
Pathé Exchange, commonly known as Pathé, was an American film production and distribution company, largely of
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 ...
's
silent era
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, wh ...
. Known for its trailblazing
newsreel
A newsreel is a form of short documentary film, containing news, news stories and items of topical interest, that was prevalent between the 1910s and the mid 1970s. Typically presented in a Movie theater, cinema, newsreels were a source of cu ...
and wide array of
shorts, it grew out of the American division of the major French studio
Pathé Frères
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 ...
, which began distributing films in the United States in 1904. Ten years later, it produced the enormously successful ''
The Perils of Pauline'', a twenty-episode
serial that came to define the genre. The American operation was incorporated as Pathé Exchange toward the end of 1914 and spun off as an independent entity in 1921; the
Merrill Lynch
Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated, doing business as Merrill, and previously branded Merrill Lynch, is an American investment management and wealth management division of Bank of America. Along with BofA Securities, the investm ...
investment firm acquired a controlling stake. The following year, it released
Robert J. Flaherty
Robert Joseph Flaherty, (; February 16, 1884 – July 23, 1951) was an American filmmaker who directed and produced the first commercially successful feature-length documentary film, '' Nanook of the North'' (1922). The film made his reputati ...
's groundbreaking documentary ''
Nanook of the North
''Nanook of the North'' is a 1922 American silent film that combines elements of documentary and docudrama/docufiction, at a time when the concept of separating films into documentary and drama did not yet exist. In the tradition of what would ...
''. Other notable feature releases included the controversial drama ''
Sex
Sex is the biological trait that determines whether a sexually reproducing organism produces male or female gametes. During sexual reproduction, a male and a female gamete fuse to form a zygote, which develops into an offspring that inheri ...
'' (1920) and director/producer
Cecil B. DeMille
Cecil Blount DeMille (; August 12, 1881January 21, 1959) was an American filmmaker and actor. Between 1914 and 1958, he made 70 features, both silent and sound films. He is acknowledged as a founding father of American cinema and the most co ...
's box-office-topping biblical epic ''
The King of Kings'' (1927/28). During much of the 1920s, Pathé distributed the shorts of comedy pioneers
Hal Roach
Harold Eugene "Hal" Roach Sr. Skretvedt, Randy (2016), ''Laurel and Hardy: The Magic Behind the Movies'', Bonaventure Press. p.608. (January 14, 1892 – November 2, 1992) was an American film and television producer, director and screenwriter, ...
and
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 ...
and innovative animator
Paul Terry. For Roach and then his own production company, acclaimed comedian
Harold Lloyd
Harold Clayton Lloyd Sr. (April 20, 1893 – March 8, 1971) was an American actor, comedian, and stunt performer who appeared in many Silent film, silent comedy films.Obituary ''Variety'', March 10, 1971, page 55.
One of the most influent ...
starred in many feature and short releases from Pathé and the closely linked
Associated Exhibitors, including the 1925 smash hit ''
The Freshman''.
In late 1926, controlling interest in the studio was acquired by investment banker
Elisha Walker's Blair & Co. firm, which soon allied it with the
Keith-Albee and
Orpheum theater chains and in 1928 brought in financier and Hollywood maestro
Joseph P. Kennedy to manage it. Under Kennedy, Pathé contracted with
RCA Photophone
RCA Photophone was the trade name given to one of four major competing technologies that emerged in the American film industry in the late 1920s for synchronizing electrically recorded audio to a motion picture image. RCA Photophone was an op ...
for conversion to
sound film
A sound film is a Film, motion picture with synchronization, synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, bu ...
and took over the assets of
Producers Distributing Corporation
Producers Distributing Corporation (PDC) was a short-lived Hollywood film distribution company, organized in 1924 and dissolved in 1927. In its brief heyday, film director Cecil B. DeMille was its primary talent and owner of its Culver City� ...
, DeMille's former outlet. Finally, in January 1931, the studio was acquired by the much larger
RKO Pictures
RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, is an American film production and distribution company, historically one of the major film studios, "Big Five" film studios of Cinema of the United States, Hollywood's Clas ...
