1. "Legitimate Competition," MPW , 13 June 1908, p. 507. [BACK]

2. "New Film Factories," MPW , 29 August 1908, p. 155. [BACK]

3. William Swanson to Frank Dyer, 18 June 1908, NjWOE. [BACK]

4. Carl Laemmle to Frank Dyer, 6 May 1908, NjWOE. [BACK]

5. T. L. Tally to Dwight McDonald, 26 August 1908, NjWOE. [BACK]

6. Harry N. Marvin, testimony, 15 January 1913, United States v. Motion Picture Patents Co ., p. 11. [BACK]

7. Ramsaye, Million and One Nights , p. 471. [BACK]

8. Hector J. Streyckmans, testimony, 8 July 1913, United States v. Motion Picture Patents Co ., p. 965. [BACK]

9. "Fight Settlement Expected," Variety , 8 August 1908, p. 10. [BACK]

10. "Moving Picture Peace Strongly Rumored About," Variety , 15 August 1908, p. 11. [BACK]

11. "Italian Cines Out," Variety , 15 August 1908, p. 11; "Advance in Price of Films," MPW , 22 August 1908, p. 135. [BACK]

12. "Pathe Will Not Invade Rental Field," MPW , 12 September 1908, p. 191. [BACK]

13. "Settlement Talk Going On," Variety , 19 September 1908, p. 11. [BACK]

14. Léon Gaumont and George Kleine, memorandum of agreement, 23 September 1908, NNMoMA. [BACK]

15. "The Renters and the Rumored Merger," MPW , 17 October 1908, p. 295. [BACK]

16. "Association of Film Manufacturers," MPW , 14 November 1908, p. 375. [BACK]

17. "The Film Service Problem," MPW , 21 November 1908, p. 395. [BACK]

18. MPW , 14 November 1908, p. 375. [BACK]

19. American Mutoscope & Biograph Company, sales records, 1908-9, NNMoMA. [BACK]

20. Ramsaye, Million and One Nights , p. 472. [BACK]

21. "Postpone Convention till Film Peace Pact Is Made," Variety , 21 November 1908, p. 13. [BACK]

22. "Among the Renters," MPW , 5 December 1908, p. 443. Sixty days' advance notice was required for any contractual changes between FSA members and the Edison-licensed manufacturers. [BACK]

23. For more information on the Motion Picture Patents Company, see Janet Staiger, "Combination and Litigation: Structures of U.S. Film Distribution, 1891-1917," Cinema Journal 23 (Winter 1984): 41-72; Robert J. Anderson, "The Motion Picture Patents Company" (Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1983); Gunning, ''D. W. Griffith and the Narrator-System." [BACK]

24. These agreements and related documents were published in United States v. Motion Picture Patents Co ., pp. 16-145. [BACK]

25. A new agreement was to be made with Gaston Méliès on 20 July 1909. See George Melies Co. v. Motion Picture Patents Co., et al ., printed record, NjWOE. [BACK]

26. Hector J. Streyckmans, testimony, United States v. Motion Picture Patents Co ., pp. 966-67. [BACK]

27. Ralph Cassady, Jr., "Monopoly in Motion Picture Production and Distribution, 1908-1915," Southern California Law Review 32 (Summer 1959): 325-90, provides a useful overview of the Motion Picture Patents Co. An abridged version of this article appears in Gorham Kindem, ed., American Movie Industry , pp. 25-67. [BACK]

28. William Selig to Frank Dyer, 21 January 1909; Motion Picture Patents Company, "Meeting Held January 26, 1909," NjWOE. [BACK]

29. "The Conditions of License," MPW , 23 January 1909, p. 85. [BACK]

30. "Manufacturers Assume Control of All Moving Pictures," Variety , 16 January 1909, p. 13. [BACK]

31. Approximately 5,000 theaters were licensed during the first year, with each paying $104 per year. [BACK]

32. Motion Picture Patents Co. v. Viascope Manufacturing Company , no. 29,514, C.C.N.D.I., filed 28 September 1909, ICFAR. [BACK]

33. This agreement was apparently enforced; $150 was the lowest figure cited after 1 May 1909 in MPW . Most advertisements, moreover, stopped citing prices as a way to entice prospective purchasers (see, for instance, MPW , 22 May 1909, p. 661). This suggests that competition by pricing was reduced, if not eliminated. [BACK]

34. Cassady, "Monopoly in Motion Picture Production and Distribution: 1908-1915," p. 332. [BACK]

35. For example, William Swanson in Show World , 6 March 1909, p. 6. [BACK]

36. Chicago Film Exchange to Exhibitors, 18 January 1909, NjWOE. [BACK]

37. Show World , 23 January 1909, p. 3. [BACK]

38. "To Handle Huge Volume of Film," Variety , 16 January 1909, p. 12. [BACK]

39. "The Position of the Independents," MPW , 16 January 1909, p. 59. [BACK]

40. "Independents Promise to Supply 25 Reels Weekly," Variety , 30 January 1909, p. 13. [BACK]

41. "The Independent Protective Association," MPW , 30 January 1909, p. 116. [BACK]

42. "Williams Refuses to Sign," Variety , 6 February 1909, p. 13. [BACK]

43. "An Exhibitor's Protest," MPW , 6 February 1909, p. 149. [BACK]

44. "Observation by Our Man-About-Town," MPW , 20 February 1909, p. 195. [BACK]

45. Show World , 6 February 1909, p. 3. Capt. L. A. Boening, former treasurer for

Page 546

William Swanson & Co., was treasurer, while Hector J. Streyckmans, business manager of the trade journal Show World , became secretary. [BACK]

