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Vitagraph

Also known as: Vitagraph; primary name: Vitagraph
Details: organisation; institution/organisation; American (USA)
Other dates: 1897-22 April 1925
Biography: American Vitagraph was a United States film studio, founded by J. Stuart Blackton and Alfred E. Smith in 1897 in direct competition with Thomas Edison. The company's main studio was located in the Flatbush neighbourhood of Brooklyn, NY. The company's first claim to fame came from newsreels as Vitagraph cameramen were filmed events from the Spanish-American War of 1898. These shorts were among the first works of motion-picture propaganda, and a few had that most characteristic fault of propaganda, studio re-enactments being passed off as footage of actual events ("The Battle of Santiago Bay" was filmed in an improvised bathtub, with the "smoke of battle" provided by Mrs. Blackton's cigarette). Among their films were the five part serial "The Life of Moses", a classic silent version of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and the 1915 feature "The Battle Cry of Peace" which is regarded as one of the great propaganda films of the First World War. However, the Great War marked the beginning of the end for Vitagraph and following the loss of foreign distributors and the rise of the great production-distribution houses, Vitagraph was slowly squeezed out of the business, and on 22 April 1925, Vitagraph owner Alfred Smith sold the company to Warner Brothers for a comfortable profit.