. It continued making features as the semiautonomous division RKO Pathé into 1932, when all feature production was subsumed under the "RKO Radio Pictures" banner; the RKO Pathé unit and brand were maintained for short subjects and the trademark newsreel. The latter was purchased in 1947 from RKO by
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (WBEI), commonly known as Warner Bros. (WB), is an American filmed entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California and the main namesake subsidiary of Warner Bro ...
, which rebranded it ''Warner Pathé News''. RKO Pathé, which in its final decade produced
industrials
Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of the
secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to a r ...
and TV commercials along with theatrical shorts, closed its doors in 1956; Warners ended the newsreel the same year.
Pathé Exchange had survived as a small holding company for the few assets, including an East Coast film lab and a home-movie operation, that RKO had declined to acquire; the business was subsequently reorganized, first as Pathé Film Corporation and ultimately as Pathé Industries. The company reentered the movie production and distribution business for nearly a decade beginning in 1942 with the purchase of
Poverty Row studio
Producers Releasing Corporation
Producers Releasing Corporation (generally known as PRC) was the smallest and least prestigious of the 11 Hollywood film companies of the 1940s. It was considered a prime example of what was called " Poverty Row": a low-rent stretch of Gower St ...
(PRC) and Pathé's subsequent establishment of
Eagle-Lion Films. Among the historically significant releases from this period are the
film noir
Film noir (; ) is a style of Cinema of the United States, Hollywood Crime film, crime dramas that emphasizes cynicism (contemporary), cynical attitudes and motivations. The 1940s and 1950s are generally regarded as the "classic period" of Ameri ...
''
Detour
__NOTOC__
A detour or (British English: diversion) is a (normally temporary) route taking traffic around an area of prohibited or reduced access, such as a construction site. Standard operating procedure for many roads departments is to route an ...
'' (1945, PRC) and the science-fiction film ''
Destination Moon'' (1950, Eagle-Lion). By 1951, Pathé Industries was out of the motion picture business. In 1961, its successor company, the America Corporation, briefly revived the brand with a distribution subsidiary, Pathé-America. It was sold the following year to
Astor Pictures
Astor Pictures was a film distribution, motion picture distribution company in the United States from 1930 to 1963. It was founded by Robert M. Savini (29 August 1886 – 29 April 1956). Astor specialized in film re-releases. It later release ...
and soon dissolved.
History
From silents to the early sound era
Pathé Frères
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 ...
, founded in 1895 and by the middle of the next decade France's leading film studio, began distributing its films in the United States in 1904. By October 1906, its films commanded as much as 50 percent of the entire U.S. market. In 1908, Pathé Frères was invited to join 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), ...
(MPPC), created by a combine of production firms that aimed to lock up the American market completely. As a result, Pathé utilized MPPC's
General Film Company
The General Film Company was a motion picture distribution company in the United States. Between 1909 and 1920, the company distributed almost 12,000 silent era motion pictures. It was created as part of the Edison Trust to monopolize film dist ...
distribution company to release its films. Pathé Frères established production facilities in New Jersey—first in
East Bound Brook, then
Jersey City
Jersey City is the List of municipalities in New Jersey, second-most populous —and leased an outdoor spread in
Edendale, an L.A. suburb, for the shooting of
Westerns. In 1911, the company launched the first ever newsreel produced in the United States, the ''Pathé Weekly''; by early 1914, the renamed ''Pathé News'' was coming out five days a week. The year prior, alongside its General Film releases, Pathé also began distributing through the recently founded Eclectic Film Company, in which Pathé Frères was evidently a major investor.
In March 1914, from its studio in Jersey City (with many climactic scenes shot in the nearby film hub of
Fort Lee), Pathé Frères entered the market for
serials. Its initial such effort,
''The Perils of Pauline'', starring
Pearl White
Pearl Fay White (March 4, 1889 – August 4, 1938) was an American stage and film actress. She began her career on the stage at age 6, and later moved on to silent films appearing in a number of popular serial film, serials.
