PATHÉ FRÈRES CINEMA LTD

(1902-27)

FIRST NATIONAL PATHÉ LTD

(1928-31)

PATHÉ PICTURES LTD

(1931-46)

History

In 1894 Charles Pathé started making and selling phonograph equipment in France, founding the company Société Pathé Frères with his three brothers. They soon moved to included cinematographic equipment and then film production. In 1902 they opened a London office and formed Pathé Frères Cinema Ltd to distribute their products in the UK, and the British company moved into film production in 1910 with the newsreel Pathé's Animated Gazette ("animated" here merely referring to "moving pictures", not cartoons).

In 1913 the company took over 103-109 Wardour Street, creating new offices and screening rooms for their film rental business, and production facilities for the newsreel. The Gazette was produced twice a week, released on Monday and Thursday, reflecting the common practice of cinemas to change programmes midweek. In 1920 it dropped the word "animated" to become the Pathé Gazette. From February 1925 a lomger version of the newsreel, the Pathé Super-Gazette, was introduced, running alongside the less expensive Gazette.

In March 1918 the news reels were joined by a weekly general interest reel, Pathé Pictorial, the first cinemagazine. Released each Monday it proved a success, and a second cinemagazine, Eve and Everybody's Film Review, intended to appeal to women, followed in June 1921, released on Thursdays. It ran a competition to find a better title, but later announced that 'no alternative title sufficiently outstanding to warrent us changing that of "Eve's Film Review" was suggested.'. The £50 prize money was shared between the 5 best (undisclosed) entries and the title remained, often with "and everybody's" in parentheses, for the next twelve years.

With a similar distributon and newsreel company in the USA, Pathé shared newsreel material between the three countries, and as US and UK film production increased it soon had a wide range of films for rental, as well as as acting as distributors for other production companies. In 1918 the French parent company was split into two, eith Emile Pathé running the record business and Charles concentrating on the film side. In order to keep the business bouyant Charles began divesting some of the company's international assets, selling off the US film studios in 1921, and at the close of 1927 he sold Pathé Frères Cinema Ltd, to First National Film Distributors Ltd, British arm of the US production company First National, which merged with it to became First National Pathé. Production of the Pathé Gazette and Super Gazette newsreels, and the two magazines Pathé Pictorial and Eve's Review continued unaffected. A new magazine with sound, the Pathétone Weekly, compiled from the various semi-news items available to Pathé, was started in March 1930, and a sound version of the newsreel, the Pathé Super Sound Gazette, was launched in June 1930, alongside the silent versions. The Pictorial was issued in sound from October 1931.

When Warner Brothers took over First National‌ in 1931 they undid the merger and sold Pathé to John Maxwell, founder of British International Pictures, who continued to run it as a distribution company for British films and the production company for the Pathé Super Sound Gazette, Pathétone News, Pathé Pictorial and Eve's Review, still from 103-9 Wardour Street, under the name Pathé Pictures Ltd, as reported in The Bioscope 4 November 1931, and the Kinematograph Weekly 4 November 1931. In 1933 Maxwell expanded the production side of Pathé Pictures, making British second features at British International's Welwyn Studios. At the end of 1933 Eve's Review, which had remained a silent reel, was ended and its subject matter incorporated into the Pathé Pictorial.

Although owned by Maxwell's managing company Associated British Pictures Ltd, later the Associated British Picture Corporation, Pathé Pictures Ltd did not change its name until 1946 when it became known as Associated British-Pathé. In the 1950s television news began to render cinema newsreels redundant. In 1958 Warner Brothers, who had bought the US Pathé News from RKO in 1947, joined with the Associated British Picture Corporation to form Warner-Pathé. To compete with television, the newsreel became a colour production, a step that Pathé Pictorial had already taken. With the introduction of colour television in 1967 that edge was also lost: Pathé Pictorial ceased production in March 1969 and the final edition of Pathé News was released in February 1970.

Animation

In 1919 the American Paramount Magazine reel started to include a short cartoon each week, rotating between three series, Earl Hurd's Bobby Bumps, Frank Moser's Susie and Bud and Pat Sullivan's Felix the Cat. Paramount Magazine was offered for rental in the UK by Famous Players-Lasky's British distribution arm Famous-Lasky Film Service Ltd. Larger cinemas, it seems, preferred to show the British magazine films as more suited to their patrons' interests, but it was a good and less expensive programme-filler for smaller cinemas.

The cartoons appear to have been popular, especially Felix. When, in 1922, Sullivan ended his contract with Paramount Pictures and took control of Felix, contracting to produce a fortnightly series for distribution by M.J. Winkler, the UK distribution rights were acquired by Fred Watts, manager of Pathé's cinemagazines, with the intention of including it in Eve's Review. As the Felix films were produced every 2 weeks and Eve's Review was released weekly Pathé cut each cartoon in two, showimg one half one week and the second half the next.

Felix proved extremely popular, and Pathé promoted the character heavily with a huge range of promotional merchandise from badges and chinaware to toys and postcards, usually with "Pathé's Eve Film Review" marked on the reverse.

