CENTENARIES 2005
1905 was an eventful year. The sailors of the “Potemkin”, the biggest battleship on the Black Sea, mutined and raised the Red Flag: it was a central incident in the first Russian Revolution, that was brutally put down. Meanwhile the Tsarist government were gratefully signing an armistice with Japan while gloating over the opening of the Trans-Siberian railroad. In Switzerland, the 26-year-old Albert Einstein wrote his first paper on relativity. In Britain, the first suffragettes were gaoled. Amundsen discovered the magnetic pole; Franz Lehar composed The Merry Widow, Edith Wharton wrote The House of Mirth and Oscar Wilde De Profundis, and Paul Cézanne painted “Les Grandes Baigneuses”.
In the cinema it seemed a sign of the times that Edison’s first tar-paper studio, “The Black Maria” was demolished in the same year that Charles Pathé and Léon Gaumont built state-of-the art industrial studios, respectively at Vincennes and Buttes-Chaumont. In June, Harry Davis opened a store-front theatre in Pittsburg, calling it the Nickelodeon, and precipitating a boom in this new style of movie exhibition. The state of Massachusetts responded with a law laying down safety standards in motion picture theatres.
FILM PERSONALITIES BORN IN 1905
Luigi Zampa, Italian director (2 January, d.1991)
Ray Milland, Welsh-born Hollywood actor (3 January; d.1986)
Sterling Holloway, Hollywood actor (4 January, d.1992)
Tex Ritter, singing cowboy (12 January, d.1974)
Thelma Ritter, Hollywood character actress (14 February, d.1969)
Harold Arlen, song writer, “Stormy Weather”, “That Old Black Magic”, “Over the Rainbow” (15 February, Hyman Arluck; d.1986)
Franchot Tone, Hollywood actor (27 February, d.1968)
Sir Anthony Havelock-Allen, British producer (28 February, d.2003)
Takashi Shimura, Japanese actor best known for leading roles in Kurosawa’s Ikiru (Living) and The Seven Samurai (12 March, d.1982)
Robert Donat, British actor (18 March, d. 1958)
Grigori Kozintsev, Soviet director. (22 March, d.1973)
Paul Grimault, French animator (23 March, d.1994)
Jean Vigo, French director (26 April, d.1934)
Leila Hyams Hollywood leading lady of 20s and 30s (1 May, d.1977)
Henry Koster, German director, émigré in Hollywood (Hermann Kosterlitz, 1 May, d.1988)
Joseph Cotton, Hollywood actor, made debut in Citizen Kane (15 May, d. 1995)
Henry Fonda, Hollywood actor (16 May, d.1982)
Sebastian Shaw, British actor (29 May, d’1994)
Robert Stevenson British-born director, active in Hollywood (Maryy Poppins) (31 May, d.1986))
James Robertson-Justice, Scottish character actor (I5 June, d.1975)
Lillian Hellman, playwright and screenwriter (20 June, d.1984)
Jean-Paul Sartre, philosopher, novelist, playwright, screenwriter (21 June, d.1980)
Thomas Gomez, Hollywood character actor (10 July, d.1971)
Dorothy Fields, songwriter (I5 July, d.1974)
Pierre Braunberger, producer of many French classics (29 July, d.1990)
Thelma Todd, sparkling blonde leading lady (29 July, d.1935)
Myrna Loy, Hollywood star comedienne (2 August, 1993)
Dolores del Rio, Mexican star, long in Hollywood (3 August, d.1983)
Leo Genn, British actor (9 August, d.1978)
Mikio Naruse, Japanese director best known for contemporary subjects (20 August, d.1969)
Clara Bow, star personality of “Roaring 20s”, kinown as “The ‘It’ Girl” (25 August, d.1965)
Dore Scharym writer, director, producer (31 August, d.1980)
]oseph E. Levme, showman, producer, tycoon (9 September, d.1987)
Claudette Colbert, French-born Hollywood actress (13 September, d. 1996)
Dolores CosteIlo Hollywood actress (17 September, d.1979)
Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson, Hollywood black character actor (18 September, d.1977)
Greta Garbo, Swedish-born diva (18 September, d.1990)
Michael Powell, British director (30 September, d.1990)
Andy Devine, Hollywood western character actor (7 October, d.1977)
Jean Arthur, Hollywood actress (17 October, d.1991)
Joseph Kosma, Hungarian composer, active in France (22 October, d.1969)
Aldo Fabrizi, Italian actor (Rome Open Citry) (1 November, d.1990)
Joel McCrea, Hollywood star, mainly in westerns (5 November, d.1990)
William AIwyn, influential and enduring British film composer (7 November, d.1985)
Roger Edens, producer, composer, major influence on MGM musicals (9 November, d.1970)
Mischa Auer, Russian-born Hollywood character actor (17 November, d.1967)
lIya Trauberg, Soviet director of classic era (20 November, d.1948)
Emlyn Williams, British actor, writer, director (26 November, d.1987)
Dalton Trumbo, novelist and writer; as victim of McCarthyism was one of “The Hollywood Ten” (9 December, d.1976)
Pare Lorentz, American documentary film maker (11 December, d.1992)
Gilbert Roland, Mexican-born Hollywood Latin lover (11 December, d.1994)
Josef Heifetz, Soviet director (17 December, d.1995)
Howard Hughes, Millionaire industrialist, aviator, producer and director (24 December, d.1976) .
Hiroshi Inagaki, Japanese director (30 December, d.1980)
SOME FILMS OF 1905
FRANCE
La course à la perruque (Ferdinand Zecca)
La course aux tonneaux (Ferdinand Zecca)
Dix femmes pour un mari (1905)
La Première sortie d'un collégien (Louis Gasnier. Max Linder's first starring role).
L'Ange de Noel (Georges Méliès)
Le Palais des Mille et une Nuits (Georges Méliès)
Le Raid Paris-Monte Carlo en Deux Heures (Georges Méliès)
La Légende de Rip Van Winkle (Georges Méliès)
L'Amant de la Lune (Zecca and Velle)
Les Invisibles (Gaston Velle)
Rêve à la Lune (Zecca/Pathe)
Les rêves d'un fumeur d'opium (Victorien Jasset)
Révolution en Russie (?Nonguet/Pathe)
GERMANY
Frau Rauberhauptmann (Internationale Kinematographen GmbH)
GB
Rescued by Rover (Lewin Fitzhamon)
Charles Peace (Walter Haggar)
The Life of Charles Peace (Frank Mottershaw)
Mutiny on a Russian Battleship (Alfred Collins)
ITALY
La Presa di Roma (Filotero Alberini)
Viaggio al Centro della luna (Filotero Alberini)
SPAIN
El hotel electrico (Segundo de Chomon)
USA
The Miller's Daughter (Porter and McCutcheon)
The Kleptomaniac (Edwin S.Porter/Edison)
Raffles the Amateur Cracksman (Vitagraph)
Monsieur Beaucaire (Vitagraph)
The Green Goods Men (Vitagraph)