Biograph Studios

Biograph's first studio was similar to Edison's Black Maria, pictured here, only located ...
... on the roof of 841 Broadway in Manhattan.

Biograph Studios was an early film studio and laboratory complex, built in 1912 by the Biograph Company at 807 East 175th Street, in The Bronx, New York City, New York, which was preceded by two locations in Manhattan.

History

See also: Biograph Company

841 Broadway

Biograph Studio, 11 East 14th Street (1906–1913)

The first studio of the Biograph Company, formerly American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, was located just south of Union Square on the roof of 841 Broadway at 13th Street in Manhattan, known then as the Hackett Carhart Building and today as the Roosevelt Building. The set-up was similar to Thomas Edison's "Black Maria" in West Orange, New Jersey, being mounted on circular tracks to be able to get the best possible sunlight. As of 1988, the foundations of this machinery were still extant. [1]

11 East 14th Street

The company moved in 1906 to a brownstone a few blocks away at 11 East 14th Street, where it remained until 1913. The brownstone was torn down in the 1960s. It was at this location that D. W. Griffith began as a director, and quickly became the studio's focus. Griffith found and developed for the company stars such as Florence Lawrence, Blanche Sweet, Mary Pickford, the Gish sisters - Lillian and Dorothy, Lionel Barrymore, Henry B. Walthall, Mae Marsh, Mabel Normand, Harry Carey, Owen Moore, Robert Harron and director Mack Sennett.[1] Due to their overwhelming popularity and the fact that their names were not credited, stars like Florence Lawrence and Mary Pickford became known as the 'Biograph Girls,' before screen credits began to become the norm.

The company used Fort Lee extensively for location shooting.[2]

A poster for Three Friends, a Biograph Studios release from 1913

807 East 175th Street

Griffith left Biograph in October 1913,[3] a few months after the company had begun moving its Manhattan operations to new, state-of-the-art facilities at 807 East 175th Street in The Bronx, another borough of New York City.[4][5] Without Griffith, the studio did not prosper, and the company was dissolved in 1915,[1] and the studio property was leased out to other production companies after Biograph's production stopped. The studio facilities and laboratory were acquired by one of Biograph Company's creditors, the Empire Trust Company, although some of the Biograph old management continued to manage it.[6][7] Herbert Yates acquired the Biograph Studio properties and Film laboratory facilities in 1928. Biograph Studio facilities in The Bronx were made a subsidiary of his Consolidated Film Industries.[8][9]

Some advertising films and a few feature films were made at the studio in the 1930s, including Midnight (1934), Woman in the Dark (1934), The Crime of Dr. Crespi (1935), Manhattan Merry-Go-Round (1937), the Yiddish-language folk drama Tevya (1939), and the Oscar Micheaux production The Notorious Elinor Lee (1940).

However, the studio facilities principal activity in that decade was the production of shorts for Universal, Columbia, and RKO, 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 and partly to a decline in the commercial film market, according to its general manager. At this time, the remaining Biograph films collection was donated to the film department of the Museum of Modern Art.[10] The Soundies Distributing Corporation filmed at the Biograph Studios in 1944.[11]

"Sprucing up of the Biograph Studio in the Bronx and the entrance of Fritz Mandl, former Austrian munitions tycoon, into the local film production scene last week, gave rise to reports that the long-stalled drive toward Eastern film making was again getting under way."[12]

Empire Trust later assigned management of the property to one of its own subsidiaries, The Actinograph Corp., which held it until 1948.[13]

Gold Medal Studios

Martin Poll (on July 21, 1959, sworn in as the Commissioner of Motion Picture Arts, by then Borough President of the Bronx, James J. Lyons[14]) restored the Biograph Studio facilities and reopened it in 1956 as the Gold Medal Studios.[15][16][17] Gold Medal Studios became the largest film studio in the United States outside of Los Angeles at the time of its 1956 reopening,[15] expanding in 1958.[18]

Gold Medal Studios building at 807 East 175th St & Marion Ave., in The Bronx, New York City, New York was photographed by Bronx Chamber of Commerce in 1957.[19]

Movies such as Alan Freed's Mister Rock and Roll (1957),[20] Harold Robbins' Never Love a Stranger,[20] The Goddess (1958 film),[21] Act One (film),[22] That Kind of Woman[23] A Face in the Crowd,[24] Middle of the Night[25] The Fugitive Kind,[26] Odds Against Tomorrow,[27] BUtterfield 8,[28] Girl of the Night,[29] Let's Rock,[30] and Pretty Boy Floyd (film),[31] were filmed there.

The Dick Van Dyke Show 1960 pilot, Head of the Family was filmed at Gold Medal Studios.[32][33]

Biograph Studios, Inc.

Martin Poll sold the Gold Medal Studios property in 1961,[34] when it was incorporated into a newer company unrelated to the original Biograph Company, using the name Biograph Studios, Inc. It opened in 1961.[35]

The television series Naked City, Car 54, Where Are You?, and East Side/West Side, and movies such as The Incident, and John and Mary were filmed there. The Biograph Studio facilities went dormant again in the 1970s. The studio facilities and laboratory burned down in 1980.[36]

The site is now occupied by a New York City Department of Sanitation garage.

