one film company.
US producers faced strong competition from European product within their own country
for, despite the proliferation of relatively successful motion picture manufacturers during
the transitional years, a high percentage of films screened in the USA still originated in
Europe. Pathé opened a US office in 1904, and by 1907 other foreign firms, British and
Italian among them, were entering the US market on a regular basis. Many of these
distributed their product through the Kleine Optical Company, the major importer of
foreign films into the United States during these years and a company that played a
prominent role in the transition to the longer feature film. In 1907 French firms,
particularly Pathé, controlled the American market, sharing it with other European
countries: of the 1,200 films released in the United States that year only about 400 were
domestic. The American film industry took note of this, and the trade press, established in
this year with Moving Picture World, often complained about the inferior quality of the
imports, criticizing films that dealt with contemporary topics for their narrative
incomprehensibility and, worse yet, un-American morals.
Pathé Frères' glass-topped studio at Vincennes, in 1906
Paradoxically, an earlier move to rationalize film distribution had resulted in a
maximization of profits, and as a result US manufacturers initially concentrated on the
domestic market. However, during these years they began a campaign of international
expansion that resulted in their being well placed to step into the number one position in
1914, when European film industries were reeling from the effects of the outbreak of war.
In 1907 Vitagraph became the first of the major US firms to establish overseas
distribution offices, and in 1909 other American producers established agencies in
London, which remained the European centre for American distribution until 1916. As a
result the British industry tended to concentrate on distribution and exhibition rather than
production, conceding American dominance in this area. American films constituted at
least half of those shown in Britain with Italian and French imports making up a
substantial portion of the rest. Germany, which also lacked a wellestablished industry of
its own, was the second most profitable market for American films. In the pre-war years,
however, American firms lacked the strength to compete with the powerful French and
Italian industries in their own countries. American films were distributed outside Europe,
but often not to the financial benefit of the production studios, who granted their British
distributors the rights not only to the British Isles and some Continental countries but to
British colonies as well.
During this period American film production took place mainly on the east coast, with an
outpost or two in Chicago and some companies making occasional forays to the west
coast and even to foreign locations. New York City was the headquarters of three of the
most important American companies: Edison had a studio in the Bronx, Vitagraph in
Brooklyn, and Biograph in the heart of the Manhattan show-business district on
Fourteenth Street. Other companies -- Solax and American Pathé among them -- had
studios across the Hudson in Fort Lee, New Jersey, which also served as a prime location
for many of the New York based companies. The Great Train Robbery ( Edison, 1903)
was only one of the many ' Jersey' Westerns shot in the vicinity. So over-used were certain
settings that a contemporary anecdote claimed that two companies once shot on either
side of a Fort Lee fence, sharing the same gate. Chicago served as headquarters for the
Selig and Essanay studios and for George Kleine's distribution company. Many studios
sent companies to California during the winter to take advantage of the superior locations
and shooting conditions, and Selig established a permanent studio there as