Dubbed the "Queen ...
and codirected by company veteran
Louis Gasnier, was a massive success, with popular demand so great that the original plan for thirteen episodes was extended to twenty and a record-breaking number of release prints were struck to supply exhibitors around the country. Several sequels followed, as the original, in the words of film historian Richard Lewis Ward, "became the hallmark for the genre". As of August 1914, Pathé's American release schedule, aside from its weekday newsreel, encompassed a ''Perils of Pauline'' chapter every other Monday, alternating with a "Cartoon Comedy or Comedy and Short Scenic Educational subjects in Natural Colors"; on Tuesdays, a
one- or two-reel comedy; and on Wednesdays and Fridays, features of three reels or more. Later in the year, Pathé stopped releasing its films through General Film Company, acquired the Eclectic Film distribution exchanges, and formally incorporated an American subsidiary: Pathé Exchange. Investors
Charles Merrill and
Edmund Lynch, then just starting their careers, joined the company's board of directors in early 1915.
Released in April 1920, the drama ''
Sex
Sex is the biological trait that determines whether a sexually reproducing organism produces male or female gametes. During sexual reproduction, a male and a female gamete fuse to form a zygote, which develops into an offspring that inheri ...
'', starring
Louise Glaum
Louise Glaum (September 4, 1888 – November 25, 1970) was an American actor, actress. Known for her roles as a femme fatale, vamp in silent film, silent era film, motion picture drama film, dramas, she was credited in her early career with ...
, was a hit across much of the country, though it caused controversy in some prudish precincts; the Pennsylvania Board of Censors required it be retitled ''Sex Crushed to Earth'' for distribution within the state. Pathé Frères cofounder
Charles Pathé
Charles Morand Pathé (; 26 December 1863 – 25 December 1957) was a pioneer of the French film and recording industries. As the founder of Pathé, Pathé Frères, its roots lie in 1896 Paris, France, when Pathé and his brothers pioneered ...
retired from the presidency of Pathé Exchange in September, and the following year the business was spun off from its French parent company, with a controlling stake acquired by
Merrill Lynch
Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated, doing business as Merrill, and previously branded Merrill Lynch, is an American investment management and wealth management division of Bank of America. Along with BofA Securities, the investm ...
. For many years, Pathé was closely associated with the distribution company
Associated Exhibitors, which handled
independent
Independent or Independents may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups
* Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in Pennsylvania, United States
* Independentes (English: Independents), a Portuguese artist ...
productions. Among Pathé's independent releases were the influential documentary feature ''
Nanook of the North
''Nanook of the North'' is a 1922 American silent film that combines elements of documentary and docudrama/docufiction, at a time when the concept of separating films into documentary and drama did not yet exist. In the tradition of what would ...
'' (1922), the first major commercial success in the genre. Its regular release schedule during this period revolved around its newsreel (now coming out twice a week), the "Pathéserials", cartoons by animator
Paul Terry, and comedy shorts from
Hal Roach
Harold Eugene "Hal" Roach Sr. Skretvedt, Randy (2016), ''Laurel and Hardy: The Magic Behind the Movies'', Bonaventure Press. p.608. (January 14, 1892 – November 2, 1992) was an American film and television producer, director and screenwriter, ...
and
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 ...
. Trailblazing film comedians
Laurel and Hardy
Laurel and Hardy were a British-American double act, comedy duo during the early Classical Hollywood cinema, Classical Hollywood era of American cinema, consisting of Englishman Stan Laurel (1890–1965) and American Oliver Hardy (1892–1957) ...
(Roach), the ''
Our Gang
''Our Gang'' (also known as ''The Little Rascals'' or ''Hal Roach's Rascals'') is an American series of comedy short films chronicling a group of poor neighborhood children and their adventures. Created by film producer Hal Roach, who also pr ...
'' troupe (Roach), and
Harry Langdon
Henry Philmore "Harry" Langdon (June 15, 1884 – December 22, 1944) was an American actor and comedian who appeared in vaudeville, silent films (where he had his greatest fame), and talkies.Obituary ''Variety Obituaries, Variety'', December 27 ...
(Sennett) all first reached movie screens under the "Pathécomedy" banner.
By far Pathé's biggest star of this era, comedian
Harold Lloyd
Harold Clayton Lloyd Sr. (April 20, 1893 – March 8, 1971) was an American actor, comedian, and stunt performer who appeared in many Silent film, silent comedy films.Obituary ''Variety'', March 10, 1971, page 55.
