Biograph Studios
Encyclopedia
American Mutoscope and Biograph Company
The American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, was a motion picture company founded in 1895 and active until 1928. It was the first company in the United States devoted entirely to film production and exhibition, and for two decades was one of the most prolific, releasing over three thousand short...
, at 807 E. 175th Street, in the Bronx, New York.
In 1913, the Biograph Company moved its facilities from its location at 11 East 14th Street in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
to the new facilities in the Bronx. The studio property was also leased out to other production companies after Biograph ceased producing new films in 1916.
When the Biograph Company fell on financial hard times, the studio facilities were acquired by one of Biograph Company's creditors, the Empire Trust Company
Empire Trust Company
Empire Trust Company was a trust company established in 1902 by McVickar Realty Trust Company in New York, NY.-History:On March 1, 1904, the company was acquired by merger by the Empire State Trust Company, and changed its name to the Empire Trust Company....
, although Biograph Company continued to manage the studio.
Herbert Yates
Herbert Yates
Herbert John Yates was the founder and president of Republic Pictures, famous for being the home of John Wayne, Gene Autry, and Roy Rogers...
acquired the Biograph Studios properties and Film laboratory facilities in 1928. Biograph Studios facilities in the Bronx was made a subsidiary of his Consolidated Film Industries
Consolidated Film Industries
Consolidated Film Industries was a film laboratory, and film processing company, and was the leading film laboratory in the Los Angeles area for many decades. CFI processed negatives and made prints for motion pictures and television...
.
Some advertising films and a few feature film
Feature film
In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...
s were made at the studio in the 1930s, including Midnight
Midnight (1934 film)
Midnight is a 1934 film noir directed by Chester Erskine and starring Sidney Fox, O.P. Heggie, Henry Hull, Margaret Wycherly, and Humphrey Bogart. The film was re-released as Call It Murder after Bogart became a movie star. His credit was enlarged to a guest star status although Bogart was...
(1934), Woman in the Dark
Woman in the Dark (1934 film)
Woman in the Dark is a American film directed by Phil Rosen, filmed at Biograph Studios by Select Pictures, released by RKO Radio Pictures, and starring Fay Wray.- Plot summary :...
(1934), The Crime of Dr. Crespi
The Crime of Dr. Crespi
The Crime of Dr. Crespi is a horror film starring Erich von Stroheim, Harriet Russell, Paul Guilfoyle, Jean Brooks , John Bohn, and Dwight Frye, and released by Republic Pictures....
(1935), Manhattan Merry-Go-Round
Manhattan Merry-Go-Round (film)
Manhattan Merry-Go-Round is a 1937 American film directed by Charles Reisner. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Art Direction by John Victor Mackay.The film is also known as Manhattan Music Box in the United Kingdom.- Cast :...
(1937), the Yiddish-language folk drama Tevye
Tevye (film)
Tevye is an American film adaptation of Sholem Aleichem's story of the same name, also known as Tevya, Tevye der Milchiker, or Tevye the Milkman.-Production background:...
(1939), and the Oscar Micheaux
Oscar Micheaux
Oscar Devereaux Micheaux was an American author, film director and independent producer of more than 44 films...
production The Notorious Elinor Lee
The Notorious Elinor Lee
The Notorious Elinor Lee is a race film directed, written, and co-produced by the African American filmmaker Oscar Micheaux.-Plot:Elinor Lee, a gangster’s moll living in the Harlem section of New York City, has signed up-and-coming boxer Benny Blue to a 10-year contract...
(1940).
However, the studio's principal activity in that decade was the production of shorts for Universal
Universal Pictures
-1920:* White Youth* The Flaming Disc* Am I Dreaming?* The Dragon's Net* The Adorable Savage* Putting It Over* The Line Runners-1921:* The Fire Eater* A Battle of Wits* Dream Girl* The Millionaire...
, Columbia
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
, and RKO
RKO Pictures
RKO Pictures is an American film production and distribution company. As RKO Radio Pictures Inc., it was one of the Big Five studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chains and Joseph P...
, mostly involving New York-based actors and entertainers. The studio suspended operations in 1939, due partly to curtailment of the activities of independent producers because of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and partly to a decline in the commercial film market, according to its general manager. At this time, the remaining Biograph film collection was donated to the film department of the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
.
The Soundies
Soundies
Soundies were an early version of the music video: three-minute musical films, produced in New York City, Chicago, and Hollywood between 1940 and 1946, often including short dance sequences. The completed Soundies were generally released within a few months of their filming; the last group was...
Distributing Corporation filmed at the Biograph Studios in 1944.
Empire Trust later assigned management of the property to one of its own subsidiaries, The Actinograph Corp., which held it until 1948.
Martin Poll (who later became New York's Commissioner of Motion Picture Arts) restored Biograph Studios and reopened it in 1956 as the Gold Medal Studios, the largest film studio in America outside the Los Angeles area. Poll sold the property in 1961, when it was incorporated into a newer company, Biograph Studios, Inc. in 1961, unrelated to the original Biograph Company corporation.
The television series The Naked City
The Naked City
The Naked City is a 1948 black-and-white film noir directed by Jules Dassin. The movie, shot partially in documentary style, was filmed on location on the streets of New York City, featuring landmarks such as the Williamsburg Bridge the Whitehall Building and an apartment building on West 83rd...
, Car 54, Where Are You?
Car 54, Where Are You?
Car 54, Where Are You? is an American sitcom that ran on NBC from 1961 to 1963. Episodes had various directors, the most recognized being Al De Caprio. Stanley Prager and Nat Hiken also directed several episodes. Most of its filming was on location in The Bronx, and at Biograph...
, and East Side/West Side
East Side/West Side
East Side/West Side is an American drama series starring George C. Scott, Elizabeth Wilson, Cicely Tyson, and later on, Linden Chiles. The series aired for only one season and was shown Monday nights on CBS.-Synopsis:...
, and movies like A Face in the Crowd, Odds Against Tomorrow
Odds Against Tomorrow
Odds Against Tomorrow is a 1959 film noir produced and directed by Robert Wise for HarBel Productions, a company founded by the film's star, Harry Belafonte. Belafonte selected Abraham Polonsky to write the script, which is based on a novel by William P. McGivern. As a blacklisted writer Polonsky...
, The Fugitive Kind, The Goddess, Pretty Boy Floyd, BUtterfield 8
BUtterfield 8
BUtterfield 8 is a 1960 Metrocolor drama film directed by Daniel Mann, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Laurence Harvey. Taylor, then 28 years old, won an Academy Award for her performance...
, The Incident, and John and Mary were filmed there. Biograph Studios went dormant again in the 1970s before the studio facilities burned down in 1980.
The brick building that housed the Biograph studios is now The Loft apartments on Fourth Ave.
Further reading
- Richard Koszarski, Hollywood on the Hudson: Film and Television in New York from Griffith to Sarnoff, Rutgers University Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0813542935.