| 1917 |
 Chronomedia index
Numbers after entries link to the list of references. |
links and notes |
| January (late) |
Akira Katsurahara, wireless officer on the Japanese passenger liner Mishima
Maru off the Indian Ocean coast of Africa, has to find a word for his log to describe an
unidentified continuous radio transmission warning of German raiders disguised as merchant ships in
the area. He coins hoso. This becomes the Japanese word for ‘broadcasting’, officially
adopted by the Ministry of Communications in 1919. |
|
| January 30 |
Columbia Record Company in New York City
records what is claimed to be the first ever jazz record: The Darktown Stutters Ball
by the all-white Original Dixieland Jassband. It is released on March 5 and its
success triggers the upsurge of popular dance music on record, which rapidly
becomes the most popular genre. |
See 1915 December |
| April 17 |
US government cancels all amateur wireless transmission licences, the day after
declaring war. |
The ban lasts 2½ years until
1919 October 1 |
| April |
Animated film production begins at two Japanese studios, Nikkatsu (Nippon Katsudou Shashin
Kabushiki-kaisha, Nippon Motion Pictures) and Tenkatsu (Tennenshoku Katsudo Shashin Kabushiki-kaisha,
Colour Motion Pictures). |
|
| August |
Lucien Lévy takes out his first patent on
superheterodyne transmission |
à
1918 |
| August |
In Japan, the Motion Picture Rules and Regulations are promulgated by the National
Police Agency. Men and women must sit in separate parts of the theatre |
|
| l |
National Council of Public Morals reports on UK film and education. |
|
| September 12 |
August Arnold and Robert Richter—later to invent the Arriflex camera—begin
working together in Munich. |
Arriflex |
| October 17 |
Radio Corporation of America (RCA) is incorporated. |
|
| October 22 |
Victor Records holds the first recording
session for the Philadelphia Orchestra under its conductor Leopold Stokowski |
|
| October |
Balaban & Katz open the Central Park Theater in Chicago. An instant success,
it leads to rapid expansion of the company’s cinema chain. |
|
| December 14 |
Universum-Film AG (Ufa) is formed in Germany by buying up film production and distribution
companies, including Messter, Nordisk, PAGV, Union and several smaller firms, including BB-Film, Gloria and
Joe May Film. Ufa immediately becomes Germany’s leading film enterprise with full vertical integration.
The government plays a part in brokering the arrangements and provides hidden investments. |
See also 1921 |
| l |
UK government sets up a Department of Information, headed by novelist John Buchan,
with the intention of using film as one medium of communication. Some productions are made at the British
Oak/New Agency film studio in Ebury Street, Westminster, London. |
|
| l |
Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC), formed in
1908 to create a US movie industry
monopoly, is finally dissolved by federal court order. |
US anti-trust enforcement delays |
| l |
Fox Film Company moves to Hollywood. |
|
| l |
Mary Pickford earns $10,000 a week as a film actress. |
|
| l |
British patent (no 107167) is granted to an American telegraph engineer, William Baldwin
Vansize of 233 Broadway, New York, for a system providing each performer in a film with an individual
battery-powered microphone that sends its signals by radio waves for recording on a steel tape or wire
synchronised with the advance of the film in the camera.
[0028] |
|
| l |
Neptune Film Studios at Elstree ceases production. Another studio, at Esher, south-west
of London, reacts to wartime difficulties by offering training courses to cater for ‘the big boom
in the British film industry’. |
|
| l |
First feature film made in Czechoslovakia is Prazšti Adamité (The Prague
Adamites), directed by Antonin Fencl for Lucemafilm. |
|
| l |
Daily Express newspaper proprietor Max
Aitken is awarded a peerage; he takes the title Lord Beaverbrook. |
|
| l |
During the First World War, the German government creates over 900 makeshift cinemas
in the front lines for entertainment of the troops. |
|
