|
Milestones and Turning Points in Film History The Year 1909 |
 Timeline of Greatest Film History Milestones and Turning Points (by decade and year) Introduction | Pre-1900s | 1900s | 1910s | 1920s | 1930s | 1940s | 1950s 1960s | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s |
| Event and Significance | |
| There were about 9,000 movie theaters in the United States. The typical film was only a single reel long, or ten- to twelve minutes in length, and the performers were anonymous. Acting in a movie was looked upon as degrading compared with stage acting, so actors were never identified by name. | |
| The Selig Polyscope Company established the first permanent film studio in the Los Angeles area, at 1845 Allesandro Street (now Glendale Blvd.) in Edendale [present day Echo Park]. The first dramatic film to be completely made on the West Coast, in Los Angeles, California, was debuted by Selig - In the Sultan's Power (1909) by director Francis Boggs. | |
| The first feature-length film produced in the US was Vitagraph's Les Miserables (1909) (each reel of the four-reel production was released separately over a two-month period) - it was based on Victor Hugo's novel. | |
| The New York Times published its first movie review on October 10, 1909 - a report on D.W. Griffith's Pippa Passes; or The Song of Conscience (1909). | |
| The first 'independent' film, arguably, was released as the first film from the newly-established IMP Company (Carl Laemmle's Independent Moving Picture Company (IMP)), founded in 1909 and located in NYC and Fort Lee, NJ. The film was the one-reel Hiawatha (1909). IMP was not affiliated with the Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC) newly-formed in 1908. [Note: Laemmle's company eventually became Universal Pictures.] | |
| Director D. W. Griffith's Biograph short A Corner in Wheat (1909) marked the first use of "freeze-frame" (actually an extended, static tableau of actors standing motionless) for jarring, dramatic effect in a shot of a breadline at a bakery. It also included an early instance of contrasting, parallel action cross-cutting. | |
| The New York Times coined the term 'stars' for leading movie players. | |
| An American court ruled that unauthorized films infringed on copyrights, in a case over an early film version of Ben-Hur (1907). As a result, film companies began buying screen rights to books and plays. | |
| Broadway star Mary Pickford signed on to appear in D.W. Griffith's (and Biograph) 10-minute short silent drama The Violin Maker of Cremona (1909), an Italian costume piece. It was Pickford's second film, although her first credited film. [She had earlier appeared as an extra in Her First Biscuits (1909), a comedy starring the first "Biograph Girl" Florence Lawrence.] In 1909 alone, Mary Pickford played 45 film roles for D.W. Griffith. | |
| Comedian Ben Turpin was mentioned in a trade journal, and became the first American film actor to have his name published. | |
| Cameraman Billy Bitzer became the first to film entirely indoors using artificial light. | |
| 35 mm width with 4 perforations per frame was recognized as the international standard film gauge. It has remained the dominant film gauge since that time. | |
| Siegmund Lubin sold his chain of theaters, incorporated the Lubin Manufacturing Company, Inc., and built a huge new film studio in North Philadelphia, called "Lubinville" (which he began to occupy in 1910). |