46. "The International Projecting and Producing Company," MPW , 20 February 1909, p. 197. [BACK]

47. "Columbia Co. Will Soon Make Film Announcement," Variety , 13 February 1909, p. 12; Ramsaye, p. 497. [BACK]

48. "Columbia and Murdock Cos. Plan Mutuality Scheme?" Variety , 20 February 1909, p. 12. [BACK]

49. "Exchange Licenses Cancelled," MPW , 27 February 1909, p. 233. [BACK]

50. "W. H. Swanson and 'Our Man About Town,'" MPW , 13 March 1909, pp. 308-9. [BACK]

51. "Eugene Cline Also Out," Variety , 13 March 1909, p. 13; Show World , 27 March 1909, pp. 8 and 11. [BACK]

52. Carl Laemmle to MPPCo, 12 April 1909, NjWOE. [BACK]

53. "Strength of the Two Film Factions," NYDM , 1 May 1909, p. 39. [BACK]

54. MPW , 5 June 1909, pp. 740 and 871; 3 July 1909, p. 22. [BACK]

55. NYDM , 3 April 1909, p. 13. [BACK]

56. NYDM , 21 November 1908, p. 8. [BACK]

57. NYDM , 12 December 1908, p. 6. [BACK]

58. Ibid. [BACK]

59. NYDM , 19 December 1908, p. 6. [BACK]

60. NYDM , 9 January 1909, p. 9. [BACK]

61. NYDM , 2 January 1909, p. 8. [BACK]

62. NYDM , 2 January 1909, p. 8. [BACK]

63. NYDM , 23 January 1909, p. 7. [BACK]

64. Dyer to Graf, 14 December 1908, NjWOE. [BACK]

65. Copyright records, NjWOE. [BACK]

66. Fragmentary documentation leaves the historian somewhat confused on this point. Production records indicate that these employees were at the old studio, and yet only films shot by Armitage and Cronjager were then being copyrighted and released. Were Cronjager and Matthews also at the Twenty-first Street studio, in which case there were only two units, or were the films at the Twenty-first Street studio being treated differently from those made in the Bronx? [BACK]

67. Bordwell, Staiger, and Thompson, Classical Hollywood Cinema , pp. 92-127. This suggests certain modifications in Staiger's model, some of which have already been discussed. There are significant differences in organization between a single-unit production company and one with multiple units, but these differences occur for the cameraman system as well as the collaborative system. Certainly the director-unit system did not emerge out of a director system as Staiger suggests. If anything, the problems of management in multi-unit companies encouraged the emergence of the director as a key figure. Staiger's principal reasons for this shift-cost savings and the lack of personnel trained in all areas of production-are important to consider when accounting for these changes, but they are not the only ones. [BACK]

68. "Edwin S. Porter," MPW , 7 December 1912, p. 962. [BACK]

69. NYDM , 23 January 1909, p. 7. [BACK]

70. NYDM , 30 January 1909, p. 16. [BACK]

71. NYDM , 20 February 1909, p. 16. [BACK]

72. Ibid. [BACK]

73. NYDM , 30 January 1909, p. 16. [BACK]

74. NYDM , 23 January 1909, p. 7. [BACK]

75. NYDM , 30 January 1909, p. 16. [BACK]

76. M. Bradlet to Frank Dyer, 3 February 1909, NjWOE. [BACK]

77. Jack Farrell to John Pelzer, 20 April 1909, NjWOE. [BACK]

78. This fragment is at the George Eastman House. The film's story appealed to American chauvinism. A rich American tries to introduce his daughters into English society. He becomes disenchanted with European nobility and telegraphs two American boys to come over and rescue his girls from the aristocratic "monkeys." Perhaps because the Moving Picture World reviewer watched the film with an audience that gave "vent to its enthusiasm," he declared it "one of the best films to come out within the past month" ( MPW , 27 February 1909, p. 237). [BACK]

79. NYDM , 27 February 1909, p. 13. [BACK]

80. Ibid. [BACK]

81. NYDM , 6 March 1909, p. 12. [BACK]

82. NYDM , 13 March 1909, p. 16. [BACK]

83. NYDM , 20 March 1909, p. 13. [BACK]

84. Ibid. [BACK]

85. NYDM , 27 March 1909, p. 13. [BACK]

86. NYDM , 15 May 1909, p. 15. [BACK]

87. Ramsaye, Million and One Nights , p. 496. [BACK]

88. Frank Dyer to all departments, 27 March 1909, NjWOE. [BACK]

89. St. Loup may have been the sought-after European director. He had previously directed films for Théophile Pathé. [BACK]

90. Horace G. Plimpton to Frank L. Dyer, 18 August 1911, NjWOE. [BACK]

91. Edison Manufacturing Company, accounting sheet by film and director, [June-October 1909], NjWOE. [BACK]

92. Matthews continued to work as a director into the 1910s ( New York Telegraph , 30 November 1913, p. 2E). [BACK]

93. See Janet Staiger, "Dividing Labor for Production Control: Thomas Ince and the Rise of the Studio System," Cinema Journal 18, no. 2 (Spring 1979): 16-25. [BACK]

94. Frank Marion to Frank Dyer, 26 April 1909, NjWOE. [BACK]

95. Dyer to Marion, 27 April 1909, NjWOE. [BACK]

96. E. S. Porter to H. G. Plimpton, 17 June 1909, NjWOE. [BACK]

97. NYDM , 3 July 1909, p. 15. [BACK]

98. NYDM , 22 January 1910, p. 16. [BACK]

99. Horace Plimpton to Frank Dyer, 10 November 1909, NjWOE. [BACK]