Gaumont Film Company

Gaumont is a French film production company founded in 1895 by the engineer-turned-inventor, Léon Gaumont (1864-1946). It is the oldest running film company in the world.^[1] Originally dealing in photographic apparatuses, the company began producing short films in 1897 to promote its make of camera-projector. Léon Gaumont's secretary Alice Guy Blaché became the motion picture industry’s first female director. From 1905 to 1914, its studios "Cité Elgé" (from the normal French pronunciation of founder's initials) at La Villette, France, were the largest in the world. The company manufactured its own equipment and mass-produced films until 1907. Then Louis Feuillade became the artistic director of Gaumont. When World War I broke out, he was replaced by Léonce Perret, who continued his career in the United States a few years later.

Among some of the most notable films produced were the serials Judex and Fantomas; the comic Onésime series, starring Ernest Bourbon; the comic Bébé series, starring five-year-old René Dary; and the newsreels of the Gaumont Actualities. Directors such as Abel Gance, Alfred Hitchcock, and the early animator Emile Cohl worked for this studio at one time or another.

Gaumont opened foreign offices and acquired theatre chains Gaumont British, which later notably produced several Hitchcock films such as The 39 Steps (1935) and The Lady Vanishes (1938). Along with its giant competitor Pathé Frères, Gaumont dominated the motion-picture industry in Europe until the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Gaumont also constructed the Lime Grove Studios.

After significant post-war losses in market-share/competition to American productions, Gaumont experienced the subsequent business reversals of technological change (the advent of sound) and financial depression, and was eventually merged with Franco-Film Aubert in the early 1930s.

Until now, Gaumont has been independent and has been still recognized as one of the largest producers (Léon, The Fifth Element) and distributors of films in France.

The company has also produced television as well, including four animated series: Highlander: The Animated Series, Dragon Flyz, and Sky Dancers (the second and third are based on their respective toy lines) and the very popular Oggy and the Cockroaches.

Since 2004 the company has a partnership with Sony for producing films and for theatres and DVDs distribution worldwide. Together with Pathe they are operating own cinemas across France.

Logo

Leon Gaumont selected the daisy as the company logo to pay homage to his wife whose first name is Daisy. Today, in spite of regular modifications of the drawing the daisy is always present even if its significance is somewhat forgotten.

References

1. ^ Richard Abel, The Ciné Goes to Town: French Cinema, 1896-1914, University of California Press, 1994, p. 10, ISBN 0520079361.

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