Date

Event

2^nd February

Charlie Chaplin makes his screen debut in Making a Living, a Keystone Kops comedy also featuring Mabel Normand and Roscoe Arbuckle. Chaplin plays a character called Edgar English.

7^th February

Chaplin’s Little Tramp character makes his first appearance in the Henry Lehrman short, Kid Auto Races at Venice.

7^th February

Vitagraph begin making films of four reels or more which premiere at the Vitagraph Theatre on the corner of Forty-Fourth Street and Broadway. The 1000-seat theatre is decorated in the French Renaissance style and features a $30,000 Wurlitzer organ.

10^th February

Famous Players release Hearts Adrift, a four-reel drama starring Mary Pickford and Harold Lockwood. It is their first movie made in California.

15^th February

The Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Co release Cecil B. DeMille’s The Squaw Man, the first feature film made in Hollywood. Stage actor Dustin Farnum stars.

February

Universal release husband-and-wife team Phillips Smalley and Lois Weber’s The Merchant of Venice, the first feature film directed by a woman. They also star as Shylock and Portia.

8^th March

Five months after the departure of its director, Biograph release D. W. Griffith’s Judith of Bethulia, a four-reel religious epic starring Blanche Sweet and Henry B. Walthall. It is the studio’s last major release.

23^rd March

The 20-chapter serial The Perils of Pauline, in which Pearl White plays an heiress subjected to repeated murder attempts by her guardian (Paul Panzer), premieres at Loew’s Broadway Theatre in New York.

28^th March

A massive fire destroys part of the interior of Edison’s studio at Decatur Avenue and Oliver Place in the Bronx, New York.

30^th March

Tess of the Storm Country, in which Mary Pickford is billed as ‘America’s Foremost Film Actress’, is released.

March

D. W. Griffith sends Raoul Walsh to Mexico to make a film of Pancho Villa’s exploits after Mutual executive Frank Thayer agrees a deal in which the revolutionary leader will receive fifty per cent of any profits.

11^th April

Selig Polyscope release Colin Campbell’s The Spoilers, an adaptation of the Rex Beach novel. It premieres at Samuel ‘Roxy’ Rothapfel’s new Strand Theatre, the first movie palace to be built exclusively to show pictures.

12^th April

The Battle of the Sexes, D. W. Griffith’s first film for Majestic since leaving Biograph, is released. Lillian Gish stars opposite Donald Crisp.

25^th April

Australian international swimming star Annette Kellerman makes her screen debut in Universal’s Neptune’s Daughter, directed by Herbert Brenon.

April

The Trust’s General Film Company announces it is to open a separate department to handle the distribution of films four reels or longer.

4^th May

Caught in the Rain, the first film confirmed to have been both written and directed by its star Charlie Chaplin, is released.

8^th May

W. W. Hodkinson renames his Progressive Pictures distribution company after discovering the name is already in use. The name he chooses is Paramount Pictures.

15^th May

W. W. Hodkinson’s Paramount Pictures sign a five-year distribution deal with Adolph Zukor’s Famous Players, the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Co and Bosworth Inc.

May

Maurice Tourneur arrives in New York from France to assume the role of producer-director at Éclair’s recently expanded studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey.

13^th June

A fire rips through Siegmund Lubin’s Lubinville studios in Philadelphia, destroying the company’s entire back-catalogue of movies.

4^th July

D. W. Griffith begins filming The Clansman, an epic tale of the American Civil War which will be released as The Birth of a Nation. The $40,000 budget will rise to more than $100,000.

28^th July

War breaks out in Europe, resulting in the swift decline of its film industry and a corresponding boost to American filmmakers. By the end of the war in 1918, the United States will be the world’s dominant film-making nation.

10^th October

Japanese actor Sessue Hayakawa becomes the first foreign actor to establish a Hollywood acting career with the release of Reginald Barker’s The Typhoon. Also among the cast are his wife, Tsuru Aoki, and future director Frank Borzage.

Early November

D. W. Griffith completes four months filming of The Clansman. Although Mutual provided finance of $59,000, Griffith relied on loans and outside investors to provide a further $40,000+.

3^rd December

The Bargain, William S. Hart’s first feature, is released.

19^th December

Animator Earl Hurd submits a patent application for cel animation, the process of overlaying moving characters or objects over a stationary painted background.

21^st December

Mack Sennett’s Tillie’s Punctured Romance, the world’s first feature-length comedy, is released. Marie Dressler stars as a character she will play twice again. Charlie Chaplin and Mabel Normand provide support.

28^th December

William Fox’s Box Office Attraction Company releases Winsor McCay’s animation Gertie the Dinosaur. The first cartoon creature with a personality is credited with inspiring Walt Disney.

December

Charlie Chaplin signs with Essanay following the end of his contract with Keystone. He receives $1,250 per week plus a $10,000 bonus and is promised artistic control of his films.

Pathé America changes its name to Pathé Exchange as it shifts focus from producing films in the United States to distributing them

Lewis J. Selznick founds the World Film Corporation.