The Two Brothers
R: Theodore Wharton (?). P: Pathé Frères / American Kinema. USA 1912
Print: EYE
Dutch titles, Engl. subtitles

“In 1904 the French company Pathé Frères already opened a sales agency in New York. Soon the French films flooded the United States. During the nickelodeon peak of 1907, Pathé opened a factory in Bound Brook, New Jersey, to make positive distribution prints from negatives sent from France. (…) In 1910 Pathé also opened in Bound Brook its own film studio, which focused on making westerns, dramas, and comedies catered to American tastes. Under the name of American Kinema, however, these films were also spread worldwide.

Louis Gasnier, a jack-of-all-trades who had launched comedian Max Linder at Pathé’s French studio, and had set up Pathé’s Italian production branch Film d’Arte Italiana in Rome, went to New York with Charles Pathé himself in 1910 and became the managing director of the Bound Brook studio. He also directed its first film, The Girl from Arizona (1910), though, as far as direction at American Kinema is known, more films around 1910-1912 were produced and directed by Theodore Wharton, and by Native American James Young Deer, who acted in many of his films as well, together with his wife Red Wing. Several distribution prints of the American Kinema early westerns have been found in the Dutch Desmet Collection, such as Abernathy Kids’ Rescue (1911), The Cheyenne’s Bride (1911), The Two Brothers (1912), and The Mystery of Lonely Gulch (1911).

In 1912 Pathé opened a second studio at Jersey City, much closer to New York, and also closer to the Fort Lee production center of early cinema. It was also one of the most modern ones of its time, with its arc lights and mercury-vapor tubes, instead of natural light coming in through glass roofs and sides. Regular actors with Pathé in those years were Paul Panzer, Octavia Handworth, and Crane Wilbur, while future stars Pearl White, Henry B. Walthall, and Jack Pickford had their first film parts here. By 1910, Pathé also leased an outdoor studio in Edendale, Los Angeles, for the production of westerns. Louis Gasnier would become known for his production of popular serials, first of all, the 20 episodes serial The Perils of Pauline (1914) with Pearl White, Crane Wilbur, Paul Panzer. (…)”
Sources: Richard Abel ed., Encyclopedia of Early Cinema; Richard Lewis Ward, When the Cock Crows: A History of the Pathé Exchange.
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