Kinemacolor Company of America

Urban failed to secure a deal with the Motion Picture Patents Company and instead hoped to sell the rights to Kinemacolor in the United States.

[1][2][3] In January 1911, while Charles Urban still retained some control over the company, he approached George H. Burr & Co., a New York-based stock speculation firm.

The company's first successes were screenings of the British-made films Coronation of George V (1911) and With Our King and Queen Through India (1912), which achieved the same popularity as in their home country.

According to different sources, the ten-reel film was either completed by January 1912, or production was halted after spending $25,000, resulting in little more than a reel of poor footage.

The most notable production during this period was the two-hour long documentary Making of the Panama Canal (1912), which was so popular that it was even shown by Charles Urban in Britain.

[9] Kinemacolor was successful and considerable competition to regular black and white films, such as the shows of Burton Holmes and Lyman Howe.

In October 1913, David Miles left the company, being replaced by Theodore Marston and a new studio was opened in Lowville, New York.

The subsidiary Weber-Fields-Kinemacolor Company was formed in November 1913, dedicated to making films with the Weber and Fields comedy duo and Roy McCardell as the scriptwriter.

[10] In 1914, after a lengthy lawsuit between Charles Urban and a rival inventor, William Friese-Greene, in Britain, the patent for Kinemacolor was declared invalid.