Further reading

  • Koszarski, Richard. Hollywood on the Hudson: Film and Television in New York from Griffith to Sarnoff, Rutgers University Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-8135-4293-5.
  • Bengtson, John (27 August 2017). "Arbuckle – Keaton at the Bronx Biograph Studio". silent film locations (and more).

References

  1. ^ a b c Alleman, Richard (1988), The Movie Lover's Guide to New York, New York: Harper & Row, ISBN 0060960809, p.147-48
  2. ^ "Barrymore Film Center".
  3. ^ Bitzer, G. W. Billy Bitzer: His Story. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1973, p. 90. Retrieved via Internet Archive, June 16, 2023; hereinafter cited as "Bitzer". ISBN 0374112940.
  4. ^ Kane, Sherwin A. (December 26, 1933). "The New Biograph Makes Its Debut". Motion Picture Daily. pp. 4–5 (including full page ad). Retrieved September 5, 2013.
  5. ^ Hevesi, Dennis (April 20, 2012). "Martin Poll Dies at 89; Built a Movie Studio in New York". The New York Times. Retrieved September 5, 2013.
  6. ^ "Screen News Here and in Hollywood". The New York Times. September 27, 1939. p. 29.
  7. ^ "Securities at Auction". The New York Times. December 27, 1928. p. 39.
  8. ^ Tuska, Jon (1999). The Vanishing Legion: A History of Mascot Pictures, 1927–1935. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company. p. 42. ISBN 0-7864-0749-2.
  9. ^ Keith R. Pillow, Public Relations Manager, Thompson/Technicolor (owner of CFI), May 4, 2006.
  10. ^ Iris Barry, "Why Wait for Posterity?" Hollywood Quarterly, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Jan. 1946), pp. 131–137. Mary Pickford had purchased negatives and prints many of her Biograph films in the 1920s. Christel Schmidt, "Preserving Pickford: The Mary Pickford Collection and the Library of Congress", The Moving Image, Volume 3, Number 1, Spring 2003, pp. 59–81. The Search for a Film Legacy: Mary Pickford 1909–1933, Library of Congress Report.
  11. ^ "Coinmen You Know", Billboard, July 15, 1944, p. 64.
  12. ^ Pryor, Thomas M. (31 March 1940). "BRONX SPRING-CLEANING AND OTHER FILM NEWS; Biograph Studios Prepare for Action-- Mr. Chaplin's 'No. 6'--Addenda". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 16 July 2024. Retrieved 16 July 2024.
  13. ^ Ron Magliozzi, Assistant Curator, Research and Collections, Department of Film, The Museum of Modern Art, New York. magliozzi@moma.org.
  14. ^ "Bronx Stage and Film Company". local.aarp.org. Retrieved 16 July 2024.
  15. ^ a b "Martin Poll dies at 89, Producer drew Oscar nomination for 'The Lion in Winter'". Variety. 2012-04-16. Retrieved 2012-04-24.
  16. ^ The Bronx Stage and Film Company, History Archived 2006-08-14 at the Wayback Machine.
  17. ^ "Motion Picture Industry Returns to the Bronx," Bronxboro, vol. 34, fall 1957, p. 3.
  18. ^ "BRONX FILM STUDIO PLANS AN EXPANSION". The New York Times. 22 January 1958. Retrieved 16 July 2024.
  19. ^ Bronx Chamber of Commerce (October 15, 1957). "Gold Medal Studios at 807 East 175th St & Marion Ave. This building was originally used by Biograph Studios". New York Heritage Digital Collections nyheritage.org. Retrieved 16 July 2024.
  20. ^ a b "Motion Picture Industry Returns To The Bronx". Bronxboro. dcmny.org. 1957. Retrieved 16 July 2024. Vol. XXXIV, Fall
  21. ^ "The Goddess (1958)". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved 16 July 2024.
  22. ^ "Act One". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved 16 July 2024.
  23. ^ "That Kind of Woman". catalog.afi.com.
  24. ^ A Face in the Crowd at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
  25. ^ "Middle of the Night". catalog.afi.com.
  26. ^ The Fugitive Kind at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
  27. ^ Odds Against Tomorrow at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
  28. ^ BUtterfield 8 at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
  29. ^ Girl of the Night at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
  30. ^ Let's Rock at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
  31. ^ Pretty Boy Floyd at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
  32. ^ Reiner, Carl (2012). I Remember Me. AuthorHouse. p. 276. ISBN 978-1-4772-6458-4. Head of the Family in late 1958 , at the Gold Medal Studios in my hometown, the Bronx !
  33. ^ Waldron, Vince (3 May 2014). The Official Dick Van Dyke Show Book [Deluxe Expanded Archive Edition]: The Definitive History of Television's Most Enduring Comedy. Words in Edgewise. p. 52. ISBN 978-0-9852782-6-7. Retrieved 16 July 2024.
  34. ^ "Producer Shapes 6-Film Schedule," The New York Times, May 4, 1964, p. 36.
  35. ^ State of New York—Secretary of State[permanent dead link‍]
  36. ^ "Bronx Blaze Damages Old Biograph Studios," The New York Times, July 9, 1980, p. B4.

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