One of the most influent ...
, made many shorts for Roach, originally released by Pathé and then, beginning in May 1921, Associated Exhibitors. Lloyd shifted to features with the joint Pathé/Associated Exhibitors release ''
A Sailor-Made Man'' that December. After four more full-length pictures with Roach—and a return to exclusive Pathé distribution—he launched his own production company with ''
Girl Shy'' (1924). Following two further Pathé releases, including the massive hit ''
The Freshman'' (1925), Lloyd departed for the major
Paramount
Paramount (from the word ''paramount'' meaning "above all others") may refer to:
Entertainment and music companies
* Paramount Global, also known simply as Paramount, an American mass media company formerly known as ViacomCBS.
**Paramount Picture ...
studio. Of the six feature films in Pathé Exchange history to reap $1 million or more in North American rentals, five were Lloyd vehicles. In October 1926, the ailing Associated Exhibitors was largely subsumed into Pathé. That same month, Merrill Lynch sold its controlling interest in the studio to fellow New York investment firm Blair & Co., headed by
Elisha Walker.
Walker's firm proceeded to invest in
Producers Distributing Corporation
Producers Distributing Corporation (PDC) was a short-lived Hollywood film distribution company, organized in 1924 and dissolved in 1927. In its brief heyday, film director Cecil B. DeMille was its primary talent and owner of its Culver City� ...
(PDC), known as star director
Cecil B. DeMille
Cecil Blount DeMille (; August 12, 1881January 21, 1959) was an American filmmaker and actor. Between 1914 and 1958, he made 70 features, both silent and sound films. He is acknowledged as a founding father of American cinema and the most co ...
's studio, and exchange Pathé stock interests with the
Keith-Albee theater chain, which already owned 50 percent of PDC's holding company and had a national footprint through its alliance with the
Orpheum circuit. In March 1927, an agreement was reached to merge Pathé and PDC under the former's aegis, with their films given preferential entrée to the Keith-Albee and Orpheum theaters; the arrangement was designed to allow the interlocked companies to compete with the production-distribution-exhibition combines that now ruled the movie industry: Paramount–
Famous–Lasky,
Loews–
MGM
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. (also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, commonly shortened to MGM or MGM Studios) is an American Film production, film and television production and film distribution, distribution company headquartered ...
, Stanley–
First National–West Coast Theatres, and
Fox Film
The Fox Film Corporation (also known as Fox Studios) was an American independent company that produced motion pictures and was formed in 1914 by the theater "chain" pioneer William Fox. It was the corporate successor to his earlier Greater Ne ...
and
Theatres
Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors to present experiences of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The performers may communica ...
. Keith-Albee general manager John J. Murdock was named president of Pathé two months later. Hal Roach negotiated an exit from his Pathé contract and began putting out films through MGM in September, though he also produced a dozen pictures for Pathé's 1927–28 season as part of the exit deal.
Early in 1928, Walker and Murdock turned to financier
Joseph P. Kennedy, head of midsized studio
Film Booking Offices of America
Film Booking Offices of America (FBO), registered as FBO Pictures Corp., was an American film studio of the Silent film, silent era, a midsize producer and distributor of mostly low-budget films. The business began in 1918 as Robertson-Cole, an ...
(FBO), to help reorganize the debt-ridden Pathé business. One of Kennedy's first moves was to terminate the distribution deals with all of the studio's outside producers, including Mack Sennett. PDC was dissolved and its assets, including DeMille's
Culver City
Culver City is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 40,779. It is mostly surrounded by Los Angeles, but also shares a border with the unincorporated area of Ladera Heights to the ea ...
production facility and the long-term lease on the adjacent backlot, were folded into Pathé. For the conversion to
sound film
A sound film is a Film, motion picture with synchronization, synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, bu ...
production now understood as necessary across the industry, Kennedy contracted both Pathé and FBO to
RCA Photophone
RCA Photophone was the trade name given to one of four major competing technologies that emerged in the American film industry in the late 1920s for synchronizing electrically recorded audio to a motion picture image. RCA Photophone was an op ...
