Kalem Company

The Kalem Company was an early American film studio founded in New York City in 1907. It was one of the first companies to make films abroad and to set up winter production facilities, first in Florida and then in California. Kalem was sold to Vitagraph Studios in 1917.

The Kalem Company was founded by George Kleine, Samuel Long, and Frank J. Marion. The company was named for their initials K, L, and M.

Kalem immediately joined other studios in the Motion Picture Patents Company that held a monopoly on production and distribution. Frank Marion had been the sales manager at Biograph Studios and Samuel Long was the manager of the Biograph production facility at Hoboken, New Jersey. Needing to raise more capital, the two experienced filmmakers approached Chicago businessman George Kleine to come in as a partner. Kleine, already a successful film distributor, was involved only a short time but it was a profitable investment for him as his partners were soon successful enough to buy out his shares at a considerable premium. The company began operations from a small office in a loft building at 131 West 24th Street in New York City. The partners were able to lure general manager and director Sidney Olcott away from Biograph. Olcoltt eventually became the Kalem Company's president and was rewarded with one share of its stock. Kalem had no indoor studios, so most of its films were shot on location. In February 1907, the company made its first motion picture, titled The Sleigh Belle. While Kalem scored successes in their first year, the rate of production at the once-powerful Biograph stagnated, hampered by the loss of important personnel.

Under the direction of Sidney Olcott, Kalem made a number of significant films, including the first adaptation of Ben Hur and the following year, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In 1910 Olcott gave actress Alice Joyce her first acting job in his production of The Deacon's Daughter.

The one-reel version of Ben Hur – in which Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn was used as the location for the Holy Land – was made without obtaining the rights to the book, the usual procedure in the industry at the time, and Kalem was sued by the estate of the author, Lew Wallace. After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Kalem in 1911 in Kalem Co. v. Harper Bros., they reached a settlement which paid the estate $25,000 – an extremely large amount for the time. The action helped to establish the necessity for film studios to obtain the motion picture rights for the properties they wished to utilize.

In 1910 the company shot a film in Ireland, making Kalem the first movie studio to travel outside the United States to film on location. As director, Olcott headed a small team in Ireland: Kalem's leading lady and principal screenwriter, Gene Gauntier, and cameraman George Hollister. There, they filmed A Lad from Old Ireland in Cork area plus a scenic film The Irish Honeymoon shot in Blarney Castle, Glengarriff, Gap of Dunloe, the Lakes of Killarney and Dublin. After the team went to Germany to film The Little Spreewald Maiden, a love story in the Spreewald with Gauntier and Olcott in the lead characters.

Olcott and others from the studio - Alice Hollister, Agnes Mapes, Jack J. Clark, Robert G. Vignola, J.P. McGowan, Arthur Donaldson - returned to Ireland for most of the summer in the next two years. The O'Kalems, as the American entourage were affectionately dubbed, made such Irish films as Rory O'More, The Vagabonds, You Remember Ellen, The Colleen Bawn, one of the first American three-reels (40 minutes). 22 films in total for Kalem. Later on, the outbreak of World War I prevented Olcott, who had resigned from Kalem and shot films for himself, from following through with his plans to build a permanent studio in Beaufort, County Kerry.

Galvanized by the success of Irish films, Frank J. Marion decided on a more ambitious expedition: send a crew to Egypt and Palestine to shoot films, about thirty or so. Company stayed in Luxor, shot melodramas with titles such as An Arabian Tragedy, Captured by Bedouins, Tragedy of the Desert, A Prisoner of the Harem and documentaries the pulsing life on the Nile.