Biograph Studios

Biograph Studios was a studio facility and film laboratory complex built in 1912 by the Biograph Company, formerly American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, at 807 E. 175th Street., in the Bronx, New York. The Biograph Company moved its facilities from its location at 11 East 14th Street in Manhattan to the new facilities in the Bronx in 1913. The studio property was also leased out to other production companies after Biograph ceased producing new films in 1916.

When the Biograph Company fell on financial hard times, the studio facilities were acquired by one of Biograph Company's creditors, the Empire Trust Company, although Biograph Company continued to manage the studio. [cite news
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title= Screen News Here and in Hollywood
work= The New York Times
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page= 29
date= September 27, 1939
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title= Securities at Auction
work= The New York Times
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date= December 27, 1928
accessdate= ] Herbert Yates acquired the Biograph Studios properties and Film laboratory facilities in 1928. Biograph Studios facilities in the Bronx was made a subsidiary of his Consolidated Film Industries. [cite book
first = Jon
last = Tuska
title = The Vanishing Legion: A History of Mascot Pictures, 1927-1935
location = Jefferson, N.C.
publisher = McFarland & Company
year = 1999
pages = 42
id = ISBN 0-7864-0749-2 ] [Keith R. Pillow, Public Relations Manager, Thompson/Technicolor (owner of CFI), May 4, 2006.]

Some advertising films and a few feature pictures 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 "Tevye" (1939) and the Oscar Micheaux production "The Notorious Elinor Lee" (1940). But the studio's 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 film collection was donated to the film department of the Museum of Modern Art. [Iris Barry, "Why Wait for Posterity?" "Hollywood Quarterly", Vol. 1, No. 2 (Jan. 1946), pp. 131-137. Mary Pickford had purchased negatives or prints of most 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, [http://pickfordfilmlegacy.tripod.com/libraryofcongresspd.htm Library of Congress Report] .]

Empire Trust later assigned management of the property to one of its own subsidiaries, The Actinograph Corp., which held it until 1948. [Ron Magliozzi, Assistant Curator, Research and Collections, Department of Film, The Museum of Modern Art, New York. [e-mail].]

Martin Poll (who later became New York's Commissioner of Motion Picture Arts) restored Biograph Studios and reopened it in 1956 as the [http://cdm.metro.org:8080/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/lc&CISOPTR=164&REC=1 Gold Medal Studios] , the largest film studio in America outside the Los Angeles area. [The Bronx Stage and Film Company, [http://www.bronxstage.com/html/2005/history.htm History] .] ["Motion Picture Industry Returns to the Bronx," "Bronxboro", vol. 34, fall 1957, p. 3.] Poll sold the property in 1961, ["Producer Shapes 6-Film Schedule," "The New York Times", May 4, 1964, p. 36.] when it was incorporated into a newer company, Biograph Studios, Inc. in 1961, unrelated to the original Biograph Company corporation. [State of New York — Secretary of State [http://appsext5.dos.state.ny.us/corp_public/CORPSEARCH.ENTITY_INFORMATION?p_nameid=164465&p_corpid=135331&p_entity_name=%62%69%6F%67%72%61%70%68&p_name_type=%25&p_search_type=%42%45%47%49%4E%53&p_srch_results_page=0] ]

The television series "The Naked City", "Car 54, Where Are You?", and "East Side/West Side", and movies like "A Face in the Crowd", "Odds Against Tomorrow", "The Fugitive Kind", "The Goddess", "Pretty Boy Floyd", "BUtterfield 8", "The Incident", and "John and Mary" were filmed there. Biograph Studios went dormant again in the 1970s before the studio facilities burned down in 1980. ["Bronx Blaze Damages Old Biograph Studios," "The New York Times", July 9, 1980, p. B4.]

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