
,
Lillian Gish Lillian Diana Gish (October 14, 1893 – February 27, 1993) was an American actress best known for her work in movies of the silent era. Her film-acting career spanned 75 years, from 1912, in silent film shorts, to 1987. Gish was dubbed the "F ...
, and
Lionel Barrymore Lionel Barrymore (born Lionel Herbert Blyth; April 28, 1878 – November 15, 1954) was an American actor of stage, screen and radio as well as a film director. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in '' A Free Soul'' (1931) ...
.


Founding

The company was started by
William Kennedy Dickson William Kennedy Laurie Dickson (3 August 1860 – 28 September 1935) was a British- American inventor who devised an early motion picture camera under the employment of Thomas Edison. Early life William Kennedy Dickson was born on 3 Augu ...
, an inventor at
Thomas Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February11, 1847October18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventions, ...
's laboratory who helped pioneer the technology of capturing moving images on film. Dickson left Edison in April 1895, joining with inventors Herman Casler, Harry Marvin and businessman Elias Koopman to incorporate the American Mutoscope Company in
New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...
on December 30, 1895. The firm manufactured the
Mutoscope The Mutoscope is an early motion picture device, invented by W. K. L. Dickson and Herman Casler and granted to Herman Casler on November 5, 1895. Like Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope, it did not project on a screen and provided viewing to only ...
and made flip-card movies for it as a rival to Edison's
Kinetoscope The Kinetoscope is an early motion picture exhibition device, designed for films to be viewed by one person at a time through a peephole viewer window. The Kinetoscope was not a movie projector, but it introduced the basic approach that woul ...
for individual "peep shows", making the company Edison's chief competitor in the nickelodeon market. In summer 1896, the Biograph projector was released, offering superior image quality to Edison's Vitascope projector. The company soon became a leader in the film industry, with distribution and production subsidiaries around the world, including the British Mutoscope Co. In 1899 it changed its name to the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, and in 1908 to simply the Biograph Company. To avoid violating Edison's motion picture patents, Biograph cameras from 1895 to 1902 used a large-format film, measuring wide, with an image area of , four times that of Edison's 35 mm format. The camera used friction feed instead of Edison's sprocket feed to guide the film to the aperture. The camera itself punched a sprocket hole on each side of the frame as the film was exposed at 30 frames per second. A patent case victory in March 1902 allowed Biograph and other producers and distributors to use the less expensive 35 mm format without an Edison license, although Biograph did not completely phase out 68 mm production until autumn of 1903. Biograph offered prints in both formats to exhibitors until 1905, when it discontinued the larger format. Commenting on the 1902 Biograph Company short film ''The Flying Train'', Ashley Swinnerton of the
Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...
said that the 68 mm format has become "of particular interest to researchers ... because the large image area affords stunning visual clarity and quality." Biograph films before 1903, were mostly "actualities,"
documentary film A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...
footage of actual persons, places and events, each film usually less than two minutes long, such as the one of the
Empire State Express The ''Empire State Express'' was one of the List of named passenger trains, named train, passenger trains and onetime flagship of the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad (a predecessor of the later New York Central Railroad). On September ...
, which premiered on October 12, 1896, in New York City. The occasional narrative film, usually a comedy, was typically shot in one scene, with no editing. Spurred on by competition from Edison and British and European producers, Biograph production from 1903 onward was increasingly dominated by narratives. As the stories became more complex the films became longer, with multiple scenes to tell the story, although an individual scene was still usually presented in one shot without editing. Biograph's production of actualities ended by 1908 in favor of the narrative film.


Studio

The company's first studio was located on the roof of 841 Broadway at 13th St. in
Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...
, known then as the Hackett Carhart Building and today as the Roosevelt Building. The set-up was similar to
Thomas Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February11, 1847October18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventions, ...
's "
Black Maria Black Maria may refer to: Art and literature *Black Mariah (comics), a character in the Luke Cage comics series *List of One Piece characters#Animal Kingdom Pirates, Black Maria, a character in the manga series ''One Piece'' *Black Maria (nove ...
" in
West Orange, New Jersey West Orange is a suburban Township (New Jersey), township in Essex County, New Jersey, Essex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the township's population was 48,843, an increase of 2,636 (+5.7%) from t ...
, with the studio itself being mounted on circular tracks to be able to get the best possible sunlight (as of 1988 the foundations of this machinery were still extant). The company moved in 1906 to a converted brownstone mansion at 11 East 14th Street near Union Square, a building that was razed in the 1960s., p. 147–148 This was Biograph's first indoor studio, and the first movie studio in the world to rely exclusively on artificial light. Biograph moved again in 1913, as it entered feature-film production, to a new state-of-the-art studio on 175th Street in the
Bronx The Bronx ( ) is the northernmost of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It shares a land border with Westchester County, New York, West ...
. Among the first projects filmed there was '' Chocolate Dynamite'', which was shot in late August 1913 and was a split-reel comedy short, not a feature-film release. There was the problem of the underground "duping" business, where people would illegally duplicate a copyrighted movie and then remove the title screen with the company and copyright notice and sell it to theaters. In order to make the theater audience aware that they were watching an American Biograph movie (regardless of whether it was illegally "duped" or not) the AB logo would be prominently placed in random parts of the movie.


