Pathé Exchange
Known for its trailblazing newsreel and wide array of shorts, it grew out of the American division of the major French studio Pathé Frères, which began distributing films in the United States in 1904.
The American operation was incorporated as Pathé Exchange toward the end of 1914 and spun off as an independent entity in 1921; the Merrill Lynch investment firm acquired a controlling stake.
For Roach and then his own production company, acclaimed comedian Harold Lloyd starred in many feature and short releases from Pathé and the closely linked Associated Exhibitors, including the 1925 smash hit The Freshman.
In late 1926, controlling interest in the studio was acquired by investment banker Elisha Walker's Blair & Co. firm, which soon allied it with the Keith-Albee and Orpheum theater chains and in 1928 brought in financier and Hollywood maestro Joseph P. Kennedy to manage it.
RKO Pathé, which in its final decade produced industrials and TV commercials along with theatrical shorts, closed its doors in 1956; Warners ended the newsreel the same year.
The company reentered the movie production and distribution business for nearly a decade beginning in 1942 with the purchase of Poverty Row studio Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC) and Pathé's subsequent establishment of Eagle-Lion Films.
In 1908, Pathé Frères was invited to join the Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC), created by a combine of production firms that aimed to lock up the American market completely.
[2] Pathé Frères established production facilities in New Jersey—first in East Bound Brook, then Jersey City—and leased an outdoor spread in Edendale, an L.A. suburb, for the shooting of Westerns.
[5] In March 1914, from its studio in Jersey City (with many climactic scenes shot in the nearby film hub of Fort Lee), Pathé Frères entered the market for serials.
Its initial such effort, The Perils of Pauline, starring Pearl White and codirected by company veteran Louis Gasnier, was a massive success, with popular demand so great that the original plan for thirteen episodes was extended to twenty and a record-breaking number of release prints were struck to supply exhibitors around the country.
[11] Its regular release schedule during this period revolved around its newsreel (now coming out twice a week), the "Pathéserials", cartoons by animator Paul Terry, and comedy shorts from Hal Roach and Mack Sennett.
[19] Early in 1928, Walker and Murdock turned to financier Joseph P. Kennedy, head of midsized studio Film Booking Offices of America (FBO), to help reorganize the debt-ridden Pathé business.
For the conversion to sound film production now understood as necessary across the industry, Kennedy contracted both Pathé and FBO to RCA Photophone, run by his sometime ally David Sarnoff.
The movie had been critically lauded the previous year as a silent road-show attraction handled by PDC; now in general release with music and sound effects, about forty minutes shorter, and playing across the recently united Keith-Albee-Orpheum (KAO) circuit, it was a major hit at the box office.
[27] Pathé struggled through 1930, putting out just a single feature each month between June and November; the July release, Holiday, managed to garner Academy Award nominations for lead actress Ann Harding and screenwriter Horace Jackson.
[32] One of the last RKO Pathé features, What Price Hollywood?, with Bennett in the lead, came out on June 24; it was the first screen version of the story that would be filmed multiple times as A Star Is Born.
The following year, after the completion of a hiatus imposed in the RKO deal, PFC reentered the filmmaking field in a small way, acquiring 8 percent of the recently established Grand National Films.
[45] The studio's rare hits included an overachieving noir, Anthony Mann's T-Men (1947), and a Rank import, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's The Red Shoes (1948).
N. Peter Rathvon, former president of RKO, joined the company to handle financing for the independent producers who would now provide all of its domestic output, such as George Pal, whose Destination Moon, released in June 1950, was a major success.
Redubbed the America Corporation, the firm revived the Pathé brand with a distribution subsidiary, Pathé-America, that handled independent productions from both the U.S. and Great Britain.
During its brief 1961–62 existence, it released seven films under America Corporation ownership, including Sam Peckinpah's feature directorial debut, The Deadly Companions (1961), and Roger Corman's pathbreaking drama about racial demagoguery, The Intruder (1962).
