Charles Pathé

Production

Charles Pathé

Born 1863-12-26 · Chevry-Cossigny, Seine-et-Marne, France

Charles Morand Pathé (26 December 1863 – 25 December 1957) was a pioneer of the French film and recording industries. As the founder of Pathé Frères, its roots lie in 1896 Paris, France, when Pathé and his brothers pioneered the development of the moving image. Pathé adopted the national emblem of France, the cockerel, as the trademark for his company. After the company, now called Compagnie Générale des Éstablissements Pathé Frères Phonographes & Cinématographes, invented the cinema newsreel with Pathé-Journal. The son of a butcher shop owner, Charles Morand Pathé was born at Chevry-Cossigny, in the Seine-et-Marne département of France. His father, Jacques Pathé and mother, Thérèse-Émélie Kech were butchers by trade, and ran a delicatessen first in Chevry-Cossigny, and later in Vincennes. Charles had three brothers and two sisters. Pathé left school at 14 to work as an apprentice butcher, at rue de Charenton, Paris. After military service, in 1889, at 25, he began working as a meat merchant but soon took his savings, and with the help of his brothers and his sister, embarked for Buenos Aires, Argentina, with the aim of setting up in business. Pathé tried to establish himself in various trades including a laundry service based on industrial washing machines that turned out to be unsuccessful. His life was unsettled and Pathé was forced to change jobs frequently. After a final failure of trying to deal in exotic parrots, when he and his business partner were stricken with yellow fever, Pathé returned to France in poor health. At age 30, Pathé married lle Foy in Paris, and worked as a clerk, drawing a meager salary. Back in Vincennes, in August 1894, Pathé saw the phonograph invented by Thomas Edison, demonstrated at the town fair. He immediately embraced the sound recording technology, purchasing examples of Edison machines to resell. In 1896, with his brothers Émile, Théophile and Jacques, Pathé founded Société Pathé Frères (Pathé Brothers) in Paris, a company that manufactured and sold phonographs and phonograph cylinders, with Émile Pathé at his head. While in London, Pathé saw the Edison Kinetoscope and decided to expand the Pathé company's business to distributing cinema projection equipment, and with the acquisition of Eastman Kodak patent rights in Europe, a licence for film stock in theatres throughout France. Pathé films were rented out, for a maximum of four months, a more lucrative business than selling the product. A modest first factory had been installed in 1896 at Vincennes. The first films of the Société Pathé Frères such as Le Passage à niveau à Joinville le Pont and L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de Bel-Air were produced, under Pathé's guidance. For several years, however, the success of the phonograph business underwrote the success of the cinema company. ... Source: Article "Charles Pathé" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Acting credits

Behind the camera

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4.0

No synopsis available yet.

The Mysterious Man

1910

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4.0

The carrot caterpillar hides among and feeds on the leafy foliage in carrot fields. A man demonstrates how difficult it is to detect and remove them from the carrot plants. They propel themselves with their six feet and twelve suction cups. To ward off enemies, they display two horns which secrete a malodorous liquid. Before the chrysalis stage of their development, they attach themselves to a surface and two days later burst from their shell. After spending the winter as a chrysalis, they emerge as swallowtail butterflies. Once they have bathed their wings in dew and dried off, they are ready to fly. (Library of Congress)

The Carrot Caterpillar

1911

La Roue poster
7.3

Sisif, a railwayman, saves a young girl named Norma orphaned by a train crash and raises her as his own daughter alongside his son, Elie. As she becomes an adult, Sisif grapples with whether to tell Norma the truth about her parentage.

La Roue

1923

J'Accuse poster
7.4

The story of two men, one married, the other the lover of the other's wife, who meet in the trenches of the First World War, and how their tale becomes a microcosm for the horrors of war.

J'Accuse

1919

The Hidden Hand poster
NR

15 chapter adventure serial starring Doris Kenyon. Episode titles: 1. The Gauntlet of Death 2. Counterfeit Faces 3. The Island of Dread 4. The False Locket 5. The Air-Lock 6. The Flower of Death 7. The Fire Trap 8. Slide for Life 9. Jets of Flame 10. Cogs of Death 11. Trapped by Treachery 12. Eyes in the Wall 13. Jaws of the Tiger 14. The Unmasking 15. The Girl of the Prophecy.

