| 1909 |
 Chronomedia index
Numbers after entries link to the list of references. |
links and notes |
| February 26 |
The first Kinemacolor presentation to a paying
audience is made at the Palace Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, London. The programme includes 21 films. The
first film made in the system is G A Smith's A Visit to the Seaside, featuring scenes of Brighton. |
 |
| February |
 Congress International des Editeurs du Film (International Film Publishers Congress)
convenes in Paris under the chairmanship of Georges Méliès [fourth from left in the front row], at least in
part to consider the threat poses by the Motion Picture Patent Company. It
is agreed by resolution that all films will be rented rather than sold outright, adopting the practice
being established by Pathé Frères. |
|
| March |
People’s Institute of New York and Dr Charles Sprague Smith set up the National
Board of Censorship of Motion Pictures (later National Board of Review) and begin film censorship,
responding to public pressure for official censorship. |
|
| March |
Having acquired five-year
rights to exploit G A Smith’s Kinemacolor colour film system,
Charles Urban establishes the Natural Colour Kinematograph Company. |
â December 11
|
| April |
First large-scale orchestral gramophone recording, Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker
Suite, made in London for German Odeon company by London Palace Orchestra conducted by Hermann
Finck; recordings took three days to complete at reported (but questionable) cost of ‘upwards
of £800’; four double-sided discs in a special album sold for 16s (80p). |
|
| l |
French four-reel version of Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, produced by Pathé,
is the first European feature film specifically written for the screen. |
|
| September 18 |
First of four reels of the Vitagraph production of Les Misérables is released
in US; the producers do not think the American public is prepared to watch a film lasting over an hour.
However, exhibitors also stand to lose out from the increasing length of films as they are no longer
able to compile individually a programme of short films to suit their audiences. |
|
| November 25 |
Cinematograph Act introduces controls over UK exhibition, requiring cinemas to be licensed
by local authorities. Introduced by Home Secretary Herbert Gladstone, this is the first UK legislation
specially concerned with cinemas, resulting from concern over fires caused by the highly combustible
nitrate film stocks. |
Cinematograph Act 1909 |
| l |
First censorship action is taken against films in the US on a local basis. |
|
| November |
Provincial Cinematograph Theatres (PCT) is founded in the UK with £100,000 capital, with
the aim of opening a cinema in every town with a population of 250,000 or more. The chairman is
Sir William Bass, the managing director R T Jupp. |
à 1913 |
| December 4 |
The Life of Moses, produced in five reels by Vitagraph, is released in five
separate parts. |
|
| December 11 |
Kinemacolor is demonstrated at Madison Square Garden, New York. |
à 1910 |
| December 20 |
Volta Picture Theatre, Ireland’s first cinema, opens in Mary Street, Dublin
(in a disused warehouse), managed by James Joyce and with a group of Italian backers. |
|
| l |
Ruhmer demonstrates successfully a ‘television’ system. |
|
| l |
Ninety cinemas are now open in London. |
|
| l |
Exchange Hall cinema opens in Blackburn, Lancashire in a former cloth hall. [It
is renovated as the New Majestic in 1924, becomes the Essoldo in 1956 and is later called the Classic,
Unit Four and the Apollo.] It is probably the oldest cinema building still operational in the UK. |
à 1910 |
| l |
Pathé has a chain of 200 cinemas in France and Belgium. |
|
| l |
Danish distributor Fotorama introduces 'stable customer service', probably the first
instance of block-booking of films in cinema practice. Exhibitors sign up for a package of films of
varying appeal in order to secure the most desirable titles. |
|
| l |
Purpose-built cinema with 4,000 seats, the largest to date, is opened in Melbourne,
Australia by T J West. Another Australian exhibitor, J D Williams, opens the Colonial Cinema in Sydney
to run with continuous programming between 11:00 and 23:00 daily. |
|
| l |
English producer Cecil Hepworth introduces the Vivaphone system in which performers
mime on film to pre-recorded 10-inch audio records. Gramophone records and short films are leased
to cinemas between now and 1913. |
|
| l |
By now, Edwin S Porter is producing one 15-minute film every three days for the Edison company. |
|
| l |
Champion Film Company builds a studio at Coytesville, near Fort Lee, New Jersey. Its
design is deliberately 'un-movie-like' to avoid the attention of the Motion Picture Patent Company
('The Trust'), of which Champion is not a member. |
à 1912 |
| l |
Closure of Edison’s European audio cylinder plants marks effective end of
the cylinder audio format in Europe. |
|
| l |
Birth of the Hong Kong film industry, with at least four short dramatic films
directed by Benjamin Polaski for Asia Film Company. |
|
| l |
 The Gramophone
and Typewriter Company adopts the trademark based on Francis Barrault’s painting of
the dog Nipper for the British company and its new record label
His Master’s Voice (HMV). |
|
| l |
Messter Company in Germany experiments with a cinema plan in which its Alabastra
colour pictures are projected via a series of mirrors from a booth beneath the auditorium. |
|
| l |
First large-scale orchestral recordings are issued by Odeon in England. |
|
| l |
Guglielmo Marconi is awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics. |
|
