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nickelodeon an early movie theater that charged an admission price of 5 cents per person
Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC) also known as the Movie Trust, Edison Trust, or the Trust, this coalition, which lasted from 1908 to 1912, was organized by the ten largest movie companies, whose producers and distributors attempted to gain complete control of the motion-picture industry in the United States primarily through control of patents
vertical integration an organization’s control over a media product from production through distribution to exhibition
studio system the approach used by American film companies to turn out their products from the early 1920s to the 1950s
star system an operation designed to find and cultivate actors under long-term contracts, with the intention of developing those actors into famous “stars” who would enhance the profitability of the studio’s films
A and B movie units an element of the studio system in which films were divided into two categories of production
A films expensively made productions featuring glamorous, high-paid movie stars
B films lower-budget films that were made quickly
The Edison Vitascope, as advertised in 1896, was a modified “Phantascope jointly designed by C. Francis Jenkins and Thomas Armat. Armat sold his rights to Edison, who then claimed the modified projector (which he dubbed the Vitascope) as his own invention. In later years, however, Edison acknowledged that the device was the work of Armat.
Until 1903, a film typically was less than a minute long, consisted of a single shot, and was generally shown during breaks between vaudeville acts. Two filmmakers who helped to change that approach were Frenchman George Melies and American Edwin S. Porter. Melies was a magician and graphic artist who made fantasy films with elaborately painted scenery and skillful camera effects; his film A Trip to the Moon is particularly well known for introducing animation and science fiction narrative to the movie business. Porter experimented with more realistic genres (he made The Life of an American Fireman and The Great Train Robbery, among other films), showing that moviemakers could go beyond simply filming stage plays and create a new art form through the use of imaginative editing and camera work. Along with close-ups and other innovations, The Great Train Robbery has a startling ending: a cowboy points his gun directly at the audience and fires a shot.
With the development of the film narrative came larger and larger audiences. Theaters called nickelodeons (so named because they charged an admission price of a nickel per person) sprouted up throughout the United States. The immigrants who were streaming into the United States from eastern and southern Europe in the early 1900s were especially attracted to nickelodeons—not only because of their low cost, but because the medium was silent. Stories were told through mime, with title cards inserted into the films at special moments to tell viewers exactly what was going on. Because a filmmaker could change the language of the titles fairly simply to suit a particular audience, and because most viewers could usually follow the action even without the titles, the movies were popular with people who had just moved to the United States and didn't speak English.
THE MPPC AND THE FIGHT OVER PATENTS By 1910, the demand for movies had become so great that small movie-production firms, many owned by immigrants, were churning out films. The biggest film companies—Edison, Biograph, and Vitagraph—all based in the New York City area, were alarmed at the competition and at the fact that the small filmmaking firms generally were not paying royalties on the patents for the camera and projection equipment that the big companies owned. In 1908, the ten largest companies banded together to form a trust called the Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC), also known as the Movie Trust, the Edison Trust, or simply the Trust. From 1908 to 1912, the MPCC attempted to gain complete control of the motion-picture industry in the United States, primarily through control of patents. The MPCC's intention was to sue any company making or projecting movies without first getting permission.
The MPPC entered into a contract with Eastman Kodak Company, the largest manufacturer of raw film stock, under which film would be supplied only to licensed members of the coalition. It even went so far as to dictate the form of the movies produced by its members and licensees. It decreed that movies should not be longer than ten minutes, because audiences would not tolerate longer films. The MPCC also refused to allow the names of actors to be listed on the screen, fearing that if actors became well known they would ask for raises.
Despite its efforts, the MPPC failed to stop its upstart competitors. Many of these new startup filmmakers were eastern European Jewish immigrants who were intent on making their fortunes in a trade that, unlike railroading, auto building, and other entrepreneurial businesses, had few startup costs. They broke the MPPC's filmmaking rules—by making longer films and revealing stars' names—and they succeeded. To escape from the demands of the MPPC, and to operate in a climate that would allow them to film year round, many of them moved their studios from New York to a suburb of Los Angeles, California, called Hollywood. The MPPC, for its part, was investigated by the federal government for antitrust violations and was dissolved by court order in 1917. (See Chapter 3 for a discussion of antitrust laws.) By 1920, the MPPC had disappeared altogether, along with the filmmaking companies that had once belonged to it.
The new immigrant-run studios, on the other hand, prospered; some eventually became the major film studios we know today—Columbia Pictures, Paramount, Warner Brothers, Universal, Twentieth Century Fox, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). Not only were large audiences in the United States eager to see the movies these studios were making, but also markets in Europe and elsewhere were wide open to them as well. Part of the reason was that the young European film industry had been destroyed during World War I. The American companies saw an opportunity for worldwide distribution of their products. By 1918, U.S. movie firms controlled about 80 percent of the world market.
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