The Hidden Hand

1917

Spanish Clair de Lune poster
5.8

Two lovers perform a fandango dance. A jealous quarrel follows and the heart-broken swain decides to end it all. He throws himself from the window of his room, but instead of falling to his death, the anchor of a passing balloon intercepts his flight and he is taken high into the clouds. Laughing at his plight, the moon arouses the anger of the desperate lover and a battle between the two ensues.

Spanish Clair de Lune

1909

Sports in the Indian Army poster
NR

A demonstration of sport and fitness by members of the Indian Army.

Sports in the Indian Army

1910

The Banks of the Thames from Oxford to Windsor poster
NR

The Thames, although insignificant compared to the rivers of the continent, has its own charm that painters and poets like Turner, Bonington, Eugène Delacroix, Whistler and Seymour have tried to render on paper or on canvas. In this film no grandiose scenes, just a river of silver flowing placidly between low banks, covered with trees. Here and there we pass through delightful little towns until we get to Windsor and dock in the shade of its famous castle.

The Banks of the Thames from Oxford to Windsor

1914

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9.0

Fernand Pradier (Gabriel Signoret) is an honest merchant and a simple person at heart who tries to make her daughter Germaine (Gabrielle Robinne) happy. She is engaged to a rich banker St-Bris (René Alexandre). However, the fiance once belonged to a criminal organization and, despite his efforts of rehabilitation, one of his ancient accomplices makes their engagement impossible. Eventually imprisoned, she escapes with the help of a beautiful typist (Stacia Napierkowska)...

The King of Prison

1913

Barnum's Trunk poster
5.7

A magician and some assistants put up a series of posters of music hall acts in a frame. Then the magician brings each poster to life.

Barnum's Trunk

1904

The Conquest of the Pole poster
6.2

A science fantasy film that deals with an extraordinary race to the north pole by rival parties of balloonists. Based on the novel "The Adventures of Captain Hatteras" by Jules Verne.

The Conquest of the Pole

1912

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NR

Filmed visit in Peru, at the Tent of San Juan de Dios.

Un baile nacional en Cantagallo, también llamada Una jarana en Cantagallo

1908

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NR

Pathé newsreel showcasing the production of paper hats in a factory in Japan.

The Factory of Hats of Paper in Japan

1916

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NR

Filmed on October 4, 1908, it includes images of the departure from the eleven o'clock mass at the church of San Pedro and of the races at the Santa Beatriz racetrack.

Un domingo en Lima

1908

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NR

Native British birds, from common gulls and cuckoos to the rare Richardson's Skua, are filmed in their natural habitat.

Glimpses of Bird Life

1910

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NR

Two unfriendly neighbors make up when their children are caught in a storm.

Victims of the Storm

1906

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NR

This was one of the earliest mass marches organised by the suffrage movement, and up to 15,000 women marched from the Embankment to the Albert Hall to hear speeches from Christabel Pankhurst and other suffragette leaders (Ros Cranston, Make More Noise! Suffragettes in Silent Film).

Suffragette Demonstration in London (June 1910)

1910

Brûleuses d'herbes poster
2.0

A couple of women stand in a field, using pitch forks to separate burning grass. Men run away from the event. Meanwhile, a third woman stands to the right, drinking what I would guess is water from a pitcher, instead of using it to put out the fire.

Brûleuses d'herbes

1899

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NR

A documentary film on crocodile fishing

Fishing for Crocodiles

1909

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NR

A train ride with a view from the back of the train.

Voyage dans un train

1896

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NR

The Pathé cinema company screened new films shot in the capital.

El Presidente Leguía en las carreras

1908

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NR

A Pathé camera slid into the bullring to film the bullfight that day.

Corridas de toros en Lima

1908

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7.0

This two-shot newsreel fragment surveys the scene at a Votes for Women protest on Trafalgar Square in the summer of 1910, when suffragists of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies presented petitions signed by supportive menfolk of Britain's towns and cities.

Mass Meeting of Suffragettes

1910

Arrival of a Train poster
4.6

A train arrives at Bel Air Station in Paris, France.

Arrival of a Train

1896