Film 106A

King Vidor

Very successful director in Hollywood. Possessed a refined art collection. 1. Made huge money-making films but also made smaller, more-artistic films interspersed in there as well. 2. Worked w/ MGM and RKO.

Tom Mix

Western Star when westerns changed to pure fun.

RCA and RKO

one of the big 5 studios on the golden era. the RCA radio brought together the kao theater chains and the FBO studios.

Douglas Fairbanks

(May 23, 1883 - December 12, 1939) American actor, producer, director and screenwriter. Known for his roles in silent films such as The Thief of Bagdad, Robin Hood, and The Mark of Zorro. Married to Mary Pickford from 1920 - 1936, and together, the couple became Hollywood royalty. He became known as "The King of Hollywood."

The Warner Bros.

- the first company to begin making sound films - originally wanted to be just like Paramount, which hadn't started making sound films yet, so WB was reluctant at first - finally decided to be different from all other companies - made Don Juan films which turned out to be successful - later began to incorporate music/songs into their films - made The Jazz Singer which was so successful that it led to the widespread use of sound by all other companies - made the first movie with dialogue from beginning to end

Block-booking

..., An early tactic of movie studios to control exhibition, involving pressuring theater operators to accept marginal films with no stars in order to get access to films with the most popular stars

Will Hays

..., United States lawyer and politician who formulated a production code that prescribed the moral content of United states films from 1930 to 1966 (1879-1954)

Vertical integration

..., absorption into a single firm of several firms involved in all aspects of a product's manufacture from raw materials to distribution

Picture palace

..., large, elaborately decorated movie theaters built between the 1910s and the 1940s had child care, huge foyers, 40 ushers and doormen

Audion tube

..., vacuum tube developed by DeForest that became the basic invention for all radio and television

Clara Bow

1. First "flapper." Modern women w/ short hair that was all for women's rights. 2. She was known as the "It" girl: drank from a flask, danced the charleston, had short bobbed hair.

Thomas Edison

1. Liked to think of himself as inventor of cinema. Not really true. 2. WKL Dickson invented the Kinteoscope/graph under his supervision. 3. Gobbled up all the patents in the U.S. he could, even if he had little grounds for them. 4. Formed the "Trust" or the Motion Picture Patents Co w/ several other studios in an attempt to monopolize the industry.

Fatty Arbuckle

1. Mentor to Chaplin @ Keystone. 2. Scandal w/ rape & murder of Virginia Rappe. 3. Acquitted but career irrevocably ruined.

Studio system

A model of industrial organization in the film industry from about 1915 to 1946, characterized by the development of major and minor studios that produced, distributed, and exhibited films, and held film actors, directors, art directors, and other technical crew under contract.

Kinetoscope

A moving-picture device, invented by Thomas Edison and his associates in 1892, that allowed one person at a time to watch a motion picture by looking through the viewer.

Rudolph Valentino

A popular, attractive actor in silent films. Well known for his role in "The Sheik".

Al Jolson

A vaudeville performer who starred in the first sound movie and enthralled people with his amazing performance of singing, dancing, and speech that no one had ever experienced.

Carl Laemmle

Came up with the idea of creating a star who is credited with the idea that people will then want to pay to see them. "The Star System"; founder of universal studios

Lee De Forest

Considered the "father" of radio broadcasting technology because of his invention that permitted reliable voice transmissions for both point-to-point communication and broadcasting.

Production Code Administration

Created in 1934, set of rules that control the content of the movie, lasted until 1968 when it was replaced by rating system

Edwin S. Porter

Employee of Edison who began making early films for the Edison Company. Director of "The Great Train Robbery". This film is considered by many to be the first narrative film (1903)

William S. Hart

Entered films when he was 50. He played weather-beaten, world-weary roles. His characters were often criminals or men w/ shady pasts, redeemed by love. "Good-badman" persona.