I imagine Exhibitors appreciated the inclusion of a cartoon in the magazine, as it saved them having to rent one separately. In 1923 Pathé decided to try including a cartoon in the Pathé Pictorial, initially using the American Bobby Bumps series. Their rights to these seemed rather short-lived, and in 1924 Fred Watts hired animators Dudley Buxton and Joe Noble to make a British series at Pathé's Wardour Street studio.

Featuring a dog called Pongo the opening episode appeared in the Pathé Pictorial released on 29 September 1924, and provoked an immediate response from G E Studdy, creator of Bonzo, the highly popular cartoon dog who appeared in the weekly magazine The Sketch. Studdy was working with New Era Films on an series of animated Bonzo cartoons, the first of which was to be shown to the trade on 14 October. Fearing that the Pongo films were trying to cash in on his cartoons, Studdy sought an injunction against Pathé to prevent them using the name Pongo the Pup, as too similar to Bonzo. The implication was that Pathé were trying to pass off their series as Bonzo cartoons. Seeing that Pongo was a black and white character, sharing more of the humanlike characteristics of Felix, and quite dissimilar to the white and more dog-like Bonzo, the Judge dismissed the case, describing it as one of "passing off" run mad, and suggesting that Studdy had only brought the case to promote his own series. The use of a dog character was a natural alternative to Felix — whether the use of the name Pongo, which is a traditional dog name, was suggested by Bonzo is a matter of conjecture.

The British-Pathé Archive website has videos of 5 Pongo cartoons, four of which are preceded by a title card reading 'PATHÉ PRESENTS ITS (nth) ALL-BRITISH CARTOON of' (i.e. FIRST, THIRD, FOURTH, SIXTH), before the main title card, which shows Pongo peeping out of his kennel overlaid with the lettering 'THE ADVENTURES OF "PONGO THE PUP"' and the episode title. Provided they are the original edit, these give some order to the series. Denis Gifford, in his Animated Bitish Films 1895-1985, gives 2 additional episode titles, but suggests a release order that differs from the given pre-title numbering. I have assumed that the numbers on the videos are correct.

Despite the reference to a further episode "next week" at the end of two films it is clear that the series was intended to be fortnightly. However, this does not seem to have been maintained, as after episode 4, which is dated by both Pathé and Gifford as 10 November 1924, there is a gap of two months before the 6th episode, which appears to have been released in late February 1925. This film, Pongo Catches the Crossword Craze ends with the promise of a sequel "next week" so presumably there was at least one further film in the series.

The sequence of Pongo films is as follows:

The British Pathé Archive video that lacks a number is Pongo's Supper Gazette and the other two titles listed by Gifford are Pongo Gets a Meal (possibly number 2) and Pongo's Day Out. The drawing of Pongo becomes progressively more sophisticated, and Buxton's style, limited to the human characters in the earlier films, is more discernable in the poses of the Pup in Pongo's Supper Gazette, so this may be a later entry. However, the series seems to have come to an end by March. Pathé had secured the distribution rights to the latest series of the American Colonel Heeza Liar cartoons, which they began to issue in the Pathé Pictorial.

The Colonel Heeza Liar cartoons of the 1920s borrowed the concept from Fleischer's Out of the Inkwell cartoons of the animated character coming off the drawing board to interact wth his animator: a device also used in other Bray cartoon series such as Bobby Bumps and Dinky Doodle.

Sid Griffiths, projectionist in a Cardiff cinema, and his co-worker Bert Bilby were fascinated by the American cartoons they were showing and decided to try their hand at making a similar film. Griffiths was the animator and Bilby operated the camera, and may have been responsible for combining the animation with live-action shots. The result impressed production manager Fred Watts, who ran Pathé's cinemagazines, enough for him to hire them to make a series for the Pictorial featuring Jerry the Troublesome Tyke, a cartoon dog who interacted with his artist, Sid Griffiths. They were brought to London in 1925 to produce the series at Pathé's Wardour Street offices and studios, and a young animator named Brian White, who had worked on G E Studdy's Bonzo series, was hired to assist them. (It seems likely that White assisted on all the films in the series, but in the Filmography section below I have only included him on those films that are actually named in the list of animated films on the Brian White Archive.)

The first film of the series, just called Jerry the Terrible Tyke, was the final item in Pathé Pictorial No. 382, released on 27 July 1925, and the series continued on right through 1926, ending at some point around the end of February 1927. Despite keeping the films quite short it was not possible for the team to maintain a weekly output, but they did slightly better than a film a fortnight and so some cartoons appeared in consecutive issues of the Pictorial. In 2002 40 Jerry episodes were discovered in Pathé's vaults, and can be viewed on the British Pathé Archive website (see Links to Other Sites below).