, run by his sometime ally
David Sarnoff
David Sarnoff (February 27, 1891 – December 12, 1971) was a Russian and American businessman who played an important role in the American history of radio and television. He led the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) for most of his career in ...
.
On September 30, 1928, Pathé debuted its first partial sound film: a shortened version of ''
The King of Kings'', DeMille's epic about the last weeks of Jesus. The movie had been critically lauded the previous year as a silent
road-show attraction handled by PDC; now in general release with music and sound effects, about forty minutes shorter, and playing across the recently united
Keith-Albee-Orpheum
The Keith-Albee-Orpheum Corporation was the owner of a chain of vaudeville and motion picture theatres. It was formed by the merger of the holdings of Benjamin Franklin Keith and Edward Franklin Albee II and Martin Beck (vaudeville), Martin Beck's ...
(KAO) circuit, it was a major hit at the box office. The KAO merger had been formalized in January and by May the theater chain was largely under Walker and Kennedy's control. Pathé first true feature "
talkie
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades passed befo ...
", ''
Strange Cargo'', opened on March 31, 1929. The following month, Kennedy had himself elected as chair of the Pathé board. A fire at Pathé's New York production facility that December killed eleven people and precipitated a shift of the studio's short-comedy unit to the West Coast, joining the feature productions in Culver City. Pathé struggled through 1930, putting out just a single feature each month between June and November; the July release, ''
Holiday
A holiday is a day or other period of time set aside for festivals or recreation. ''Public holidays'' are set by public authorities and vary by state or region. Religious holidays are set by religious organisations for their members and are often ...
'', managed to garner
Academy Award
The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence ...
nominations for lead actress
Ann Harding and screenwriter
Horace Jackson.
Later incarnations
In late 1930, Kennedy arranged for Pathé Exchange to be acquired by
RKO Pictures
RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, is an American film production and distribution company, historically one of the major film studios, "Big Five" film studios of Cinema of the United States, Hollywood's Clas ...
, which had been built by Sarnoff in part on the bones of FBO, sold off by Kennedy and dissolved early the previous year; the official merger took place on January 31, 1931. The central assets involved were Pathé Exchange's motion picture production facilities, employee contracts, and distribution exchanges; four films completed by Pathé Exchange, two already in release, were included as well. The Pathé headliners who joined the RKO roster and starred in films from the new semiautonomous RKO Pathé production unit were led by
Constance Bennett
Constance Campbell Bennett (October 22, 1904 – July 24, 1965) was an American stage, film, radio, and television actress and producer. She was a major Cinema of the United States, Hollywood star during the 1920s and 1930s; during the early 193 ...
,
Ann Harding,
Helen Twelvetrees,
William Boyd,
Eddie Quillan,
Robert Armstrong, and
James Gleason. Around the time of the takeover, Pathé's range of
shorts
Shorts are a garment worn over the pelvic area, circling the waist and splitting to cover the upper part of the legs, sometimes extending down to the knees but not covering the entire length of the leg. They are called "shorts" because they ar ...
included its twice-weekly newsreel, a weekly "audio review", three biweekly series—''
Grantland Rice
Henry Grantland Rice (November 1, 1880 – July 13, 1954) was an American sportswriter and poet known as the "Dean of American Sports Writers". He coined the famous phrase that it was not important whether you “won or lost, but how you playe ...
Sportlights'', ''
Aesop
Aesop ( ; , ; c. 620–564 BCE; formerly rendered as Æsop) was a Greeks, Greek wikt:fabulist, fabulist and Oral storytelling, storyteller credited with a number of fables now collectively known as ''Aesop's Fables''. Although his existence re ...
's Sound Fables'', and ''Vagabond Adventure Series''—the seasonal ''
Knute Rockne
Knute Kenneth Rockne (; March 4, 1888 – March 31, 1931) was an American football player and coach at the University of Notre Dame. Leading Notre Dame for 13 seasons, Rockne accumulated over 100 wins and three national championships.
Rockne is ...