D.W. Griffith

First started as a play writer in new york, then an actor for the biograph and later became a movie director. he carried the motion picture into the new era with his silent epics (The Birth of a Nation, Intolerance, etc.) which introduced serious plots and elaborate productions to filmmaking. Motion pictures were the first truly mass entertainment medium. was part of united artists with "mary pickford, chaplin and fairbanks.

Mary Pickford

First superstar in film, known as the "girl with the golden hair". Spurned the use of the "star system" as a risk reduction strategy. 1. "America's Sweetheart" star who played the sweet virginal girl roles for a very long time (too long?) 2. Also a co-founder of United Artists. 3. Married Fairbanks and created "Pickfair" in BV Hills.

Mack Sennett

Founded Keystone Studios and essentially created the slapstick genre that was later perfected and enhanced by early comic film actors.

William Fox

Founder of Fox Film Corporation, also worked to film outside the restrictions of the Trust.

Adolph Zukor

Innovative creator of Paramount as a major movie studio

Biograph

Invented in 1895 by Dikson. Mary pickford was an actor of this films and the greatest contributions to the cinema come from their greatest director/writer/ actor D.W. Griffith. the company form part of the trust and was also affected when they were sued ... the studios were sold in 1928 because dickson did not transition well into feature films.

Mae West

Known for her bawdy double entendres, West made a name for herself in Vaudeville and on the stage in New York before moving to Hollywood to become a comedienne, actress and writer in the motion picture industry. One of the more controversial movie stars of her day, West encountered many problems including censorship." overly sexual woman"

Loew's (MGM)

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures. great actors like greta garbo. one of the first to experiment with technicolor.

Cecil B. DeMille

Motion picture producer and director, he was famous for Biblical films and epic movies. 1. Made The Squaw Man, first feature film 2. Made high-budget, simpler films where the "money was on the screen" in elaborate sets and costumes. 3. Leading director at Paramount for a long time.

Hal Roach

Receiving his Honorary Oscar in 1984. Achieved immortality in TV syndication as "the Little Rascals". actor producer and director.

Greta Garbo

Swedish actress who often played a doomed beauty, direct and unhesitating in her speech and actions

Nickelodeon

The first permanent movie theatre in America, which was converted from a store, opened in 1905; it was called a nickelodeon because admission to the theatre cost a nickel. 20 min films

The Motion Picture Patents

The Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC, also known as the Edison Trust), founded in December 1908, was a trust of all the major American film companies (Edison, Biograph, Vitagraph, Essanay, Selig, Lubin, Kalem, Star Film Company, American Pathé), the leading film distributor (George Kleine) and the biggest supplier of raw film stock, Eastman Kodak. The MPPC ended the domination of foreign films on American screens, standardized the manner in which films were distributed and exhibited in America, and improved the quality of American motion pictures by internal competition. But it also discouraged its members' entry into feature film production, and the use of outside financing, both to its members' eventual detriment.

Movietone (Fox)

The Movietone sound system is a sound-on-film method of recording sound for motion pictures that guarantees synchronization between sound and picture. It achieves this by recording the sound as a variable-density optical track on the same strip of film that records the pictures. Movietone entered commercial use when William Fox of the Fox Film Corporation bought the entire system including the patents in July 1926.

Vaudeville

The most popular-and diverse-form of theatrical entertainment in the late nineteenth century, vaudeville "variety" shows featured comedians, singers, musicians, blackface minstrels, farcical plays, animal acts, jugglers, gymnasts, dancers, mimes, and magicians, and appealed to all social classes and types.

Erich von Stroheim

United States film actor (born in Austria) (1885-1957). As director was responsible for shifting the balance of power from the creative to the business end.Films went way over budget and were very lengthy. Highly-artistic protege of DW Griffith 3. Wanted adult films w/ dark, heavy, hard-hitting themes 4. Liked/wanted to include graphic sex scenes 5. Wore out his welcome just about everywhere

Eadweard Muybridge

United States motion-picture pioneer remembered for his pictures of running horses taken with a series of still cameras (1830-1904) he invented the zoopraxiscope

Florence Lawrence

Was a Canadian inventor and silent film actress. She is often referred to as "The First Movie Star." When she was popular, she was known as "The Biograph Girl," "The Imp Girl," and "The Girl of a Thousand Faces." Lawrence appeared in close to 300 films for various motion picture companies.