Using the reviews from Kinematograph Weekly and the information on the British Pathé Archive and British Universities Film and Video Council websites I have attempted to pin down the Jerry the Troublesome Tyke films to the issues of Pathé Pictorial in which they appeared. The Kinematograph Weekly did not review all the Pathé Pictorial releases, and the British Pathé Archive lacks information on several of the Jerry cartoons, so this is not a definitive listing. Where a review of the Pictorial fails to mention Jerry I have assumed there was none, as the reviewer treats the cartoons as worthy of note. When there are no reviews or release dates I have assumed an alternate week release pattern to fill the gap. As they occasionally produced more than one film every two weeks it seems unlikely that they produced less. The films are numbered on this assumption, so may be out a film or two by the end.

It is not known if there were any further films in the series: there are no reviews of the Pictorial for March 1927. The remaining known titles, which cannot be dated, are: Going West; His Birthday; Great Expectations (which follows on from His Birthday); A Bird In The Hand; Spoofing A Spook; Golf; All Up A Tree (which follows on from Golf); Curing A Cold; Shown Up!; A Sticky Business; If Winter Comes; and Jerry Done Again.

The Jerry films were well received and Pathé decided to commission a song to promote the series, as they had done with Felix and in August 1925 they hired prolific songwriters S J Damerell and Robert Hargreaves, whose hits include Let's All Sing Like The Birdies Sing. However, despite the success of the cartoons, the song Jerry, the Troublesome Tyke, published by Feldman, seems to have disappeared without trace.

In 1927 an issue of Pathé Pictorial (exact date unknown — probably late June /early July) included an animated film entitled The Froth Blower's Nightmare, mocking the 'Ancient Order of Froth Blowers', a charitable beer-drinking society founded in 1924, whose motto "lubrication in moderation" may not always have been strictly adhered to. Although uncredited it would seem to be the work of Joe Noble.

Pathé had lost the rights to distribute Felix in 1925 (Sullivan objected to their chopping his films in half) and had been including other US cartoons in Eve's Film Review: Krazy Kat from January 1926 to May 1927 and then Peter the Pup. It would seem the success of Jerry encouraged Fred Watts to consider commissioning another British cartoon series and in Eve's Film Review no. 363, released 24 May 1928, the Sammy and Sausage cartoon series made its first appearance. Animated by, and featuring, Joe Noble it featured a cartoon boy, Sammy, and his dog, Sausage, interacting with their live-action creator. Made at Joe's Hampstead studio, Joe was assisted by Brian White. The series continued through 1928 into 1929. At first the releases were frequent, sometimes in alternate and sometimes in consecutive issues of Eve's Review, but by the end of 1928 the gaps got wider, with apparently no release in November 1928, nor in the January and March of 1929. By September 1928 Joe Noble had started work on the first of two sound cartoons featuring 'Orace the 'Armonious 'Ound for British Sound Film Productions.

The British-Pathé Archive website has videos of 9 Sammy and Sausage cartoons, of which all but 2 open with the title card, designed with a circle for the episde number above the box for the episde title. Gifford gives 7 more titles, with the Eve's Film Review issue number. From these, reviews from The Bioscope trade magazine and the information on the British Pathé Archive website I have assembled the following release sequence:

The last episode of Sammy and Sausage to appear did so not in Eve's Review but the Pathé Pictorial no. 659, issued on 17/11/1930. This film, Call me Speedy, is an anomaly. Although issued with a standard Sammy and Sausage title card, Sammy does not appear. Instead Sausage the dog is partnered with a young black stereotype called Sambo. The title card, though using the same artwork as the series proper, lacks the words 'Eve's Film Review'. Also the words 'The Adventures of' above the series title 'Sammy and Sausage' have been replaced with 'And now meet', the box that normally just houses the episode title bears the words 'The Kartoon Kidlets in "Call me Speedy"', and the black circle for the episode number has been left blank. Possibly this was the first film made and the series was going to be "Sambo and Sausage", but Pathé executives thought this too American, and wanted a more British protagonist. There seems to have been no attempt to rerun the series in the Pictorial. Perhaps the rejected film was so re-titled to make it the start of the series for export.

The coming of sound required a lot of decisions for the producers of newsreels and cinemagazines. Not all cinemas converted to sound, and some smaller cinemas could not afford the extra cost of a weekly sound newsreel. For a while Pathé produced sound and silent versions of its newsreel, and its Pathé Pictorial magazine. In 1929 Fred Watts decided to start a new cinemagazine specifically for the sound market. Titled Pathé Sound Magazine it featured items such as interviews with celebrities and performances by comedians and popular bands, recorded at a specially-built sound studio in the Wardour Street Pathé building. The magazine was planned to be released at fortnightly intervals, and Joe Noble began a series of sound cartoons, Little Bruin, the Talking Teddie, for inclusion in it. The first four issues of Pathé Sound Magazine were shown to the trade on 18 June 1929, and the take up was so good that from September onwards (issue no. 8) it became a weekly release. A mute print of the first Little Bruin exists, without the accompanying soundtrack, but although it carries a series title card prepared by Pathé's titling department there is no evidence of it ever having been included in the magazine.

Filmography (Animation)

Links to Other Sites

British Pathé Archive website Pongo the Pup: videos of 5 films.

British Pathé Archive website Jerry the Troublesome Tyke: videos of 40 films.

British Pathé Archive website Sammy and Sausage: videos of 9 films.

Back to top of page