Rise of D. W. Griffith

Director Director may refer to: Literature * ''Director'' (magazine), a British magazine * ''The Director'' (novel), a 1971 novel by Henry Denker * ''The Director'' (play), a 2000 play by Nancy Hasty Music * Director (band), an Irish rock band * ''D ...
D. W. Griffith David Wark Griffith (January 22, 1875 – July 23, 1948) was an American film director. Considered one of the most influential figures in the history of the motion picture, he pioneered many aspects of film editing and expanded the art of the n ...
joined Biograph in 1908 as a writer and actor, but within months became its principal director. In 1908, the company's head director Wallace McCutcheon grew ill, and his son Wallace McCutcheon Jr. took his place but was not able to make a successful film for the company. As a result of these failed productions, studio head Harry Marvin gave the position of head director to Griffith, whose first film was ''The Adventures of Dollie''. Griffith helped establish many of the conventions of narrative film, including
cross-cutting Cross-cutting is an editing technique most often used in films to establish action occurring at the same time, and often in the same place. In a cross-cut, the camera will cut away from one action to another action, which can suggest the simulta ...
to show events occurring simultaneously in different places, the flashback, the fade-in/fade-out, the interposition of closeups within a scene, and a moderated acting style more suitable for film. Although Griffith did not invent these techniques, he made them a regular part of the film vocabulary. His prolific output—often one new film a week—and willingness to experiment in many different
genres Genre () is any style or form of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other form ...
helped the company become a major commercial success. Many early movie stars were Biograph performers, including
Mary Pickford Gladys Louise Smith (April 8, 1892 – May 29, 1979), known professionally as Mary Pickford, was a Canadian-American film actress and producer. A Canadian pioneers in early Hollywood, pioneer in the American film industry with a Hollywood care ...
,
Lionel Barrymore Lionel Barrymore (born Lionel Herbert Blyth; April 28, 1878 – November 15, 1954) was an American actor of stage, screen and radio as well as a film director. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in '' A Free Soul'' (1931) ...
,
Lillian Gish Lillian Diana Gish (October 14, 1893 – February 27, 1993) was an American actress best known for her work in movies of the silent era. Her film-acting career spanned 75 years, from 1912, in silent film shorts, to 1987. Gish was dubbed the "F ...
, Dorothy Gish, Robert Harron, Arthur V. Johnson, Florence Auer,
Robert G. Vignola Robert G. Vignola (born Rocco Giuseppe Vignola, August 7, 1882 – October 25, 1953) was an Italian-American actor, screenwriter, and film director. A former stage actor, he appeared in many motion pictures produced by Kalem Company and later mov ...
,
Owen Moore Owen Moore (12 December 1886 – 9 June 1939) was an Irish people, Irish-born American actor, appearing in more than 279 movies spanning from 1908 to 1937. Early life and career Moore was born in Fordstown Crossroads, County Meath, Ireland. A ...
,
Alan Hale Sr. Alan Hale Sr. (born Rufus Edward Mackahan; February 10, 1892 – January 22, 1950) was an American actor and director. He is best remembered for his many character roles, in particular as a frequent sidekick of Errol Flynn, as well as f ...
,
Florence Lawrence Florence Lawrence (born Florence Annie Bridgwood; January 2, 1886 – December 28, 1938) was a Canadian-American stage performer and film actress. She is often referred to as the "first movie star", and was long thought to be the first film act ...
,