Football Series'', and an array of humorous two-reelers under the banners of ''Manhattan Comedies'', ''Whoopee Comedies'', ''Rainbow Comedies'', ''Folly Comedies'', ''Rodeo Comedies'', ''Melody Comedies'', ''Checker Comedies'', ''Campus Comedies'', and ''Capitol Comedies''.
By the beginning of 1932, feature production had been shifted almost entirely from Culver City to RKO's main Hollywood studio, and in February the company announced that as of the 1932–33 exhibition season (beginning in September 1932) all of its features would come out under the RKO Radio Pictures banner. One of the last RKO Pathé features, ''
What Price Hollywood?'', with Bennett in the lead, came out on June 24; it was the first screen version of the story that would be filmed multiple times as ''
A Star Is Born''. In fact, due to extensive reshoots and recutting, the final feature release bearing the RKO Pathé emblem—the signature Pathé rooster standing proudly atop the RKO logo's spinning globe—''
Rockabye'', didn't reach theaters until late November. The RKO Pathé brand was thenceforth limited to newsreels and shorts (plus one feature-length documentary in 1953). In 1947, RKO sold the Pathé newsreel operation to
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (WBEI), commonly known as Warner Bros. (WB), is an American filmed entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California and the main namesake subsidiary of Warner Bro ...
, which rebranded it ''Warner Pathé News''. RKO Pathé continued to put out a reduced roster of theatrical shorts, along with
industrials
Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of the
secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to a r ...
and TV commercials, until early 1956, when its doors closed for good. Later that year, Warners shut down the newsreel.
Pathé Exchange Inc. continued as a small holding company for the few assets that had not been part of the RKO acquisition, including most of the studio's film library, a film processing lab in New Jersey, a 49 percent stake in
DuPont
Dupont, DuPont, Du Pont, duPont, or du Pont may refer to:
People
* Dupont (surname) Dupont, also spelled as DuPont, duPont, Du Pont, or du Pont is a French surname meaning "of the bridge", historically indicating that the holder of the surname re ...
's raw film manufacturing operation, and a nontheatrical division that focused on the production of shorts for retail customers with home projectors. Kennedy, who had originally aimed to sell the company's remnants and dissolve it, instead stepped down from the board in April 1931. In 1935, the company was reorganized as Pathé Film Corporation (PFC), and most of the film library was sold to
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc., Trade name, doing business as Columbia Pictures, is an American film Production company, production and Film distributor, distribution company that is the flagship unit of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group ...
, which used the accompanying remake rights to produce such classics as ''
The Awful Truth
''The Awful Truth'' is a 1937 American screwball comedy film directed by Leo McCarey, and starring Irene Dunne and Cary Grant. Based on the 1922 play ''The Awful Truth'' by Arthur Richman, the film recounts a distrustful rich couple who begin ...
'' (1937) and ''
Holiday
A holiday is a day or other period of time set aside for festivals or recreation. ''Public holidays'' are set by public authorities and vary by state or region. Religious holidays are set by religious organisations for their members and are often ...
'' (1938). The following year, after the completion of a hiatus imposed in the RKO deal, PFC reentered the filmmaking field in a small way, acquiring 8 percent of the recently established
Grand National Films. The venture met with little success, and Grand National was dissolved in early 1940. In 1939, Pathé Film Corporation had bought a second film processing and printing facility, in Los Angeles, and established Pathé Laboratories Inc. of California as its operating subsidiary. The following year, financier Robert Young (no relation to
the actor) acquired PFC; he officially dissolved the holding company while maintaining control of its various businesses.

Pathé returned more fully to filmmaking in 1942, when Pathé Laboratories of California acquired
Producers Releasing Corporation
Producers Releasing Corporation (generally known as PRC) was the smallest and least prestigious of the 11 Hollywood film companies of the 1940s. It was considered a prime example of what was called " Poverty Row": a low-rent stretch of Gower St ...