Western Electric

Western Electric Company (sometimes abbreviated WE and WECo) was an American electrical engineering and manufacturing company, the supplier to AT&T from 1881 to 1995. this company licensed sound motion pictures.

Charlie Chaplin

a funny Englishman working in Hollywood that was unquestionably the king of the "silver screen" in the 1920's. He symbolized the "gay spirit of laughter in a cruel and crazy world." He also demonstrated that in the hands of a genius, the new medium could combine mass entertainment and artistic accomplishment.

Buster Keaton

an American comic actor and filmmaker.He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".

"B" movies

are cheaply and quickly made genre films

mutoscope

created by the biograph company under dicksons watch. it had postard-size flipcards instead of the strip film that the kinetoscope had.

Famous Players/Paramount

created in 1912 by ZUkor. it had feature films and short films showing major league players and they games. It was later marged with LAskys production company to distribute films for paramount.

Phonofilm (De Forest)

first patents on the sound system project. created by de forest, recorded sound on film as pararel lines.

IMP/Universal

founded by Laemmle. it was a independent film corporation that was later absorbed in 1912 and became Universal Film manufacturing company.

Fox

fox film corporation was created by merging the production company fox and the distribution company known as greater new york film rental. When fox declares backrupcy the corporation merges with Twentieth century and is what we now know as twentieth century fox.

Georges Melies

magician; first master of mise-en-scene; made fantasy & trick films; directed "A Trip to the Moon"; first linear editing film.1. Master/Pioneer of Trick Photography 2. Progenitor of Science Fiction (he was French) 3. Trip to the Moon 4. Hugo

Sam "Roxy" Rothafel

managed and owned many Deluxe Theaters - thought people should be treated like kings when they came to see a movie, get the best service - Deluxe Theaters showed longer films, could seat up to 6,000 people, had live music, weekly change of program, and there were lights everywhere to attract people inside

Vitaphone (Warner Bros.)

only one that was commercially used. it was a sound on disc method.

Edison

produced the First commercially exhibited motion pictures in the United States and was played in a kinetograph. created the trust to control the industry better and when they were sued edison sold his films and closed down his studios.

The Lumiere Brothers

produced the first satisfactory large-screen projector.copied edisons kinescope and created the cinematographe with was much lighter but slower motion..

Warner Bros.

sam, jack, albert and harry. quality entertainment. introduced the jazz singer and the first talkie. created around 1918.

Photophone (RKO)

sound on film. synchronizing electrically recorded audio to a motion picture image.

W.K.L. Dickson

starts as edisons assistant. leaves him creates the mutoscope and becomes his competitor.

Feature film

the principal (full-length) film in a program at a movie theater

United artists

wanting to control their career better, chaplin pickford fairbanks and griffith created this 20% ownership each with their lawyer and produced films.

Joseph Breen

was an American film censor. He worked for more than two decades with the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America to enforce the so-called Hays Code in film production

First National

was an association of independent theater owners in the United States that expanded from exhibiting movies to distributing them, and eventually to producing them as a movie studio. In 1928-1960, it merged with Warner Bros. produced the movie the kid. and it had a major rivalry with paramount pictures.

Thomas Ince

was the first executive producer in Hollywood and devised the plan for successful studio management. He introduced detailed shooting scripts, tight schedules, and production notes. introduced the studio system. He died mysteriously aboard Hearst's yacht

William Hodkinson

was the first national distributor-->owned 11 distribution facilities-->created Paramount 1914 didnt want to enter into production or exhibition b/c considered them too messy