Blanche Sweet Sarah Blanche Sweet (June 18, 1896 – September 6, 1986) was an American silent film actress who began her career in the early days of the motion picture film industry. Early life Born Sarah Blanche Sweet (though her first name Sarah was ra ...
, Harry Carey, James Kirkwood Sr.,
Mabel Normand Amabel Ethelreid Normand (November 9, 1893 – February 23, 1930), better known as Mabel Normand, was an American silent film actress, comedienne, director and screenwriter. She was a popular star and collaborator of Mack Sennett in their K ...
, Henry B. Walthall,
Mae Marsh Mae Marsh (born Mary Warne Marsh; November 9, 1894U.S. Census records for 1900, El Paso, Texas, Sheet No. 6 – February 13, 1968) was an American film actress whose career spanned over 50 years. Early life Mae Marsh was born Mary Warne Marsh i ...
, and
Dorothy Davenport Fannie Dorothy Davenport (March 13, 1895 – October 12, 1977) was an American actress, screenwriter, film director, and producer. Born into a family of film performers, Davenport had her own independent career before her marriage to the film a ...
.
Mack Sennett Mack Sennett (born Michael Sinnott; January 17, 1880 – November 5, 1960) was a Canadian-American producer, director, actor, and studio head who was known as the "King of Comedy" during his career. Born in Danville, Quebec, he started acting i ...
honed his craft as an actor and director of comedies at Biograph. After debuting at Biograph, Mary Pickford also became a top star at the studio and would soon be known to audiences as "The Biograph Girl". In January 1910, Griffith and Lee Dougherty with the rest of the Biograph acting company travelled to Los Angeles. While the purpose of the trip was to shoot '' Ramona'' in authentic locations, it was also to determine the suitability of the West Coast as a place for a permanent studio. The group set up a small facility at Washington Street and Grand Avenue. After this, Griffith and his players decided to go a little further north to a small village they had heard about that was friendly and had beautiful floral scenery. They decided to travel there and fell in love with this little place called
Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood ...
. Biograph then made the first film ever in Hollywood called '' In Old California'', a Latino melodrama about the early days of Mexico-owned California. Griffith and the Biograph troupe filmed other short movies at various locations, then traveled back to New York. After the East Coast film community heard about Hollywood, other companies began to migrate there. Biograph's little film launched Hollywood as the future movie capital of the world. It opened a studio at Pico and Georgia streets in downtown Los Angeles (where the
Los Angeles Convention Center The Los Angeles Convention Center is a convention center located in the southwest section of Downtown Los Angeles, Downtown Los Angeles, California, United States. It hosts multiple annual conventions and has often been used as a filming locat ...
now stands) in 1911, and sent a film crew to work there each year until 1916. Griffith left Biograph in October 1913 after finishing '' Judith of Bethulia'', unhappy with the company's resistance to larger budgets,
feature film A feature film or feature-length film (often abbreviated to feature), also called a theatrical film, is a film (Film, motion picture, "movie" or simply “picture”) with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole present ...
production or giving onscreen credit to him and the cast. With him went many of the Biograph actors, his cameraman
Billy Bitzer Gottfried Wilhelm Bitzer (April 21, 1872 – April 29, 1944) was an American cinematographer, notable for his close association and pioneering work with D. W. Griffith. Biography Prior to his career as a cameraman, working as a motion picture p ...
and his production crew. As a final slight to Griffith, Biograph delayed release of ''Judith of Bethulia'' until March 1914, to avoid a profit-sharing arrangement the company had with him.