(PRC), a struggling
Poverty Row studio notorious for the threadbare production values of its output. While PRC relied on independent producers for its release slate, Pathé management wanted to focus on in-house production, and a
Sunset Boulevard
Sunset Boulevard is a boulevard in the central and western part of Los Angeles, California, United States, that stretches from the Pacific Coast Highway (California), Pacific Coast Highway in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, Pacific Palisad ...
production facility was purchased. PRC's initial "directly produced" feature, ''
Jive Junction'', was released in December 1943. Its director,
Edgar G. Ulmer, already responsible for multiple PRC releases from outside producers, would make several more films at the studio, including the now renowned
film noir
Film noir (; ) is a style of Cinema of the United States, Hollywood Crime film, crime dramas that emphasizes cynicism (contemporary), cynical attitudes and motivations. The 1940s and 1950s are generally regarded as the "classic period" of Ameri ...
''
Detour
__NOTOC__
A detour or (British English: diversion) is a (normally temporary) route taking traffic around an area of prohibited or reduced access, such as a construction site. Standard operating procedure for many roads departments is to route an ...
'' (1945). In June 1944, Young set up a new holding company, Pathé Industries, for the Pathé and PRC assets. Late the following year, Pathé Industries arranged to collaborate with British movie magnate
J. Arthur Rank on the reciprocal release of Pathé and Rank productions; Pathé set up a new production subsidiary distinct from PRC,
Eagle-Lion Films, while the American distribution firm Rank had established in 1944 under that name relinquished it.
The new Eagle-Lion Films was officially established in April 1946; entertainment lawyer
Arthur B. Krim
Arthur Brian Krim (April 4, 1910 – September 21, 1994) was an American entertainment lawyer, the former finance chairman for the U.S. Democratic Party, an adviser to President Lyndon Johnson and the former chairman of Eagle-Lion Films (1945� ...
was brought on as studio president. An ambitious program of A-level productions was promised, although it was the former head of Warners'
B unit,
Bryan Foy
Bryan Foy (December 8, 1896 – April 20, 1977) was an American film producer and film director, director. He produced more than 200 films between 1924 and 1963. He also directed 41 films between 1923 and 1934. He headed the B picture unit a ...
, who was hired as studio chief. The first Eagle-Lion picture, ''
It's a Joke, Son!
''It's a Joke, Son!'' is a 1947 American comedy film directed by Benjamin Stoloff (in his final directorial role in a film) featuring radio comedian Kenny Delmar as Senator Claghorn, Senator Beauregard Claghorn, a character on Fred Allen's radio ...
'', reached theaters in January 1947 and the firm soon became Pathé Industries' sole Hollywood flagship, with the announcement in August that PRC would be absorbed into Eagle-Lion. The studio's rare hits included an overachieving noir,
Anthony Mann
Anthony Mann (born Emil Anton Bundsmann; June 30, 1906 – April 29, 1967) was an American film director and stage actor. He came to prominence as a skilled director of ''Film noirs, film noir'' and Western film, Westerns, and for his Epic film ...
's ''
T-Men
''T-Men'' is a 1947 semidocumentary and police procedural style film noir about United States Treasury agents. The film was directed by Anthony Mann and shot by noted noir cameraman John Alton. The production features Dennis O'Keefe, Mary M ...
'' (1947), and a Rank import,
Michael Powell
Michael Latham Powell (30 September 1905 – 19 February 1990) was an English filmmaker, celebrated for his partnership with Emeric Pressburger. Through their production company Powell and Pressburger, The Archers, they together wrote, produced ...
and
Emeric Pressburger
Emeric Pressburger (born Imre József Pressburger; 5 December 19025 February 1988) was a Hungarian-British screenwriter, film director, and producer. He is best known for his series of film collaborations with Michael Powell, in a collaborat ...
's ''
The Red Shoes'' (1948). In late 1949, Eagle-Lion announced that it was ending in-house production, as Krim departed. N. Peter Rathvon, former president of RKO, joined the company to handle financing for the independent producers who would now provide all of its domestic output, such as
George Pal
George Pal (born György Pál Marczincsak; ; February 1, 1908 – May 2, 1980) was a Hungarian-American animator, film director and producer, principally associated with the fantasy and science-fiction genres. He became an American citizen after ...
