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Film Trivia
Written and researched by M. R. & M. J. Sypniewski

....The first motion picture films were taken with a camera patented in Britain by French-born Louis Aime Augustin Le Prince (1842-1890?), in 1888.

.... The first commercially developed motion picture process was instigated by Thomas Alva Edison (1747-1931), an American electrical engineer.

.... The first public demonstration of motion pictures took place in the Edison Laboratories at West Orange, New Jersey, on May 22, 1891.

.... In Great Britain, the first practical development of motion pictures was from a camera built in 1895 by Birt Acres (1854-1918) and R. W. Paul (1869-1943).

.... The first commercial presentation of a motion picture took place at Holland Bros Kinetoscope Parlor, at 1155 Broadway, New York, which opened for business on April 14, 1894. Great Britain accomplished this, in London, on October 18, 1894.

.... March 22, 1895 the French had their first motion picture called "La sortie des Ouviers des l'Lumire."

.... May 20, 1894 here in the United States was a film called "Young Griffo vs. Battling Charles Barnett."

.....November 1, 1895, in Germany, there were eight short films presented by Max and Emil Skladanowski at Berlin's Wintergarten.

.....November 10, 1895, in Belgium a movie was shown to a body of scientists in Brussels.

The first feature film or commercially made film was Charles Tait's The Story of the Kelly Gang which ran 60-70 minutes in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The film was about Victoria's famed "bushranger" Ned Kelly (1855-1889). This film was produced by J. & N. Tait of Melbourne. This film cost 450 pounds to produce, which they made back within a week. No print of this film survives today. It was an action film taken in outdoor locations. Other version of the story of Ned Kelly were made in 1910, 1917, 1920, 1923, 1934, 1951, and 1970. All were made by Australian filmmakers. except the last which had Mick Jagger in the title role.

"Australia was the only country in the world to have established regular production of feature-length films prior to 1911" (Robertson).

The Top Ten Film Producers in the World:

Country...............Number of films produced in 2000.

  • 01. India .....855
    India was tops in amount of films from 1971-2000. This figure represents quantity.
    India's largest production year was in 1990 when they made 948 full-length features.

  • 02. United States of America .....762
    The United States made the most films in 1921, when there were 854 releases.
    The years the United States had the highest quantity of films were:
    1914-1922
    1933-1935
    1939
    1941-1953

    HOLLYWOOD:

    .....The largest Hollywood studio is Universal City.

    .....Hollywood was originally known as Nopalera.

    .....The Hollywood sign was erected on Hollywood Hills in 1923 at the cost of $21,000. It originally read: "Hollywood Land."

    .....The first film made in Hollywood was D,W, Griffith's In Old California. It was released March 10, 1910.

    .....In 1973, the Hollywood sign was falling apart and five years later it was replaced at a cost of $27,000 per letter.

  • 03. Japan .....282
    The years in which Japan had the highest quantity of films were:
    1922-1931
    1936-1938
    1940
    1954-1970

  • 04. Hong Kong .....185
  • 05. France ..... 171
  • 06. Italy .....103
    ........Phillipines.....103
  • 08. Bangladesh ..... 100
    Bangladesh's top year for quantity in films production was in the 1990's when they made 120 films.

  • 09. Spain ..... 98
  • 10. Germany .....90
    In 1913, Germany led world film production by quantity.

    .........United Kingdom .....90 ***Figures compiled for The Top 10 of Everything 2003 by Russell Ash, New York: DK (Dorling Kindersley), 2002.

    The first movie star and the first cowboy emerged more than 100 years ago in 1903. Gilbert Max "Bronco Billy" Anderson appeared in the Thomas Edison Company film The Great Train Robbery.

    The first Western and the first film to tell a story, it was made in New Jersey with a budget of just $150.00. Anderson (1880-1971) took three parts in the film and went on to star as Bronco Billy in hundreds of Westerns up to 1916.

    Clint Eastwood later starred in a movie called Bronco Billy based on Anderson's life.

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