Decline

In December 1908, Biograph joined Edison in forming the
Motion Picture Patents Company The Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC, also known as the Edison Trust), founded in December 1908 and effectively terminated in 1915 after it lost a United States v. Motion Picture Patents Co., federal antitrust suit, was a trust (19th century), ...
in an attempt to control the industry and shut out smaller producers. The "Edison Trust," as it was nicknamed, was made up of Edison, Biograph,
Essanay Studios 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 Manufactu ...
,
Kalem Company The Kalem Company was an early American film studio founded in New York City in 1907. It was one of the first companies to make films abroad and to set up winter production facilities, first in Florida and then in California. Kalem was sold to V ...
, George Kleine Productions,
Lubin Studios 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. * * History The Lubin Manufacturing Company was forme ...
,
Georges Méliès Marie-Georges-Jean Méliès ( , ; 8 December 1861 – 21 January 1938) was a French magic (illusion), magician, toymaker, actor, and filmmaker. He led many technical and narrative developments in the early days of film, cinema, primarily in th ...
,
Pathé Pathé SAS (; styled as PATHÉ!) is a French major film production and distribution company, owning a number of cinema chains through its subsidiary Pathé Cinémas and television networks across Europe. It is the name of a network of Fren ...
,
Selig Studios 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 s ...
and
Vitagraph Studios 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 ...
, and dominated distribution through the General Film Co. The Motion Picture Patents Co. and the General Film Co. were found guilty of
antitrust Competition law is the field of law that promotes or seeks to maintain market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct by companies. Competition law is implemented through public and private enforcement. It is also known as antitrust l ...
violation in October 1915 and dissolved. Shielded by the Trust, Biograph had been slow to enter feature film production. It contracted with the theatrical firm of
Klaw & Erlanger Klaw and Erlanger was an entertainment management and production partnership of Marc Klaw and A. L. Erlanger, Abraham Lincoln Erlanger based in New York City from 1888 through 1919. While running their own considerable and multi-faceted theatric ...
in 1913 to produce movie versions of the latter's plays. Its first released feature, ''Classmates'', came out in February 1914, after 69 other American features had been released in 1912–13. Distribution was hampered by Biograph using a special perforation pattern on the Klaw & Erlanger features that was incompatible with standard projectors, forcing exhibitors to lease specialized equipment from Biograph in order to show the films. With the exodus of the studio's best actors to Griffith, Biograph was unable to develop a marketable
star system A star system or stellar system is a small number of stars that orbit each other, bound by gravity, gravitational attraction. It may sometimes be used to refer to a single star. A large group of stars bound by gravitation is generally calle ...
as the independent companies were doing, and after the Trust's fall, Biograph found itself behind the times. The Biograph Co. released its last new feature-length films in 1915 and its last new short films in 1916. Biograph spent the remainder of the silent era reissuing its old films, and leasing its Bronx studio to other producers. When the company fell on financial hard times, the Biograph Studio facilities and film laboratory in the
Bronx The Bronx ( ) is the northernmost of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It shares a land border with Westchester County, New York, West ...
were acquired by one of Biograph Company's creditors, the Empire Trust Company, although some of the ex-Biograph staff were retained to manage the studio and laboratory facilities.
Herbert Yates Herbert John Yates (August 24, 1880 – February 3, 1966), a Hollywood mini-mogul, was the founder and President of Republic Pictures. With his contract, he had launched the film careers of such Western stars as Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, and John ...
acquired the Biograph Studios facilities and film laboratory in 1928.
Biograph Studios Biograph Studios was an early film studio and laboratory complex, built in 1912 by the Biograph Company at 807 East 175th Street, in The Bronx, New York City, New York, which was preceded by two locations in Manhattan. History 841 Broadway ...
facilities and film laboratory were made a subsidiary of his Consolidated Film Industries in 1928. The studio facilities and laboratory burned down in 1980."Bronx Blaze Damages Old Biograph Studios," ''The New York Times'', July 9, 1980, p. B4. In 1939, Iris Barry, founder of the film department at the
Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...
, acquired 900 cans of film from the Actinograph Corp. Bronx Biograph studio and laboratory facitlies, which was closing its film vault and planning to destroy all the film. One uncompleted film, '' Lime Kiln Field Day'' (1913), with an all
African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...
cast, was found among the many cans of film, and shown at MOMA in November 2014. From 1954 to 1957, Sterling Television Company distributed a package of 100 quarter-hour television shows titled ''Movie Museum'', featuring Biograph, Edison and other early films from the vaults of the Museum of Modern Art and the
George Eastman House The George Eastman Museum, also referred to as George Eastman House and the International Museum of Photography and Film, is a photography museum in Rochester, New York. Opened to the public in 1949, is the oldest museum dedicated to photography ...
.


Filmography

*
List of Biograph films released in 1909 This is a list of all 142 Biograph films released in 1909. Releases References Bibliography

* *{{cite book , title=Moving Picture World Volume 5, publisher=New York, Chalmers Publishing Company , year=1909, ref={{sfnref, Vol5, 1909 Bi ...
*
List of Biograph films released in 1910 This is a list of all 113 Biograph films released in 1910. Releases References Bibliography

* * *{{cite book , title=Moving Picture World Volume 8, publisher=New York, Chalmers Publishing Company , year=1911, ref={{harvid, Vol8, 1911 ...


See also

*
Biograph Studios Biograph Studios was an early film studio and laboratory complex, built in 1912 by the Biograph Company at 807 East 175th Street, in The Bronx, New York City, New York, which was preceded by two locations in Manhattan. History 841 Broadway ...
* Biograph Theater *
Cinema of the United States The cinema of the United States, primarily associated with major film studios collectively referred to as Hollywood, has significantly influenced the global film industry since the early 20th century. Classical Hollywood cinema, a filmma ...
*
History of cinema The history of film chronicles the development of a visual art form created using film technologies that began in the late 19th century. The advent of film as an artistic medium is not clearly defined. There were earlier cinematographic scree ...
*
List of film formats This list of motion picture film formats catalogues formats developed for shooting or viewing motion pictures, ranging from the Chronophotographe format from 1888, to mid-20th century formats such as the 1953 CinemaScope format, to more recent ...
*
List of Hollywood movie studios This is a list of film production and distribution companies. A production company may specialize in producing their in-house films or own subsidiary development companies. Major production companies often distribute films from independent produc ...


References


External links

* * *
The Manic Barber
' from the Southern Methodist University, Central University Libraries, G. William Jones Film and Video Collection
Arrival of Emigrants [i.e. Immigrants], Ellis Island
by Biograph Company, 1906 {{Authority control Articles containing video clips Film production companies of the United States 1895 establishments in New Jersey