, whose ''
Destination Moon'', released in June 1950, was a major success. That same month, Pathé merged Eagle-Lion with an independent distributor that focused on reissues, Film Classics, to create Eagle-Lion Classics. In October, the company sued the RKO and
Loew's exhibition circuits for keeping its product out of New York theaters. With the suit still pending, in March 1951, Eagle-Lion Classics reported that 1950–51 would be its first profitable year, with the prospect that in-house production would resume. The next month, however, the studio was sold to
United Artists
United Artists (UA) is an American film production and film distribution, distribution company owned by Amazon MGM Studios. In its original operating period, it was founded in February 1919 by Charlie Chaplin, D. W. Griffith, Mary Pickford an ...
, which had come under the control of Krim and his partner
Robert Benjamin
Robert Saul Benjamin (1909 – October 22, 1979) was a founding partner of the movie-litigation firm Phillips, Nizer, Benjamin, Krim & Ballon, a former co‐chairman of United Artists, and a founding member of Orion Pictures.
Biography
R ...
, former head of Rank's U.S. operations. Pathé was once again out of the movies. In 1953, Young replaced the Pathé Industries name with that of Chesapeake Industries. Three years later, the suit against the theater chains was dismissed.
After Young's death in 1958, Chesapeake was acquired by real estate developer
William Zeckendorf
William Zeckendorf Sr. (June 30, 1905 – September 30, 1976) was a prominent American real estate developer. Through his development company Webb and Knapp — for which he began working in 1938 and which he purchased in 1949 — he developed ...
. Redubbed the America Corporation, the firm revived the Pathé brand with a distribution subsidiary, Pathé-America, that handled independent productions from both the U.S. and Great Britain. During its brief 1961–62 existence, it released seven films under America Corporation ownership, including
Sam Peckinpah
David Samuel Peckinpah (; February 21, 1925 – December 28, 1984) was an American film director and screenwriter. His 1969 Western epic '' The Wild Bunch'' received two Academy Award nominations and was ranked No. 80 on the American Film Instit ...
's feature directorial debut, ''
The Deadly Companions'' (1961), and
Roger Corman
Roger William Corman (April 5, 1926 – May 9, 2024) was an American film director, producer, and actor. Known under various monikers such as "The Pope of Pop Cinema", "The Spiritual Godfather of the New Hollywood", and "The King of Cult", he w ...
's pathbreaking drama about racial demagoguery, ''
The Intruder'' (1962). In late June 1962, Pathé-America was sold to
Astor Pictures
Astor Pictures was a film distribution, motion picture distribution company in the United States from 1930 to 1963. It was founded by Robert M. Savini (29 August 1886 – 29 April 1956). Astor specialized in film re-releases. It later release ...
; after one more release in December, the brand was dropped.
Filmography
The
List of RKO Pictures films includes all of the RKO Pathé feature releases, but does not distinguish them from the films made by RKO's main production division, then branded as "Radio Pictures". For the RKO Pathé features, se
The Early Sound Films of Pathé(1931–32).
Pathé Laboratories Inc. acquired a controlling interest in PRC in early January 1942 and purchased it outright by late February.
[ ]
List of Pathé-America films
* ''
The Deadly Companions'' (June 1961, Carousel Productions)
* ''Run Across the River'' (November 1961, Cameo Productions)
* ''
Fear No More'' (November 1961, Scaramouche Productions)
* ''
Victim'' (February 1962,
Allied Film Makers (AFM) K
* ''
Whistle Down the Wind'' (April 1962, AFM/Beaver Films
K
* ''
Paradise Alley
''Paradise Alley'' is a 1978 American sports drama film written, directed by, and starring Sylvester Stallone (in his feature directorial debut). The film tells the story of three Italian American brothers in Hell's Kitchen in the 1940s who be ...
'' (c. April/May 1962, Sutton Pictures)
* ''
The Intruder'' (May 1962, Los Altos Productions)
* ''
Out of the Tiger's Mouth'' (December 1962, Ruggles-Whelan Enterprises)
References
External links
Producers Releasing Corporation Early Television Rightsclose analysis of PRC/Pathé rights and business history
Eagle-Lion Legal Filecatalog entry for Eagle-Lion/Pathé document holdings at Wisconsin Historical Society Archives
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pathe Exchange
1904 establishments in New York (state)